Sites, Stories and Subsequence is a prep-room project with Asia Research Institute that excavates, assembles and envisages the complex physical and immaterial tapestries of the Southern Islands, with a specific focus on St John’s and Lazarus Islands, formerly known as Pulau Sekijang Bendera/Besar and Pulau Sekijang Pelepah/Kechil, as well as Seringat Island. Drawing on archival research, oral history interviews, and surveys of its current uses, the project attempts to consolidate knowledge on the islands. This current iteration surveys what could be missing in the consciousness of these islands, and redefines the shifts that are found in its names and functions, thereby furnishing the lacuna present in contemporary understandings of their culture and history. With only vestiges of the islands’ former features and attendant narratives existing presently, the repository of research and memories in the prep-room also informs its further function of providing prompts for re-imaginations of the Southern Islands’ future potentials.

Venue: NUS Museum

When: 26 Apr 2019 - 20 Jun 2020,

By: NUS Museum, NUS Centre For the Arts (CFA)