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Juria Toramae 1
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Juria Toramae discusses 'diary' style of her work documenting Singapore's islands. She talks about the inaccessibility of many of the islands., Juria Toramae: Hi, I’m Juria, and I’m a visual artist. I’ve been doing the surveys with a group of people for like three years, and I’ve been trying to find a way to actually talk about the experience. And because the research that I’ve done for the works before that, for Points of Departure and Temporality, was all based on the archives and also field trips, I wanted to put everything together like a diary. So that’s how the form came about, basically.
[0:29]
Joanne Leow: What do you think the diary—the form of a diary gives you more than all the other mediums that you were working with before, when you were thinking of archives or photography? What did it help you express that maybe was harder to express?
[0:39]
Juria Toramae: I think it was more personal, and it was—it’s to aid the reader on how to imagine the place. Because if I write an informative essay with all the biodiversity lists, like what NParks do or what all the blocks do, it’s quite dry. But if I take you to the place through my words and how I see things, for example how the weather was like and the things that I’ve heard about the place, then it becomes like a grandma telling her story (laughing), you know, like your mom telling you a story, so that’s how I felt, and that’s how I like stories anyway. I wanted it to be more accessible, like very accessible and easily understandable.
[1:22]
Joanne Leow: That’s a lovely image that you brought up, that you want it to be like a story, like you’re trying to tell a story, because sometimes when we walk in these spaces we don’t often think of narrative, we don’t think that there’s a story. So, what was your experience like, then? Why did you feel it was important to go out into that space, and what did you encounter there that made you want to do this?
[1:40]
Juria Toramae: So, I have to tell you how I started. I came to Singapore eight years ago and I thought, “hey, it’s an island, I need to, you know, go around the island.” And then I realized there was a lot of…a lot of part of the island was unaccessible[sic], and that was fine. Then I started looking up the archives, I started joining heritage groups, walks, and you know everybody tells me something, like “oh you know there was this island here, there was this island there,” but all these people are at least forty and above. The ones that are young, they don’t know anything, just like me, back then. So I dug up more pictures and photos and I found these Facebook groups that has…they would just post pictures of their family going, for example, to Pulau Hantu, or even Palua Satumu, or, you know, villages of Pulau Sudong and Pulau Seking and Pulau Semakau, and I was so fascinated. So, I wanted to go there, but I realized that I can’t, like half of them, they’re either restricted or became a landfill or something like that. Anyway, I got upset sometime in 2012, because then I found out about the Singapore Memory Project. They were basically collecting pictures to keep them for people. And I thought that was kind of like, you know, the whole state and government and everything has not been documenting these spaces properly, and then have been razing and redeveloping and all that. How could you simply just say that you want to take these pictures to keep it for the next generation? I mean, for me it was—it felt like a slap. But then a lot of people contributed, a lot of people were very…they found this, I don’t know, connection through this nostalgia or, you know, just contributing and finding other people who are contributing as well. So, because of that, I thought, I wanted to bring these memories together, especially of the coast and the islands, because mostly all this project has been quite island-inward, like it’s all about Chinatown, or maybe somewhere in town, or some building or something like that, but it’s rarely about the islands. So that’s how I started; I started picking up pictures, and then I started trying to locate them on the coast. And then—it was so hard in the beginning because your only clue is the background. If it’s the north shore, the northern shore, then you have to look for Ubin. Or maybe, you know, that big hill in Johor, or maybe Tekong, but Tekong has changed a lot, and you don’t see it very well. And then if it’s a southern island it’s even harder. So, I found this group and I asked them if I could actually join them during their intertidal trips, and they said “okay.” And, yeah, that’s how I started. I started going with them, and then we went to the reefs because they do their surveys and for me it was the closest way to get to some restricted islands. I’d use my zoom and try to take pictures and then they scream at me, they’re like “(gasp!) if NPA or whatever, the coast guard, like the police coastal guard, finds out we might get arrested!” I’m like, “I think they’re just being careful, I don’t think that happens.” But, you know, I shouldn’t be zooming toward, for example, Pulau Sudong because that’s live firing area. Or especially Tekong, you know, something like that, so I try not to be that visible. But some of those shots didn’t work out because…I mean, for many reasons. Either the sea wall was just too high, or there were just too many ships, or the photographs that I had did not match the space, things like that. So, there was a lot of variables that made the project very difficult.
