ABOUT 7KALIBAH
District 14: 7KaliBah takes on a ritualistic embodiment of memories and movements; tracing the dreamscapes of hijrah (migration in Malay) and ubah (shifts in Malay). And everything in between; the lost, the left behind, the collected, the step ahead.
This in-situ project at Geylang Serai departs from the Malay proverb, "Sekali air bah, sekali pasir berubah" meaning the ever dynamic idiosyncrasies in lieu of political turns.
Geylang Serai herself used to witness floods in the 70s. We adapted this physical occurrence into a more metaphorical confluence of memories - the remembering, the forgetting, the rebirthing. While the project roots from the nostalgic trappings of the architecture and history of Geylang Serai, our desire is to not just reclaim, but put forth a chance to unfurl new, shared motif, a gathering of hope.
SEKALI AIR
BAH, SEKALI
PANTAI
BERUBAH
The project weaves upon the transcendental memories and meanings of individuals into a collective plinth, where the body collects, curates, carves upon this confluence of ‘silih berganti’ (taking turns). Taking seven rounds of turns through intergenerational media like writing, photography, sound, textile art, drawing, object-archive, the communal overture results in an artistic dance of shared offerings.
This depository of conversations will distill into a series of dance films for 7 nights before a processional finale, flooding all the culminating emotions and motion.
In light of the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, the lens in which we experience spaces may be in physical and virtual terrains. This signals a birthing of meaning markers of space; both in its politics and poetics. This will hopefully manifest a new narrative of altered landscapes and intersecting attachments of District 14, our Geylang Serai.
