Singapore
31.03.26 - Tuesday - Changi Airport
The Changi Airport Jewel is undeniably incredible. But something about it is deeply uneasy to me. The close quarters,
the vortex above and below, the terraced garden. They come together in a likeness of nature so glorious it is easy to miss the dystopian huberous. As if this were the last place on Earth for people to gather, watch water crash into nothing, let plants be misted. Where does the water go?
Where will we drink when we have poisoned and captured it all? 01.04.26 - Wednesday - Changi Beach & Bay
Scattered about my notebook, bugs paw at the surface of the luminescing table. They run themselves ragged, cutting laps before turning listless, never quite reaching the moon.
I walked by the bay this evening; past a golf club, a sailing club, government bungalows, a military station. Everything is strange. Curated, and yet almost uninhabited.
By the road, tree roots dangle down in sheets next to vacant exercise equipment. I cross a set of monkey bars as strange birds speak in the treetops. I feel strong. It is freeing. Nobody passes by. It is as in a dream, or a ghost town, or a game. Land gentrified quicker than a true purpose or plan for it could be devised. Now, ornate buildings rest empty by the seaside while large security cameras keep watch.
Curiously, though, this may be the first place in Singapore where I see people happy. Really happy. A couple kisses in the street, young women stop walking to double over with laughter, young men walk arm-in-arm, playing at innocent rowdiness. There aren’t many people here, but the few I see are truly joyful. Unobserved, perhaps forgetting the many eyes of the buildings. Able to enjoy each other.
Also unobserved, a lone tree. I read a plaque at its base as it towers above me. Damar Hitam Gajah, it is called. One of the last in all of Singapore. Once, belonging to a family of giants, ruling the rainforest that covered this place. Now, a lone, critically endangered tree in an empty exercise park. 02.04.26 - Thursday - National Gallery
The plants are eager to take over again.The underpasses, the construction sites, the fences; the vines wrap themselves around the concrete and steel and turn yellow-green in the sun. Plants that I have only ever seen indoors, slaves to pots, grow wild here. And yet despite the plants, the streets are empty. Where are the fallen leaves? The flower petals? Even the bird song is sparse. It too has been sanitised, tidied away. And where are all the people? For a city so huge, stacked high with apartment buildings promising luxury, elevation, escape, the city feels empty. More building blocks assembled without the dolls to rule them.In the gallery, colonial histories clash with marginalised voices and modern pariahs. Performance artists, banned from their studios, take to the streets, pressing bravely outwards into the big city that so shuns their courageous questions. Years later, decades even, their works are on display in the National Gallery.The train station nearest the gallery smells like burgers, though eating is not allowed here. A sign reads: NO FOOD (penalty $500), NO SMOKING (penalty $1000), NO FLAMMABLE LIQUIDS (penalty $2000), NO DURIANS. The hapless durian, though outlawed, warrants no penalty, it seems.Time rolls backwards. Before seeing the sign, I eat half a pear on the bus. A man who sees me gestures that eating is not allowed. I put the pear’s wet bitten body back into my bag. Loose. I finish it outside the gallery on the smoggy street. Inside the gallery, I sneak bites of a granola bar. Helpful gallery attendants jostle to assist and direct me.The airport and its city are the same. So many shepherds for the sheep. So many unused sidewalks. So many plants reaching for life. The voices in the gallery peel back the mask; enough for me to glimpse the human whims and ambitions moving within the maze.