The apex of this art piece is an abstraction of Tong Kang
(light wooden boat commonly used to carry goods along the Singapore River),the symbol of Singapore’s entrepôt trade, the lifeblood of Singapore.
Throughout its modern history,
Singapore has never ceased to be a repository of wealth (goods, capital, etc) for others.
arena.
The common thread webbing the seashells.
The Internet is the web that connects the once disconcerted voices of a disparate people. It is the totem that rallies the people to action, one that aggregates and amplifies the suppressed voices of the masses. Yet it is also the bane of political discourse, generating jarring and useless noise that has similarly muted this discourse.
The pedestal/base
Stiff and wavy, representing the speedy progression and changes in our economy and society. The seashells, fragile and dispersed, struggling to ride each waves of seashells, waiting, struggling and forcing themselves to cling onto the structure.
The design and structure of public housing estates in Singapore rendered it difficult for our people to practise their diverse faiths and culture. This observation is meant to be factual and is non-judgmental, since cultures and faiths are but another form of social construct.
The seashells, insignificant and blunted by sea waves, paint a picture of incongruence on the centrepiece: the diverse peoples in Singapore dulled by decades of ideological waves flowing from top down.
They can hardly be said to be happily married to the design of the centerpiece, but an awkward union is formed nonetheless - the divided and trivial seashells submitting to the vortex emanating from a higher authority.
The unhappy marriage of the design elements depicts the tension both within the people and between the people and the authority. It is at once a depiction of our infancy as one people in one nation and of the long-held tradition of the subjugation of the many by a few.
There are four dimensions to the seaglasses, namely, 1) economics, 2) society, 3) politics, and 4) people.
The white sea glasses represent the
white-collar labour class, the ones dominating, and benefitting the most from our economic development; the other coloured sea glasses represent the other labour classes, who are getting the shorter end of the bargain in our economic development.
Society:
The distribution of the sea glasses depicts our HDB racial quota: the white sea glasses represent the Chinese, whose rate of replacement pales in comparison to the other races (coloured sea glasses). Another tension in the distribution: the authorities implemented the interim housing policy where two families have to share an HDB unit;the policy has thus far led to many disputes, tension, and division.
Politics:
The sea glasses of white symbolises the PAP, which dominates over all the opposition parties.
People:
Just as sea glasses
are sandblasted by the sea waves and sands, the different peoples in ourland are like dulled by the ideological waves engineered by those inpower.
The centerpiece is solid and firm, representing the institutional backbone of our society. Through gradual but sure steps, it shapes and forms the basis from which society evolves. Deviations are permitted but only to the extent of the full corners of this unyielding edifice.