I was just walking around when I spotted something that piqued my interest: two different type of flowers growing in the same pot. The first one is bougainvillea, while another one is… some kind of orchid? To be honest, I’m not sure, although I see it around a lot.

You can’t really see but they share the same pot. It’s hard to find a nice angle.

It’s something really simple, often overlooked, but to me it represents Singapore. It shows that from one common ground, there can be different flowers produced – which to me portrays the diversity in Singapore. Inspired by that, I made this Art Nouveau pattern. The two different flowers share the same stalk, to show that they have a common ground. I added flowing lines at the background to represent the flow of life, hence overall this piece represents the life of Singaporeans, harmony in diversity.

My piece

The place assigned for me is Labrador Park. It’s my first time visiting Labrador Park, so it was a totally new experience for me. I had no idea what to expect, so I did some research before visiting it.

Labrador Park is unique since it is designated as both nature reserve and coastal park, adding on to the fact that it was formerly a fort built by the British forces in Singapore before World War II. There are a lot of interesting aspects that I take from my visit.

 

Labrador Nature Reserve

Labrador Park was previously known as Fort Pasir Panjang, one of coastal artillery forts built to defend Singapore’s waters since it was believed at that time that if Singapore was to be attacked, the attack would come from the sea.

It was designated as nature reserve in 2002.

The name Labrador is derived from “Labrador Villa”, the name of the residence of a prominent ship chandler, George John Mansfield. It was built in 1881.

Labrador Park contains the last coral reef and the only rocky sea-cliff on the mainland of Singapore. Although it had a diversity of marine life, it has been greatly reduced by development and illegal activities such as poaching.

The coastal walk of the nature reserve is 16.8 ha in length and is divided into three segments; Alexandra Garden Trail, Berlayer Creek Mangrove Trail, and Bukit Chermin Boardwalk.

 

 

There are a lot of species of flora and fauna there. I actually saw some birds (too fast for me to take photo of), chickens (I didn’t dare to come too close), insects, butterflies, and squirrels. Apparently there are more than 70 species of birds and 30 species of butterflies there. There’s also an animal named pangolin which I didn’t get to see, but I heard it’s special to Labrador Park.

There are also signboards in front of several trees that contain information. They’re interactive since they use first-person POV, as if the trees are telling the stories themselves.

 

 

The view from the jetty was beautiful, although there are a lot of cargo ships, and you can also see the buildings not so far away.

 

 

The park is very family-friendly. There are several toilets located throughout the place, BBQ pits, playgrounds, fitness corner, jogging and cycling trails, promenade, and shelters. There are also a lot of parking lots for cars and bicycles. Surprisingly when I came in the afternoon, the place wasn’t very packed; maybe because it was a Monday. There are some people here or there, but not as busy as Botanics Garden, for example.

 

 

I was interested in this spot because of the mangroves. There are around 14 mangrove plant species there, and a lot of stray animals. Even the trash cans there are made to deter animals from rummaging through the trash.

The swamps are directly connected to the bay, which is why there are kind of small currents on the swamps which I think is interesting (it’s not just stagnant water like I expected).

 

 

It’s the landmark in Labrador Park, and a literal translation from its name in Mandarin, Long Ya Men. It’s a rock outcrop that is shaped like a tooth. Actually the 7.5 m rock is a replica, built in 2005. The actual one was blown up by the British in 1848 to widen the straits. It was used as navigational marker for ships, and located near a white obelisk which was the original Western harbor limit.

 

 

Fort Pasir Panjang

Fort Pasir Panjang was the former name of Labrador Park. Here, I explored the war memorial areas in the nature reserve.

Due to the possibility of war outbreak in 1938, the equipment there was constantly upgraded.

 

 

There are two paths; nature path and bunker path. However I chose to go through the bunker path, which contains the monuments.

There’s a monument of 6-inch gun barrel, which could shoot down ships from 10 miles away (!) and the gunners. There are also underground tunnels which are 46 m and 63 m long and between 2.5 m and 4 m high, forts, and bunkers. There are a lot of signboards along the way, explaining a lot of things. Although they are very wordy, some of them are pretty interesting and they would make a good learning journey (in fact, when I was in the nature reserve, there’s a group of primary school students which I assumed was having a learning journey).

