To be honest, when I first heard the name of this Project, I was quite at a loss. I relocated to Singapore about six months ago, and ever since, my story in Singapore has been pretty much limited to my hall life and the ADM building. Amidst all the assignments and the flow of the semester, I had not really gotten the opportunity to tour around a lot.
So when I read the project brief, I decided to go with the second approach, and decided to go to a place I had never visited before, Chinatown.
Before arriving at Chinatown for the firsts time, I had done my homework, and had jotted down a few places to visit, South Bridge road being the first. At the south bridge road, I first visited the Buddha Tooth relic temple first, and I was completely awestruck, and in marvel at its grandeur and glory. Later as I walked down the road, something that caught my attention was the cultural diversity there, something that was extremely prominent. I was astonished to see an amalgamation of so many different religions, cultures and races in that place, coexisting in harmony and peace.
Later, through research and speaking to my father, who lived here previously, I realized that there existed a law in colonial Singapore, that made it mandatory for the authorities to build places of worships of different religions, in clusters, which in turn has lead to the present day cultural diversity and harmony.
I had initially planned to do a photography project, and clicked a lot of photos along with documenting my observation. But soon I realized that photos will not be able to represent the idea as well as a video project. I also decided to make it interactive, and took it up as a challenge to interview people, and know their views about the same.
