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Artist’s note

This work reflects my fundamental intention to exert myself and the social identities I present, in spaces and instances that typically reduces my visibility and access due to being a woman, brown-skinned, of Muslim faith, and wearing the hijab. These acts of exerting presence of the individual stem from politics of identity and space with regards to power and authority and my yearning to un-restrain myself from internalised colonialism. 

As a child growing up in Singapore, I often perceived myself of the lesser race and religion. I often self-stigmatise by giving into stereotypes of Malays and Muslims, so much that I tried to distance and disassociate with my race and religion by opting to speak English more than my mother tongue, and mixing with the majority race to be seen as better off than my Malay-Muslim counterparts. In such circumstances, I was the token Malay or “Indian-looking” person in social groups from primary education till higher education. However, years into adulthood, I could not be consumed by that mindset, and I could not let myself be forced to experience life differently due to the lack of equity stemming from external forces. I wanted to experience life to the fullest of my ambitions and to not be bridled and suppressed by the powers that be. 

I find parallels between myself and the natural land. A being that exists in its own right and never truly governed by another being, I aspire to be that. But with people and with land, we are both plundered for the resources we may provide, well beyond our capacity and with our rights taken away; in the name of power, progress, expansion. Why does man think so highly of himself to take and leave his trace everywhere? Why can’t man simply coexist with nature, to maintain a symbiotic relationship, one of mutual respect?

While I am in London to be immersed in the arts scene and culture, I cannot shake the fact that I am visiting a world power that colonised my home country for a hundred over years. There are still remnants of British power in Singapore legislation today, with some level of influence in local politics reverberating some 50 years after our independence. If there is something I would like to thank the British for is leaving behind the English language, and that is all. Alas, I am in London, to take in the sights and sounds, and so I took the opportunity to be in the parks and nature. Although my intention was for a personal and spiritual connection that nature provides, I also see my presence in such spaces as an act of soft power. Perhaps in doing so, I could dismantle the archetype of the hiker or camper as a white male, and that anyone can be out wild camping and should never feel like they are out of place on a hike at the trails. More importantly is to leave no trace, a set of principles and ethics promoting conservation of nature. If only the same could be practiced in conserving and preserving native communities, heritage and culture. 

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