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THE MIGRANT ECOLOGIES PROJECT

Established in 2009, Lucy Davis, born 1970. Home city Singapore, lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. Zachary Chan, born 1990 in Singapore, where he lives and works. Kee Ya Ting, born 1988 in Singapore, where she lives and works. Zai Tang, born 1984 in London, United Kingdom, lives and works in Singapore

English Audio Guide
Arabic Audio Guide

{if your bait can sing the wild one will come} Like Shadows Through Leaves

2021
THE MIGRANT ECOLOGIES PROJECT

The Migrant Ecologies Project was founded in 2009 by artist, art writer, and academic Lucy Davis as an umbrella for informal, durational, trans- disciplinary collaborations in and around art and ecology, primarily in Southeast Asia. Davis is an associate professor in Visual Cultures at Aalto University, Finland. Between 2005 and 2016, Davis was a founding member of the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Her collaborators on the project, Zachary Chan, Kee Ya Ting, and Zai Tang are artists with backgrounds, respectively, in the fields of sonic arts and graphic design, photography and video production, and sound design. In 2021 {if your bait can sing the wild one will come} Like Shadows Through Leaves was awarded the FIPRESCI International Federation of Film Critics Award at the 67th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

The Migrant Ecologies Project’s film is part of the artists’ long-term engagement with Tanglin Halt, one of Singapore’s oldest public housing estates. Built alongside a railway track that ran through the heart of Singapore but is no longer in operation, these once pioneering modern housing blocks are now empty and slated for demolition. The ten-meter-wide strip of railway land, formerly owned by the Malaysian state and now a zone of indeterminate governance, hosted a wealth of human and animal activities. Ornithologists observed 105 different species of birds in the property. Now the low-income residents who called Tanglin Halt home have been relocated elsewhere. Tree shrines, community vegetable gardens, and gathering places that had grown up on the former railroad tracks have been removed, while bird life has drastically declined.

The artists returned to this site in transition and traced the remaining echoes, shadows, and memories defining this piece of land. Using online images sourced from birdwatcher groups, they projected the shadows of birds at dawn with overhead projector transparencies. In addition, they recreated the birds’ presence using paper cut-outs. The fragmentary voices and bird calls of the film’s soundtrack are drawn from field recordings of birds in the area, interviews with former residents and nature activists, and a selection of bird-specific Malay pantuns (four-line poems), compiled by writer Alfian Sa’at.

THE MIGRANT ECOLOGIES PROJECT

مشروع البيئات المهاجرة (لوسي ديفيس، بالاشتراك مع زاي تانغ، وكي يا تينغ، وزاكاري تشان)

تأسس في 2009، لوسي ديفيس، ولدت عام 1970، مسقط رأسها سنغافورة، وتعيش وتعمل في هلسنكي، فنلندا. زاكاري تشان، من مواليد 1990 في سنغافورة، حيث يعيش ويعمل كي يا تينغ، من مواليد 1988 في سنغافورة، حيث تعيش وتعمل زاي تانغ، من مواليد 1984 في العاصمة البريطانية لندن، ويعيش ويعمل في سنغافورة

2021
THE MIGRANT ECOLOGIES PROJECT

The Migrant Environments Project was founded in 2009 by artist, art writer and academic Lucy Davis as an umbrella for informal collaboration between a number of artistic, environmental and other disciplines and talents, specifically in Southeast Asia. Lucy Davis is Associate Professor of Visual Cultures at Aalto University in Finland. Between 2005 and 2016, Davis was a founding member of the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Her collaborators on the project, Zachary Chan, Qi Ya Ting, and Zai Tang, are artists from disparate backgrounds in sound arts, graphic design, photography, video production, and audio design. In 2021, their film “If Your Bait Can Sing, The Rebel Will Come, Like a Shadow Among the Leaves” won the International Federation of Film Critics Award at the 67th Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.

This film is part of the Migrant Environments Project’s ongoing interest in Tanglin Halt, one of the oldest residential areas in Singapore. These housing complexes were built near the railway line that runs through the heart of Singapore, but it is no longer in operation, and the housing project is empty of residents and scheduled for demolition. The ten-metre-wide railway strip has been neglected for a long time and has witnessed a lot of human and animal activity. Ornithologists have noted the presence of 105 different species of birds at the site. As for the low-income residents who lived in the project, they were moved to another location. Tree temples, vegetable gardens and gathering places established on railway tracks were removed, and bird numbers declined significantly.

The artists returned to this site in transition and traced the echoes, ruins and memories remaining there. Using Internet images obtained from bird-watching groups, they traced the birds’ shadows at dawn on projector tracing paper and redrew them using scraps of paper. The intermittent sounds and bird calls in the film’s soundtrack are drawn from field recordings of birds in the area, interviews with former residents and environmental activists, along with a selection of Malaysian bird poems (four-line poems), compiled by Malaysian writer Alfian Sa’at.

THE MIGRANT ECOLOGIES PROJECT