
02.
RUPA
NOOR ISKANDAR X ISMAIL JEMAAH
RUPA (the visual image) is a memory immortalised. Embedded into skins of prints. Moulded as more of what remains get offered to time. And so little of the spectacle gets unearthed on time. It is about time. The photograph speaks up to say,
This mixed media fabric art is an emotive response to the Rupa workshop; looking at visuals of space and time. The present, the past and what is to come; all transitory. I was hooked on the notion of Hijrah, migration; but through the encounters of the workshop, I felt we often neglect witnessing the migrations that take forth skyward. The most sublime form of migration are the clouds, dying and birthing in time, like traditions and memories themselves. Where such threads are particularly obvious within Geylang Serai. To translate this, I captured a 7 minute video reel of clouds at the break of dawn hovering over Geylang Serai disctrict and from the screencaptures, printed unto organza cloth. The layers were hand-sewn onto the white shroud to form new floods of meanings. Markings were made alongside a final etching of a prose poetry in Malay to summarize all the feelings encapsulated through this project.
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Noor Iskandar
Dimana bumi dipijak disitu langit dijunjung, 2020
Cloth artwork sewn with printed organza



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Photo & movement workshop at
Wisma Geylang Serai
with youths from
Azpirasi and Atrika
Click to drag & double click
to expand photos
It is really exciting to live through your own brainchild manifested into reality. Never had I work at quite an extensive scale before where a lot of care for concept, and commitment for community takes precedence. Had the honour of sitting through all workshops in the Depository phase. To witness memories carved into a tangible outcome is really quite beautiful. More so, the way the process revealed how nuanced, varied, layered all our derivatives of remembering and embodying a share space is, is the main lesson for me.
- Noor Iskandar
Conversation goes beyond words, observation goes beyond sight, contemplation goes beyond thought. The specks that we cannot see, and the sky that overwhelms our sight...fills a bowl just as much. Or just as little. The old is still young, and the young is so old.
- Ismail Jemaah

What is seen skims the surface of what is felt. That feeling at times is best left undescribed, while at the same time important to be probed. The observations and interactions across generations leaves me feeling that the people, places and the experiences (both buried and in the clouds) are like the beginning and ending points of a circle.
Ismail Jemaah
Rupa, 2020
Dance film shot
at Onan Road
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Rupa




7 photos task around
Geylang Serai by youths from Azpirasi and Atrika
Click to scroll & enlarge