Markers of the past: Unclaimed tombstones at Bukit Brown become art

Visual artist Chen Sai Hua Kuan faces a tombstone in Bukit Brown Cemetery and sees himself.

Sporting a red-and-white bandana, he squats in front of the tombstone on June 28 while contractors hold up a mirror against it. Parts of other old graves are scattered about him.

As he gives instructions, the contractors adjust the position of the tombstone, which sits partially in a frame made to support its weight.

They stop moving it only when Mr Chen, who is standing in the middle of a new installation he has been commissioned to work on, is satisfied that he can see enough of himself in the mirror – an indication that the tombstone is facing the centre of the installation.

Called Sounds Of The Earth, the memorial installation, which has been open to the public since Aug 1, features about 80 unclaimed artefacts collected since December 2013, when the exhumation of about 4,000 graves commenced to make way for the construction of Lornie Highway.

Unclaimed remains were cremated individually, before the ashes were scattered at sea.

Road works that necessitated the exhumation of the graves split the cemetery into two parts. This was met with opposition from heritage and environmental groups when the project was announced in September 2011.

They argued that Bukit Brown Cemetery, which opened in 1922 and was closed to new burials in 1973, is a social and cultural repository of early Singapore – especially of the country’s Chinese immigrant culture – and of significant ecological value.

Among parties that lobbied against the decision to build the highway, which they said would impact both cultural and natural heritage, were the Singapore Heritage Society (SHS) and all things Bukit Brown (atBB), a community group formed after construction of the highway was announced.

Over several years, the two groups worked with the authorities and other stakeholders – including relatives of those interred at Bukit Brown, former residents of a Malay kampung in the area, nature advocates and heritage experts – to put the installation together.

The new memorial installation next to the highway aims to spur people to consider the impact of development in Singapore.

Mr Chen says the elliptical design – artefacts are arranged along three ovals that surround the installation’s gravel centre – creates an interactive space where visitors can hear the echo of their own voices.

It is in interacting with the installation that visitors can ponder “who we are, where we come from, and how we can navigate the present and future”, he adds.

He notes that while the dead can no longer speak for themselves, it is the living who decide the future of spaces like cemeteries that are repositories of history.

Mr Chen says that the elliptical layout also symbolises wholeness, and concepts of harmony, continuity and unity – values that capture the mission of Bukit Brown Cemetery’s advocates, who want the artefacts preserved for future generations.

Former SHS executive committee member Kok Heng Leun notes that while the artefacts have returned to Bukit Brown, they have not “returned to the ground” as they are held above ground by purpose-built frames.

“We can see that these artefacts have gone through a journey. This arrangement poses questions about the artefacts – and by extension about Bukit Brown Cemetery. Where to? What next?” he says of the installation, which sits between the highway and graves in the cemetery that were not exhumed.

Some of the tombs at Bukit Brown featured imported decorative tiles. One of them was marked “M.L.”, which tomb hunter and atBB member Raymond Goh suspects stands for “Municipal Limit”, pointing out it indicates that some form of land administration was in place.

SHS vice-president Natalie Pang says the team behind the installation was respectful of the traditions and religious beliefs surrounding the appeasement of spirits when the artefacts were moved, and organised rituals as needed, such as when work on the installation started and ended.

A Taoist master was also consulted for the project. He selected key dates for the installation’s construction, including when to transport the artefacts.

More than a decade ago, the decision to build Lornie Highway had raised a furore. Today, heritage advocates remain concerned about the long-term future of Bukit Brown Cemetery.

The site has been earmarked for housing since 1991. Nearby, space has already been prepared for the Bukit Brown MRT station.

Even the new installation is on a three-year temporary occupation licence, with the possibility of up to two three-year extensions.

“The Government’s success of housing this nation has always rested on spaces of the dead giving way to the living,” says SHS president Fauzy Ismail, adding that the groups involved are looking to renew interest in the cemetery.

