This blog post is part of the Random Sampling Singapore project. The Project aims to sample 100 places on the island of Singapore over a one year period in order to gain an unbiased and holistic view of the city state.

On a December morning my family and I decided to do a coordinate near our house in Bukit Panjang. It was just a few kilometers northwards. Google maps suggested us a trail from Mandai Road, but it turned out that it’s impossible to reach that coordinate. My daughter Anna (8years) wrote a description of this coordinate:

“It was a warm morning and the sun was out. We were walking along the street in Mandai, trying to find the location of coordinate #15. We went along the BKE to try to find a crossing to the Mandai Quary. Beside us was a large, grey building with barbed wire surrounding it. There was a sign on the fence, which said that we may not allowed to enter. It was a military area. Later on, we were walking along Mandai Road, hoping we could find Mandai Quary, which was the nearest and nicest place to the coordinate. The road next to us was empty, and a bit further in front of us was a camp from the military area blocking the way. There was a dead end. We had tried from every corner but sadly cannot get to the Mandai Quary. A few minutes later when we were going to the bus stop, we saw a beautiful green-blueish butterfly. I was trying to get the butterfly on my fingertip, which I did after a while. There were other butterflies flying around, too. We have seen some yellow and brown butterflies when we were walking along the BKE and Mandai road.”

Samples

We didn’t take samples that day as the smile of my daughter when the butterfly was crawling on her fingertip was truly intangible. These are the moments so precious – I am not able to put them into words.

Artwork

A couple of months ago, when I had my exhibition at Artporters Gallery and was setting up a digital poetry slam on one of my artworks (Die Raupe und der Schmetterling, 2020), Guillaume submitted a quote which let me think of my daughter and me in the role as mum.

Leave your cocoon and give life to others. You will see that what no book could tell, feel that no thought could imagine.

Lectures from Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, Chabad.org

I created this artwork with the quote in mind.