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Juria Toramae 2
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Juria Toramae describes her experiences documenting the coastline around restricted islands. She mentioned the aquatic animals and the corporate development of specific islands., Juria Toramae: The trips were either early in the morning before sunrise, or before sunset, so while waiting for the light I would just help. And I realized, I’m learning a lot, because I didn’t think that these patch of lands that emerges would have so much life. In the beginning I didn’t see anything (laughing), I would just see, like, these worm poops or some crabs, but eventually you start seeing things like…when you see one animal, or a nudibranch, or a sotong, and then you start seeing more because your brain, your eyes just start seeing the patterns. And that’s how it got better, and I started documenting more. But the first few trips it was a disaster, I didn’t see anything. And I was so stressed out about stonefishes, because they’re everywhere, I mean, they’re present, and since the ‘60s there are documentations of like, how the ladies would say whenever they’re beach-combing or they’re reef-combing they have to be very careful, and sometimes they avoid certain reef flats because it’s infested. But some of them actually catch them and cook them, so, it’s fascinating. I think a history of a place, and the biodiversity of place, and memories of place, they are all connected, and if you want to talk about a place you have to talk about all these elements.
[1:23]
Joanne Leow: And what really strikes me is that, when you’re talking about it, in that ecology, humans are not some kind of separate outsider, when you talk about the beach-combers, they’re part of that ecology.
Juria Toramae: Yeah.
Joanne Leow: There is like an integral part of that. And, I mean, obviously then, I want to turn to that question about industrial encroachment, because so many of these islands, like you said, landfill, or refinery, are disappeared through, right, dredging, or—
Juria Toramae: Or reclamation.
Joanne Leow: —disappeared through reclamation. How do you think through that? Because there are so many forms of human manipulation of the environment: small-scale, and then also very large scale. What are some of your thoughts on that? Yeah we’re part of the ecology, but we’re also really altering it, right.
[2:03]
Juria Toramae: I mean, the interesting part is that the modification of these islands are mainly for industries and people don’t live there, it serves a function. Like all these islands had a role and now have a new role, like Pulau Bukom for example. They had a lot of villages back then, and then people were moved to Pulau Sudong so that they can make space for some of the Shell’s refineries, and they were moved, and eventually they were all moved. And, if you go closer it’s really depressing, you hear this humming sound (imitates sound), and this flaring, and all these steel and pipes, and…I don’t know, I mean, it’s quite monstrous in a way. But at night it’s quite beautiful because they all look like candles. It’s—I don’t know how to feel about it. I know I feel very down when I’m out there, and I wish that nature could take over. But also, I fear that when nature takes over, what would actually happen? The consequence of all these foreign—all these materials that are on the island, how are they going to recycle that or reuse that, I don’t know. If you think about how if the sea rises or if disaster strikes, or if somebody blows up something for example, the sea and everyone around us would be really really affected. Badly.
[3:32]
Joanne Leow: Yeah, because of the contamination and the chemicals.
Juria Toramae: Yes, and…yeah.
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Juria Toramae 3
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Juria Toramae discusses the uses of Singapore's off-shore islands and how her art work attempts to make people aware of how the islands have been shaped by Singapore's growing economic power., Joanne Leow: What do you think your art practice does in that space, then, thinking through that space? Like what do you hope to work through? Some of the ideas / what do you hope to communicate about that?
[0:11]
Juria Toramae: I want people to think more about the environment outside their own spaces. I think a lot of residents here—I don’t want to say Singaporeans—but residents, they have no idea, they don’t know that there are other islands, they don’t know of the history, they don’t know that their actions and choices are making a huge impact to the other residents outside the main island. I want people to think about these things. And it’s not necessarily just the outlying islands, but, the other environment around you. I mean, being aware is like, “yeah I’m aware, okay, bye.” It’s more like…if I could make you think about it, or like “hey, those islands with all those refineries, you know they were like Singapore before. They had schools, they had police stations, they had wells, they had animals, they had trees,” you know that kind of thing. If you could think about the change and you could think about how things may change just because of our survival, then that’s enough for me.