Mr Fauzy says SHS plans to recruit more volunteers, engage new groups and bring more people to experience Bukit Brown.

The Bukit Brown Wayfinder, a self-guided trail that was launched in 2017 and supported by the National Heritage Board, is also due for a refresh.

A website with up-to-date resources is in the works, while the society has started to expose younger Singaporeans to the area’s history, including by taking Secondary 3 students on a tour of it.

Such tours have been the primary means by which atBB has raised awareness of its cause, in the hope that the cemetery will not be further redeveloped.

Since end-2011, the group has conducted public tours of the cemetery grounds and continues to do so about twice monthly. The tours are mostly sold out.

The group, a relatively small outfit with just over 10 members, says the cemetery tells the story of modern Singapore, from the 1800s to the 1970s, by capturing immigrant history, political upheavals and the development of nationhood – among other chapters of the nation’s past – through the lives of those interred there.

“You can see these events unfold in the cemetery, whether it’s because of the calendar system they use, or the flags, or insignia from the Chinese nationalist government, or references to the China Relief Fund – all these show us that our history is a tapestry,” says atBB volunteer Fabian Tee.

“It’s not just Raffles came, and then the Japanese came, and then Lee Kuan Yew – that’s too simple.”

The stories that the volunteers recount on the Aug 9 tour illustrate their point.

They speak of Ms Soh Koon Eng, who died in her Geylang home on Jan 27, 1942, aged 19, while protecting her niece from bombs dropped by the Japanese.

Her niece survived.

They also tell the story of Mr Tan Ean Kiam, who hailed from Fujian and was co-founder of Oversea-Chinese Bank, a predecessor of today’s OCBC Bank.

Mr Tan died in 1943 in his 60s, having lived a storied life – one that included actively supporting China’s efforts in the Sino-Japanese war, and then having to raise funds to appease the Japanese during their occupation of Singapore in World War II.

Ms Claire Leow, co-founder of atBB, says that placed together, Bukit Brown Cemetery and the Singapore Botanic Gardens – the country’s first and only Unesco World Heritage Site – tell the story of Singapore’s early history. She adds that the group believes the cemetery is also worthy of World Heritage Site status.

Pointing to the gardens’ origins as a colonial research centre for rubber planting, among other things, she notes that the success of the trade was among the factors that led to the influx of immigrants into Singapore – a story that the cemetery captures.

“It’s perfect twinning – it’s our colonial history intertwined with our migrant history,” says Ms Lim. “What is Singapore built on, if not on the backs of migrants? Not just Chinese migrants, but migrants from everywhere.”

Anthropologist Hui Yew-Foong, who led the documentation of the about 4,000 graves that were affected by Lornie Highway’s construction, says the cemetery could possibly meet two criteria for World Heritage sites – as an “exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilisation” and as a site "directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance".

He says the cemetery is unique as it encapsulates the Chinese tradition of filial piety as practised by the Nanyang Chinese – referring to the Chinese diaspora in Singapore and the surrounding South-east Asian territories.

This is represented through a mix of artistic and cultural elements from Europe, China and Japan on grave decorations and artefacts – something uncommon in China, adds Professor Hui.

Comparing Bukit Brown Cemetery to the upcoming Founders’ Memorial in Bay East Garden, which will commemorate Singapore’s first generation of leaders from the 1950s, Mr Tee says the cemetery gives a more complete narrative of Singapore’s history.

He asks: “Shouldn’t we look further to see who our founders were? Only the 1959 group? You mean the people before that didn’t build hospitals, didn’t set up schools, didn’t fight for women’s rights?”

Notable figures buried in the cemetery include Mr Cheang Hong Lim, Mr Chew Boon Lay and Mr Lim Chong Pang – businessmen, philanthropists and community leaders who have places in Singapore named after them.

“We will have a Founders’ Memorial on reclaimed land, but for us, this is our founders’ memorial,” says Ms Lim.

Adds Ms Leow: “And, no pun intended, it’s in the dead centre of Singapore.”