The notion of ‘war memory’
In Singapore, an exhibition marks the 80th anniversary of the british surrender to the Imperial Japanese army there on Feb 15, 1942.
A TANK has appeared at the entrance of the National Museum of Singapore.
The decommissioned AMX13SM1 vehicle, on loan from the Army Museum, is a teaser for the new exhibition Dislocations: Memory & Meaning Of The Fall Of Singapore, 1942.
The exhibition (which runs until May 29) commemorates the 80th anniversary of the historic event. The British surrendered Singapore to the Japanese on Feb 15, 1942.
Iskander Mydin, curatorial fellow at the National Museum, says: “The tank was a symbolic reminder of the need to defend ourselves.”
The vehicle is an updated version of the models which were part of the first Singapore Armed Forces military parade held in a newly independent republic in 1969. Iskander says that tank parades have psychological weight.
“The Japanese had a victory parade of tanks the day after the surrender.”
The battle for Singapore is well documented, so the museum has chosen to focus on how people remember the war in this new show.
Enter the gallery, and a visitor hears vivid eyewitness accounts.
“It was all dark and Singapore looked like a ball of fire.” “As we left, we asked ourselves whether we would ever see this home again.”
The soundbites are culled from oral histories recorded by wartime survivors at the National Archives of Singapore.
Iskander says the exhibition foregrounds the Singaporean perspective on the war, which is receding from people’s memories.
“With the passing of people who went through it, the memories will be gone. In order for our memory to be sustained, it has to be transmitted. Each generation tells it in its own way and it goes through changes.”
Memories, however, are fragmentary, and the new show presents a similarly patchworked narrative pieced together from artefacts chosen from local and overseas collections.
Some things are being shown here for the first time, such as a montage of residents evacuating on ships, borrowed from news archive British Pathe.
There are personal objects which offer snapshots of wartime life, such as a scout shirt belonging to Herbert Lim Eng Kwan, who was evacuated to Bangalore.
But the museum does not just want to transmit a story. It is hoping to spark a dialogue.
Iskander points to the many locals in a photo montage wall, including nurses, Indian dock workers and members of Malayan Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve.
There is scant information about the people in these images, shot in 1941 by a photographer for Life magazine. Mr Iskander hopes that family members might recognise some faces and come forward to share war stories with the museum.
Although much time has passed since the events of World War II, its impact can still be felt today in the multiple narratives that exist about the war.
Iskander says that Japanese institutions were very sensitive about how items loaned for the show would be displayed. Other items, such as memoirs from soldiers and survivors, remind visitors about alternative views to the official histories.
He says of such multiple viewpoints: “I use the analogy of a mirror in which you see your face. You drop it and it breaks, but your face is still there.”
Besides the physical show, the museum has created an interactive Web game, Sunset In
Singapore. Players can choose their own narratives in the persona of a civilian, a nurse or a soldier, and explore various tales
of wartime experiences.
The point of Dislocations, Iskander says, is to “retrieve, recover, engage and connect.
It’s a platform, a bridge, as we work towards the 100th anniversary”. – The Straits Times/asia News Network