Last week, I managed to catch I Polunin currently exhibiting at the NUS Museum. The exhibition is named after Ivan Polunin, once a lecturer at the University of Malaya. His work led him to document on film the tropical diseases of the region, but it soon expanded to become one of the largest private collections of ethnography and natural history from the 1950s and 1970s.
I met Dr Polunin once, some years back at a Christmas party of a former colleague’s. I remember spending the afternoon with him listening to his stories of his adventures – often disconnected, but also indicative of the breadth of his explorations into the many lives in Singapore and Malaysia. You can see this reflected in the exhibition. We are treated to scenes of work, play and everything in between, from Chinese farmers in Singapore to orang asli kids at play. There are even recordings of musical pieces from Kelantan and Malacca, sounds which are rarely heard even today. And as you walk through the visual and audio displays, you also get a glimpse of Dr Polunin the man through the many documents, files and equipment that were loaned for this showcase.
All in all, the exhibition was a real treat for me because so much is shown about daily life back then that is quite rare today. But at the same time, I was made aware of how much the colonial eye played in the formation of Dr Polunin’s collection. In a video interview at the exhibition, Dr Polunin said that his recordings were very “unashamedly” about the exotic, and it was quite interesting to see how his sense of the exotic was very much like mine. He also moaned about the fast pace of development in Singapore that has quite literally changed the landscape to something unrecognisable – and then coupled with the subsequent nostalgia after realising what we’ve lost. Isn’t that what Yesterday.sg’s about?
My takeaway from the exhibition was that the losses people, place, experiences and memory are permanent, so it’s important to cherish those experiences that you have today, and to keep some memory of today for tomorrow.
I Polunin is on exhibit at the NUS Museum until 3 Jan 2010. Free admission.
2 Responses
I went to the exhibition too and for someone born in the 1980s, it was a real treat. Clifford Pier back then was vibrant and full of energy. Today it’s more posh but also more sterile. Even though I’d never seen those sights, I felt a sense of removed nostalgia.
I also watched the interview where he talked about his work. Where you saw nostalgia, I saw national loss. When your country keeps changing at such a fast pace, what’s there left to love?
Posted on September 3rd, 2009 at 6:53 am
Joey, I too feel that sense of loss, but not just on a national scale – Ivan’s collection also was for me a reminder of how much Singapore was part of the larger Malayan microcosm. I think nostalgia and loss are two sides of the same coin.
Posted on September 3rd, 2009 at 11:40 am
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