Carrying the dreams, hopes and yearning of a past generation.
Iron dragons of malaya
Remembering the iron dragons.
Wherever one finds artefacts from the past, visual imagery can play a role by capturing the mood or ambience of that era.
These machines, contraptions, tools, and the environment they were in presented me with fascinating challenges. To compose each pictorial narrative, I tried to balance my own experience against the chronology of events presented in each item. This process gave me the opportunity to see these artefacts, to form them into an illustrative story of the massive dragons' that once roamed this land. To me, these artefacts are really no different from the prehistoric dinosaurs that can be found in museums.
The locomotive has played a large part of our history. It carried the dreams, hopes and yearning of past generations. It was essential to commerce.
If you ask our forefathers about this mode of transportation, each would have a story to tell about his experience with the locomotive. After all, it was at one time one of the few modes of transport available.
I am a KL-ite with an ingrained sense of belonging and I sometimes have a love-hate relationship with this city. This sometimes led to frustration with this project, a project which is meant to throw a sentimental light on the city. But, I hope, it is this sharing of emotionally-charged pictorial images that transcends race and the petty differences of opinion that we may have about the road to take towards modernization.
Heritage and culture are always at risk of being forgotten in our march towards modernization.
This portfolio of photographic images is not meant to be a lament about the evils of urban progress. Rather, it is a nostalgic journey, one which aims to inform and create awareness of a small part of Malaya's rich heritage.
My work is the result of what I see around me, a hidden treasure trove of the unpolished facets of the city I live in. I highlight them to acknowledge their existence in the dark shadows.
They may not be there forever.