 

 

Zine Ideas

My first idea is to focus on the flora and fauna of the area and introducing different species. The style would be more illustrative, like a children’s book, and the background will be primarily blue and green to show the nature. There would be a character walking across the pages, to show that “someone” is exploring the place, because I want to convey my experience of “exploring” the place for the first time.

 

 

My second idea is to draw the contrast between the past and the present. I think the idea is interesting because in the past it is a fort, a war-ready place, while now it is more of an entertainment area. I was thinking of making a progressive narrative; so the pages next to each other will be very contrasting (one will be more “cheerful” and shows the park “now”, while the other will be “darker” and shows the “fort”). Another idea for the execution is to start the stories of both the past and the present simultaneously from both the front and the back of the zine, until they meet in the middle in the playground. I got that inspiration since the playground has both the machine gun monument and playground stuffs like swings there.

 

 

 

Afterthoughts

In the end, I realize that both of my ideas were lacking in originality. I think it’s because I don’t try to explore a specific aspect of the park itself, but rather generalizing by trying to include everything.

Because of that, I developed new zine ideas (although I haven’t really thought them through yet):

My first idea is to use the idea of signboards as the design. As I mentioned, there are a lot of signboards throughout the park; I think it would be interesting to make my pages look like signboards. I want to explore more about the informative side of the park, but I’m not sure about what to include – it could be the flora and fauna, or the monuments (but isn’t that similar to my original nature-oriented idea?).

Another idea is to explore the atmosphere there. Although we can see high-rise buildings clearly, the place feels very peaceful and “detached” from the hustle and bustle of city life.

I was thinking of combining the “atmosphere” with my idea of contrasting past and present. Instead of just seeing past and present, I want to draw as many contrasts in the place as possible; nature vs technology, serendipity vs hustle-bustle, land vs sea, peace vs war, welcoming vs pushing out. I think it’s quite interesting, but I don’t know if it’s still too broad because that way, it will be hard to “connect” all the pages of the zine.

My last idea is to focus on the idea of redevelopment and poaching that has greatly changed the sea form around the coastal area. I want to draw from the point of view of the marine life, and the style would maybe more like a comic-style.

I should do more research.

 

UPDATE!!!

 

After thinking of a new theme, I finally decided to do something along the line of ignorance; how people usually are not concerned about the efforts to preserve the marine life, despite the warnings and changes.

I’m inspired by the sign because apparently in Labrador Park, the signs are pretty unique in style compared to other places.

Here are some of my initial sketches for the pages.

I realized if I do bring those sketches together, there isn’t any narrative to it; they all look very disconnected. So I decided to make a character to make the pages flow better.

At first I also wanted to use black as the base color since I want to play with more lines only, and I feel that the color comes out nicer when put against black. However considering that the zine will be intended for mostly children, it may not be too cheerful / too children-like, so I scrapped the idea.

In order to incorporate some characteristics of the place, I decided to put a part of the view from Labrador Park; rocky shoreline and the buildings that you can see from afar from the bay.

 

Theme aside, I look at different styles of art. I want to do something bright with different shades of blue, and some yellow and red here and there.

Some of my style ideas:

 

I especially like the one with a lot of lines since it gives a simple, clean look. But then since my target audience will be mostly children, I also want to give it a rougher, more playful feeling, while still being able to evoke emotions that “people have been ignorant”. To impose the feeling, I decided to write a short narrative in the style of poem. Although it may be too “complicated” for children, my intended audience will not be extremely young kids but rather around 10 years and above of age, when the children are beginning to gain maturity from understanding things that are expressed indirectly.

For this assignment, we are supposed to make a story about long-lost friend using still images and audio. To be honest, I’m bad at this. Extremely bad. But well, I tried.

