Looking for Paradise

From forgotten islanders to stressed commuters, photographer Edwin Koo tells Hong Xinyi why he is constantly on the lookout for Singapore’s untold stories

ingapore is not just a single red dot. It is also a modest archipelago, with over 70 islands that have turned into about 40 after decades of land reclamation. Many of these were once home to Singaporeans with an entirely different way of life. To uncover this forgotten history, Edwin Koo embarked on the Island Nation project with fellow photographers Juliana Tan and Zakaria Zainal in 2014. They have spent the past two years tracking down former islanders from Singapore’s Southern Islands, who were moved to HDB flats on the mainland from the 1970s onwards. “It was a chance to find out things that are not mentioned in history books,” says Edwin. “These islanders are getting older, and if we don’t gather their stories now we will lose this history.” One of the most memorable moments of the project occurred during a 2015 trip to St John’s Island they organised for a group of former residents. “One lady in her seventies was brought to the beach in her wheelchair. The moment she saw the water, she stood up, went into the sea fully dressed, and started swimming very gracefully,” Edwin recalls. “She was so happy to be home. It was unforgettable.” This affinity with the natural world is something that may seem unimaginable to younger Singaporeans used to living in a concrete jungle. Edwin recounts how the former residents of Pulau Sudong—now a restricted military training area—still go out to sea regularly as a way to hold on to their former way of life. “One former islander said when he is out at sea, he can still see Pulau Sudong from a distance, although he will probably never set foot on his birthplace again. To hear that was very moving—how many of us can say that about the place we were born?” These stories are now being translated into the Malay language, and presented alongside the English language versions on the Island Nation website and Facebook page. The team hopes these platforms will inspire more Singaporeans to take ownership of Singapore’s history. They also hope to turn the project into a book. A former news photographer for The Straits Times, Edwin moved to Nepal in 2008 with his wife, a former SIA stewardess, to “escape the rat race”. He has explored the themes of displacement and utopia repeatedly through subjects like Tibetan exiles, Maoist guerrillas and Pakistan’s Swat Valley, the site of a conflict between the Pakistan Army and Taliban militants and the birthplace of teen activist Malala Yousafzai. His documentation of Swati refugees eventually resulted in a book titled Paradise, his first photography monograph, which was part of the prestigious Icon de Martell Cordon Bleu prize for photography that he received in 2012. Edwin returned to Singapore in 2011 to start a family (the couple now have two children, with one more on the way). His way of adjusting back to life here was by documenting the 2011 General Election, and those photographs as well as his coverage of the 2015 election and the 2016 Bukit Batok by-election were widely circulated on social media. “That was a very personal project,” he says. “I see it as one man’s feelings about his own country, and a father’s gift to his children. My children won’t experience this history the way I did, but through these photographs they will be able to feel what I felt.” Another of his projects that generated much social media chatter was Transit, which documents commuters captured in various degrees of ennui as they stand in packed MRT trains. That’s also one of the few occasions he shot in colour, as he felt the hues of each cabin and the commuters’ clothes and accessories provided important emotional content. But as a rule, Edwin says he prefers to work in black and white. “Stripping away colour can be very powerful, because colours can distract, hide and confuse your emotions. Black-and-white images can achieve a quality of timelessness.”