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.

21 is my lucky number. So it was a bit disappointing to see the coordinate 21 located at an unreachable area on Tekong Island.

Then I reminded myself to be open minded and see the coordinate unbiased.

Calling back my time living in Pasir Ris, whenever I was sitting on the beach I was looking in exactly this direction onto the horizon above Tekong Island. It was nearly a daily routine for over 4 years. All my thoughts from these times were coming back. The early childhood of my daughter, the achievements and drawbacks, laughter and tears – all sorts of feelings a life provides over time. Looking back on different angles the happy days are definitely predominate, so the luck in my number is still on.

Looking back on different angles of my life initiated the idea to look on this coordinates as well from different angles.

View 1, Changi Beach:

From Changi beach I was gazing on June 2021 in direction of coordinate #21. It was in the middle of the pandemic. We were quite alone on the beach and it was unusual dirty that day. I cannot remember to have seen so much garbage on the beach and even barrels were washed ashore.

View 2, Pasir Ris Park Beach:

I was curios about how many pictures of coordinate 21 I made in the 4 years of almost every day going to Pasir Ris Park beach. I was surprised when I scrolled through my folder of over 1000 pictures of beach shots that only 4 pictures were showing into the direction of coordinate 21. All of them are from my daughter Anna playing in the sand or having her on my arm. There was no single picture from just that view. The most pictures are in direction of Palau Ubin with undisturbed nature and without any man made buildings in the distance. Even as I was aware of that the Pasir Ris Park was planned in the 1970’s and partially build on reclaimed land unintentionally I always tried to photograph the “nature” side of it.

View 3, Palau Ubin observation tower:

At the end of the year we were hunting the coordinate #49 on Palau Ubin. It was a wonderful day, the air was fresh and we were looking back on a happy year on Singapore. On the observation tower at Chew Jawa Wetlands I had a great 360 degrees view. From the distance I could see Tekong Island with the coordinate #21.

Artwork

Looking from different angles on this coordinate and on my life was a healing process. To let my eyes wander on this water – I gaze into the distance and I only can imagine. Observing all the perspectives, the movements and reflections, the colors and the flow: It’s always the same direction, only my chosen perspective makes a difference.