"The Suburban"

• Main Author: Ang, Jules Yun Zhuan
• Other Authors: Oh Soon-Hwa
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Visual arts and music::Photography
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52609
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

A personal observation of the country has come to light through the processes of my past two bodies of work - “Traveling without Moving” and “Singapore Monochromic” - that due to Singapore’s small land mass, residential “city centers” have taken away the country’s reliance from the country’s city center as citizens are relocated to residential heartlands outside of the city. This has resulted in a monotonous Singaporean landscape by rendering both areas urban. My previous efforts at photographing the edges of the country have persuaded me to ponder over land use and appropriation in the Singaporean landscape. The sharp distinctions between the urban landscape and the fringe landscapes I have been photographing have led me to ponder over the existence of the Singaporean suburbs. Having spent all my life residing here, I am aware that the notion of the suburban is absent from the Singaporean vernacular. The framework of this project revolves around negotiating the irony of the Singaporean suburbs. I travel outward, close to the edges of Singapore, in the cardinal directions and all four in between, in an attempt to photograph what would be the suburbs. In the resulting images, I explore and witness the use of land in Singapore and how its people have shaped the landscape.