Dying art

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Worldwide | Saturday, October 16, 2010 | 5 photos

Once, there lived three brothers. They didn’t go to school like the rest of us, but were destined to become ‘paper architects’. They would “build skyscrapers without brick and mortar, but with paper, bamboo and glue alone”, their father wrote. Their fingers grew course yet nimble as they guarded the recipes to their homemade glue and paper dolls and structures. Silently, all day, they work for those who need their paper buildings for temple celebrations and funerals. Their moment of pride comes when their finished works burst into flames of glory. Paper architecture is a dying trade in Singapore. I learnt of it on a walk around my office, where I work as a writer for the local newspapers and carry a point-and-shoot Ricoh R8 with me. Everywhere, traditional arts are sidelined for more lucrative trades, this is the biggest lesson I’ve learnt since 2007, when I took a job as a writer. I graduated with a degree in History of Arts and Architecture in 2004. In university, I worked part-time in the art slide library rolling 35mm films and shooting slides. I learnt to see our world in the beauty of black and white. Since then, I've heard the songs of the Suomi people going pop to survive in Arctic Lapland. I saw Korean dancers fight to preserve their original art. I met Italian puppeteers in Taiwan with no support back home. I yearn to tell their stories visually and not just words alone; today, our reader's timespan is running out. I try to take pictures on assignments, but professional tutorship is what i need to make a switch and go pro. I may not be a photojournalist yet, but the art of documentary photography is a lifelong journey that has begun for me. I want to provide a voice for dying cultural practices around the world to keep their colourful flames alive.