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The Mandatory Death Penalty: A Blinkered Policy
The following was first published on Huffington Post, 11 May 2012. Singapore has often been identified as “one of the most prominent defenders of capital punishment.” But what many people — including Singaporeans — may not yet realize is that Singapore does not just have the death penalty, but also the mandatory death penalty. The mandatory death ...
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Awareness of death penalty slowly grows in Singapore
The following was first published on Waging Nonviolence, 29 April 2012: Execution day is always a Friday in Singapore. As the night sky slowly lightens into day, the inmate is taken from his or her cell and escorted to the gallows. At 6 a.m., the trapdoor opens and the inmate falls through. By the afternoon, the ...
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Hasta La Madre
I took these photos in Cuernavaca, Mexico on 28 May 2012, as people gathered in the square to commemorate the 1-year anniversary of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, a campaign against the drug war that has devastated families and brought so much violence to Mexico. Some of my reflections on the day ...
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Protest culture in Singapore — wait, what?
The following was first published on Waging Nonviolence, 17 April 2012: Singapore, a “sunny island set in the sea,” is known for many things: economic prosperity, air-conditioning, malls and underground malls linking to more malls. What it is not known for, though, is a stellar human rights record or an active citizenry willing to take to the ...
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Campaign to preserve Singapore’s Chinese cemetery pushes on
First published in Asian Correspondent, 20 March 2012: Develop or preserve? That is a question that is always asked in Singapore, a densely-populated country with very little space to make use of. With a government that has always opted for the most “pragmatic” response, the answer has often been to develop. But when the government ...
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From the Marina Barrage
Once in awhile I could do with a reminder of how beautiful my country can be. As magic hour slipped away from us the evening I was photographing Crystal’s two gorgeous little girls, I managed to grab this shot from the Marina Barrage looking over the (still under construction) garden with its “supertrees” to ...
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The Spud, Out On Her Own
All the documentaries listed on this site thus far (from Dowry Deaths to Storm in Subic Bay) were made with one company: Lianain Films. They adopted me when I was a green, wee sprout straight out of school and gave me the opportunity to work, learn, travel and increase the amount of time I can ...
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Camera – Now on Facebook!
We’re on our last week of shooting, and everyone’s looking a little bit tired and bedraggled, but we’re getting through all right. Data wrangling has become my life – CF cards and hard drives are practically all I know right now. I’m looking forward to getting a break when all this is over, but I’m ...
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The Language Woes of a Young Singaporean
First published on SEA Youth Say So, 2 February 2012: The elderly gentleman smiled at me, gesturing to my name tag with his wine glass. “Oh, you’re a Han too, like me. You should come join the Han Clan, we have trips back to Hainan Island. You speak Hainanese?” “No, I don’t. Actually, my dad’s ...
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On Set
The vents click loudly as they shut and open, and we at the data desk look up suspiciously from our spot directly under them. Having your work station right under the toilet vents isn’t ideal, but we don’t really have that much of a choice. It’s Day 7 of the feature film shoot that I’m ...
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Faceless
Blank, faceless rectangles spaced out on the grass on Human Rights Day 2011, each one representing someone executed in Singapore.
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Storm in Subic Bay
A documentary looking into the allegations of lack of workplace safety and labour rights at Hanjin Heavy Industries in the Philippines. Aired on Al Jazeera English’s 101 East strand.