SOTA students bringing the Whampoa residents on a tour of the exhibition.

In An Echo We Remember was a collaborative effort between ten Year 5 and 6 Visual Arts (VA) International Baccalaureate Career-related Programme (IBCP) students and Tsao Foundation as part of the Curating Whampoa Project – a community and heritage project that seeks to collect, curate and present the rich cultural and living heritage of Whampoa through a series of thematic events organised over a two-year period. The exhibition ran from 7 to 16 April 2017 at the SOTA Gallery.

Each artwork that was featured in the student-curated exhibition was created by a student in response to an object owned by a resident of Whampoa. These objects – ranging from a porcelain pillow to rattan stools made in Changi Prison – carry with them personal stories, memories, physical imprints of use, and glimpses of Singapore life in bygone times.

What became evident to the student artists was that each of the objects only became more valuable over time, not necessarily in terms of their material worth, but because of the roles they had played in the residents’ lives.

“Being part of In An Echo We Remember has enabled me to further appreciate the vibrant and thriving culture of Whampoa, as well as better understand the sentimentality and memories embodied in objects,” said Lim Zeherng, Year 6 Visual Arts student and one of the exhibition’s curators.

Guest-of-honour Mr Heng Chee How, Senior Minister-of-State, Prime Minister’s Office and MP for Jalan Besar GRC (Whampoa) was joined by other distinguished guests at the opening of the exhibition on 7 April 2017. Some of the residents involved in the project also attended the exhibition opening and saw the artworks that were inspired by their objects for the first time.

Mr Heng Chee How with Whampoa residents and SOTA student artists at the exhibition opening on 7 April.

“At first when they came to my house, I was thinking what would they do with all that (the objects), but after seeing them (the artworks) today, I think that these children are geniuses. The way Anna took the sewing machine and did what she did, it is so beautiful. For me it is something different, like the rattan stools and what Ozborn did with them, I didn’t expect that. I’m so happy and so impressed,” said Mrs Balbir Kaur, one of the residents of the project.