PAT TOH

Water bodies as disciplined entities. The topography of Singapore’s freshwater rivers, and the ways in which they flow, have been shaped by the nation’s flood-mitigation and water-security strategies.

Water as an entity is never left to flow freely in modern societies. Instead its unruly meandering is engineered and institutionalised. Singapore’s water infrastructure—catchments, reservoirs, pumps, drainage and flood barriers maintains the continual taming of water. 

Sungei Bras Basah is one such body  straightened and lined with concrete, canalised, engineered and institutionalised. A freshwater stream that provides and sustains yet is structurally colonised and systematically domesticated. What rhythms and forces has been straightjacketed? What emotions might the river hold that has been suppressed? 

Water in this case is no longer a sterile, obedient and hyper-efficient performer but one that leaks, roars and crashes. We enter the river past and memories, unleash its containment as we move as a mass, expelling its force in beats, text, dance and drinks.