Our group’s story is based on my story about my long-lost friend. Back in Indonesia, I had a childhood friend – her name is Smita. She was my best friend, but because I left for Singapore, we didn’t keep in touch. We still follow each other’s social media, but we rarely talk or meet even when I go back for holiday. (Typical modern friendship.)

We try to imagine what my childhood friend has become now, and since I really don’t know what’s happening in her life right now, there are literally countless possibilities.

She might have become a spy for all I know.

And that’s our story idea.

What if she really become a spy, and I happen to stumble upon her one day?

 

Process and Research

The four of us took a lot of time brainstorming the storyboards, and even a lot more time shooting. At first we didn’t have a clear storyboard, hence we just took pictures and realized afterwards that a lot of key scenes were missing. We did fix it afterwards, though.

Here is a part of our first storyboards. Thanks Christina for your awesome drawing.

 

Since our story is about a spy (kind of), the genre is roughly thriller/mystery. After we conducted research (I ended up reading a manga of which the movie Old Boy was based on) (we looked at some of Alfred Hitchcock’s work as well), we could see that the scenes in those types of movies usually have dark tones, so we try to give off similar feelings. The spy character usually dressed in dark colors with obscured faces, so our “spy”, Esther, was dressed similarly in dark-colored attire and even wearing a black cap to obscure her face.

We encountered a problem with the lack of resources; since it is a spy movie, the presence of a gun is almost like a given. However we don’t have a gun. We used glue gun instead, and apparently it was so obvious it became hilarious. In the end, we edited the pictures.

Before edit

After edit

 

Moreover, we couldn’t really find a good setting. Spy movies usually have very specific backgrounds such as industrial buildings or underground buildings to make secret conversations, but we just tried our best to make do with what we have. Living quarters may look unlikely as death scene settings, but I’m sure there are thriller movies where the victims are killed in their own houses. It is not weird because house, or rather home, is where people usually put their guard down, even professionals. Hence actually I feel that it’s very reasonable for someone to be killed in their living quarters.

I feel that our story portrays more of the conflicts that are happening between people (Smita and I, Smita and the kidnapper, Smita and the victim) than the internal conflicts (e.g. someone’s personal struggle in achieving something), hence making the story seem simplistic. I thought simple, straight-forward stories will be easier to deliver, but apparently it’s just as hard. It’s especially hard to portray the people’s expressions since neither Esther nor I could act. We kept on laughing during the takes.

 

Final Conclusion

This task is, again, a challenge for me. However because of this, I become more conscious of what makes a movie good, and I don’t think I can watch a movie the same way again. Movies have proven to be more complicated than a mere entertainment.

Before I give you the video, let me give the summary of the story (spoiler alert):

Vania and Smita (played by Esther) were childhood friends. One day, they had to separate as Smita was accepted into the University of London (fictional place). They said goodbye and went their own ways. However, on the way, Smita was kidnapped by an unknown person and drugged. Due to the effect of the drug, Smita lost her memories and she was made into a spy by that unknown person.
One day, a long time after that, Smita was receiving instructions from the unknown person to kill someone when Vania accidentally saw her. Excited to find her old friend, Vania said hi, but Smita ignored her. Curious to prove that the person really was Smita, Vania followed her and found out that she really was Smita. At that moment, Smita was about to kill her target. Vania saw that and tried to stop her. They struggled for a while, resulting in Smita bumping her head and regaining her memories. However, due to their struggle before, Smita accidentally killed Vania.

 

Special thanks to my group mates who have put up with me; Esther (thanks for the acting), Christina (thanks for the storyboard and editing), Yan Ran (thanks for the pictures). Here’s the video.

(I don’t know why I can’t upload the video here.)

 

https://vimeo.com/238788227

Task 1: Object and Representation of Self

 

I have a lot of significant things in life: my collection of postcards, my Harry Potter book series, letters from my friends, my handmade friendship bracelets… but since most of them are back in my house in Indonesia, it actually saved me the trouble of choosing. (Not implying that this object is any less significant!) So the significant object that I chose is my Snorlax doll. His name is Hashtag.

 

Say hi, Hashtag.

