Citadel @Kampong Gelam

As a renewed dialogue after the Singapore Bicentennial, Road to Citadel memorialises a historical event —Crawford's destruction of the Sultan's Citadel in Kampong Gelam to make way for North Bridge Road. The act was under the guise of liberating the Sultan’s mistreated women slaves. Historically, the East India had exported Indian penal labourers for the construction of roads and civic buildings in Singapore.

The figures of men boarding an open vehicle is taken from the human composition of a photograph (above) of students mounting a lorry during the Hock Lee Bus riots. The rare photo of documented bcivic violence from the colonial era provided me to montage my own imaginations. With migrant workers still transported on lorries today, do we not carry on the legacy of colonialism?

Road to Citadel- Indian Convicts Boarding Crawford's Lorry, 2022.

A later companion/ serial drawing as an all-female version of the first work: Parting at the Citadel (North Bridge Road) 2022.

Both works above in private collection for OH! OpenHouse Fund 2024.