I lived in Singapore during the 2005-06 academic year, when I was teaching at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. It was interesting to see how the things I found interesting and wanted to photograph shifted during that time, how what one sees changes when one ceases to be a tourist and becomes a resident... albeit a temporary one. I found myself strangely fascinated by the massive neighborhoods of identical apartment blocks -- identical buildings on identically named streets (Clementi Ave 1, Clementi Ave 2, etc), about ideas of individuality and conformity, about utopias and dystopias, about how culture structures life and society. And then there's the weather. After spending the previous academic year in the Russian cold, the heat and humidity in Singapore took some getting used to. In light of that, the photograph of the yellowish wall covered with air conditioning units remains an enduring favorite, one that reminds me of what it felt like to be there, and brings the experience of the year in Singapore back to me.
