Week 3 Assignment

 

Part 1: Think of a way in which you could develop an experimental map using images, sounds and stories. Some ideas… What else would we use if we didn’t use maps to find our sense of place? How would you map the sounds you hear every day? How would you map emotions? How would you map the overlooked peoples or places of Singapore?

Maps changes through time and so does the people around it. Maps are often overlooked as a device for finding directions and bearings to our destination. Everyone has different stories to tell and experience to share in different spaces. However a common but varied experience most of us share would be food or public eating spaces. Examples would be the neighbor that sells homemade Popsicle or the ice cream man on his bike that rings his bell routinely. Familiarity but yet distinct experiences would occur thus the notion of ‘common nostalgia’.

These experiences phases out and gets replaced over time and would vary through generations. One way to preserve these experiences would be to compile and archive all these hidden experiences. A recipe book of memories (Memory Recipe) would be a way to look at it. The idea of looking through a recipe book with visuals of how it actually looked like, a brief and general description perhaps and even details of how to recreate the hidden neighborhood delicacy.

As we look through the recipe book, we could reminisce through the difficulties that we had to go through to get that particular DIY Milo popsicle and tell the tale to the next generation with recipes to allow them to experience its goodness. A common recipe with different individuals would map out different stories, locations and experiences as not every neighbourhood is the same.

Part 2:  This week’s reading is by Annette Kim, Sidewalk City: Remapping Public Space in Ho Chi Minh City (2015)

Through this chapter, it covers insights of the significance of sidewalks in HCMC as a democratic space as the city undergoes through its phase of development.

The significance of sidewalks are often overlooked as a space of commute that we traverse routinely. The public space that we journey through everyday could have been a social hub or a space catered solely for trading purposes once upon a time before it went through development. However in HCMC the value of a sidewalk contrasts with our views, as it is in this limited shared space that they live their everyday lives.

The development of the space does helps its economy but it also disrupts and changes the lifestyle of the people. Annette Kim writes about how memorable it was for her while being in the sidewalk. It is where she sees the unique interaction between people and the space they live in. The kind of sight that would be hidden behind our concrete walls.

In reference to Singapore with its multi ethnic groups. Preserved historical landmarks and sites are often hotspots for tourists sightseeing. It is in this public spaces, foreign talents have a chance to meet up with people from their homeland. They gather and interact with the spaces naturally. A particular space that comes to mind would be the open field in Little India, Birch rd.

In public spaces, we have to mind the way we behave and interact with the governed laws but this limitations slightly differs in different zones to how Annette Kim mentioned as the red and green zones.

Q1) Designating and confining activities to marginalized locations would help in the economy but wouldn’t it hurt the lifestyle of these people who have worked out strategically on their ‘territories’ in the sidewalks?

 

Published by

Nik Halim

Product Designer

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