Nanyang Express II : Eternal Wondering and Tropical Pursuing

Originating from a collection of family letters sent from Singapore’s Tiong Bahru neighborhood, the work traces the history of Kinmenese migration through a door-to-door search for the recipients’ descendants. Through conversations with the strangers who answered, migration stories scattered across generations and places gradually emerge.

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Presented as an audio-visual installation, the work combines recordings from the search process with images of Singapore’s streets and cityscapes. The exhibition space is constructed as a Singaporean public park, where visitors sit on park benches surrounded by moving images while listening to conversations with strangers and the sounds of the city. 

 

As the search ultimately led nowhere, the act of wandering became another way of tracing migration history.