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Juria Toramae 4
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Juria Toramae talks about her process of super-imposing maps of Singapore on top of each other to show how the coast / outline of the island has changed over time and compare it to her work with photographs in Points of Departure., Juria Toramae: I made a composite of all these islands—all the maps from 1800-something toward 2015—and the composite shows how some islands were small, and then reclaimed and became bigger and bigger. It’s not the entire map of Singapore, but just the southern islands because that was the focus of the essay.
[0:21]
Joanne Leow: What do think then is the limitations, but also the possibilities of mapping, of cartography like the work that you’re doing? Why maps, you know, why do that? Some people are like, “oh but maps, they control the ways that we see the thing”—
Juria Toramae: Yeah.
Joanne Leow: —but what you’re doing is different, because you’re almost superimposing the maps on each other and that creates a kind of different effect, so I’m really interested in that.
[0:42]
Juria Toramae: I mean, it’s just to show the changes, basically, and to show the change through time. And that’s why I stated the name of—you know, I said the reference of the maps, I said the years, so if you actually wanted to look you actually could look. The thing is, when you see all these maps alone, it’s really hard for you to actually make a comparison, but if you had them all together in front of you, you can actually say, “oh wait, this thing actually became this big,” things like that.
[1:09]
Joanne Leow: That’s really awesome. I think it’s so awesome because you’re not then just—you know how when you map something you’re just like, it’s a fixed point in time—
Juria Toramae: It’s a stating…
Joanne Leow: —right, it’s a static, you’re stating that “that’s there,” you go that way that’s there, but what you’re doing is like, you’re introducing this kind of idea of memory or history or temporal change within this static object.
[1:30]
Juria Toramae: Yeah, so it’s like compressed time. And it’s exactly what I did with my Points of Departure work. Basically, you know, all the people are from different photographs, different time, but from the same space, same place, and when you compress them, like, certain memories would just meet each other. Some don’t, some eliminate each other, whatever it is. That’s what it is, yeah, that’s what I did.
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Juria Toramae 4
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Juria Toramae talks about her process of super-imposing maps of Singapore on top of each other to show how the coast / outline of the island has changed over time and compare it to her work with photographs in Points of Departure., Juria Toramae: I made a composite of all these islands—all the maps from 1800-something toward 2015—and the composite shows how some islands were small, and then reclaimed and became bigger and bigger. It’s not the entire map of Singapore, but just the southern islands because that was the focus of the essay.
[0:21]
Joanne Leow: What do think then is the limitations, but also the possibilities of mapping, of cartography like the work that you’re doing? Why maps, you know, why do that? Some people are like, “oh but maps, they control the ways that we see the thing”—
Juria Toramae: Yeah.
Joanne Leow: —but what you’re doing is different, because you’re almost superimposing the maps on each other and that creates a kind of different effect, so I’m really interested in that.
[0:42]
Juria Toramae: I mean, it’s just to show the changes, basically, and to show the change through time. And that’s why I stated the name of—you know, I said the reference of the maps, I said the years, so if you actually wanted to look you actually could look. The thing is, when you see all these maps alone, it’s really hard for you to actually make a comparison, but if you had them all together in front of you, you can actually say, “oh wait, this thing actually became this big,” things like that.
[1:09]
Joanne Leow: That’s really awesome. I think it’s so awesome because you’re not then just—you know how when you map something you’re just like, it’s a fixed point in time—
Juria Toramae: It’s a stating…
Joanne Leow: —right, it’s a static, you’re stating that “that’s there,” you go that way that’s there, but what you’re doing is like, you’re introducing this kind of idea of memory or history or temporal change within this static object.
[1:30]
Juria Toramae: Yeah, so it’s like compressed time. And it’s exactly what I did with my Points of Departure work. Basically, you know, all the people are from different photographs, different time, but from the same space, same place, and when you compress them, like, certain memories would just meet each other. Some don’t, some eliminate each other, whatever it is. That’s what it is, yeah, that’s what I did.
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Kitsilano Beach 12
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Image of ships and boats on the water with mountain skyline in the background.
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Kitsilano Beach 13
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Image of ships and boats on the water with some birds at the bottom left of the shot.
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Kitsilano Beach 16
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Image of ships and boats on the water with part of a path and rock seawall visible in the bottom left corner of the shot.
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Kitsilano Beach 2
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Image of ships and boats on the water with some birds at the bottom of the shot.
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Kitsilano Beach 21
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Image of ships and boats on the water with sand shore visible at the bottom of the shot.