M.a.p. - Introduction


"M.a.p." page 1-2: Introduction


"M.a.p." page 1-2: Introduction

I ♥ Map
I love map. I am obsessed with maps.

My first encounter with maps was in 1994; when my father bought a new edition of “Singapore Street Directory”. A casual flip got me curious over the shapes, symbols and colour coding; and I started exploring the book. I asked my father many questions about the book, how an area looks like in reality and pestered him to bring me there. Through the process, I fell in love with the book. I was so obsessed with the book that it became mine.

From then onwards, I started collecting, researching and interpreting maps and
Singapore development history. I also started predicting and drawing maps. Some topics I drew include plans of new towns, future MRT lines, electoral boundaries... etc.

For the next 16 years, maps have integrated into almost every aspects of my life. It is very personal to me.

Memories of places
I enjoy exploring places.

When I was young, my parents would bring me to different parts of Singapore every weekend. After falling in love with maps, travelling became a spin-off interest because I explored many places out of curiosity after seeing maps of that place. These places and trips forms a very important part of my childhood memories, which shapes who I am today.

I like traveling, but yet do not have budget to travel overseas. Therefore I decided to explore Singapore. My first travelling project “3 days tour” was in June 2003. The objective is to explore various neighbourhoods of Singapore in 3 days. It was successful and subsequently I completed 10 such themed tours, the latest in August 2010. These projects expose me to almost every corners of Singapore and I observed that there is a distinct local identity in every neighbourhood.

I am born in 1985 and many familiar places of my childhood where I have fond memories of had disappeared (e.g. Wonderland) or are disappearing (e.g. National Stadium and Oasis); despite childhood been only 10 years ago. Even places that remain experienced significant changes, some to the extreme of unrecognizable (e.g. Haw Par Villa, Parkway Parade and Orchard Road). This causes differences between memories (what is remembered) and reality of a place. I can’t do anything to stop these places from disappearing. Therefore I would like to preserve memory of places.

M.a.p. comprises two parallel concepts, the “Zoom Concept” and the “Time Concept”.

Zoom Concept
The “Zoom Concept” is based on my childhood concept that my view equals the size of my world; meaning the size of the world is only as large as what I see only, anything beyond my sight is presumed non-existing.

Therefore it starts with ‘Me’ as the basis entity. This is also because topics are chosen based on my personal memories.

The true first entity is ‘Home’ (#05-71), followed by ‘Block’ (Block 433) and ‘Precinct’ (Tampines Street 42/43). Slowly it zooms out into ‘Neighbourhood’ (Tampines Neighbourhood 4), ‘Town’ (Tampines), ‘Region’ (East) and finally ‘Nation’ (Singapore).

This zoom symbolizes that my area of activity expanded simultaneously with my age.

Time Concept
The second concept is the “Time Concept”.

‘Past’ encompasses history and memories; while ‘Present’ refers to reality and everyday life. ‘Future’ involves prediction and imagination.

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