Hashtag was given by my JC friends as a farewell gift. In JC, I had this group of friends, consisting of five people from different countries. However, we knew that after graduation, we are going to continue our studies in different countries. We knew that meeting up again would be difficult, so we prepared gifts for each other as a symbol of our friendship. They chose to buy a Snorlax doll for me since they knew I like Snorlax (I can relate a lot to its unwillingness to move) and dolls. For the name, we decided on a name together based on our inside joke.

 

Hashtag can’t hug back, his arms are too short. But that’s okay! I hug him because I love him, not because I was expecting a hug back.

The picture of Hashtag alone, for me, shows that it is just a normal doll – and it is interesting because it means a lot to me nonetheless. I have a lot of dolls, yet when I came to Singapore, I only brought Hashtag. I felt like Hashtag was enough to “accompany” me.

The picture of me hugging him illustrates my relations

hip with my friends. My friends know I like hugging people, and that’s why I like dolls or soft toys – they are huggable. For me, hugging makes me feel less lonely.

The close-up picture of Hashtag and I looking at each other, for me, symbolizes that relationship is a two-way thing – “It takes two to tango.” I relate to that phrase

“It takes two to tango”

a lot since when facing difficulties in my relationships, I always try to remember that there are two people involved in the relationship, and that I have to try looking from another person’s perspective as well.

Fortunately, I still stay in touch with this group of friends quite regularly. I hope we can meet again someday.

 

Task 2: My World

 

As for a significant place, I have to say I love looking at the sea.

 

The sea at night is incredibly calming. The lights seem to be so far away, distancing me from everything else.

 

The thing I like about the sea is the vastness. When I’m sad or tired, I like to stare at the sea. Listening to the gentle waves and smelling the slightly salty air – those feelings give me a sense of peace and calmness.

In a sense, the sky is also vast, and I love looking at the sky as well – but when I’m staring at the sea, when I look at the horizon, I always feel dwarfed. The sky and the sea, they both make the world seems like a huge place, and make me feel like a grain of sand. When I’m facing a lot of problems, I often go to the beach just to sit down and stare at the sea. The vastness always reminds me that my problems are temporary and insignificant in such a big world.

Not only that, I have a lot of memories about the sea; playing Frisbee inside the water with my friends, splashing water at my sister, playing orientation games, crossing the sea to Batam for my overseas project, and even canoeing during my Outward Bound.

Funny moments, happy moments, and even sad moments – I have experienced them all by the sea. That’s why it is such a significant place for me.

 

The sea is calming, but also mysterious – who knows what’s lurking in its depths? In a sense, the sea intrigues me as well.

This picture illustrates the idea of vastness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know I’m bad at taking photographs and my emotions may not come out as much as I want them, but I do hope they can convey some of my feelings.

I found this project to be a challenge.

I looked up some of the reference artists to find inspiration. Some of them really captured my attention, like Jo Spence’s self-portraits, for example. I was also intrigued by Richard Billingham’s works. From my Google image search, I found a lot of self-portraits done by him. Compared to Spence, I found Billingham’s works to be more “relatable” since he used a lot of colored background, or background which features a lot of other things. However, I think they are similar in a way that they capture a lot in a seemingly simple picture.

One of Jo Spence’s works. [Taken from http://metro.co.uk/2008/07/03/jo-spence-self-portraits-246644/]

One of Richard Billingham’s works. [Taken from https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/mar/13/richard-billingham-tower-block-white-dee-rays-a-laugh-liz]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for landscape picture, I found a picture by Mariko Mori that I really like. It looks very relaxing and balanced to me, maybe due to the idea of vastness captured here. Similarly, the idea of vastness is also reflected in some of Catherine Opie’s work (which I came to enjoy).

Mariko Mori’s work that I really like. [Taken from http://www.tokyoweekender.com/2016/06/artist-mariko-mori-brings-a-mysterious-ring-to-the-rio-olympics/]

One of Catherine Opie’s works. [Taken from http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/8aa/8aa298.htm]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope I can integrate the idea of simplicity in my works too.