Image caption: A man in his 40s, posing with a tree that is over 100 years old. A picture shared by Sarah-Tabea Sammel from her photography work, Tree Project. (Credit: Sarah-Tabea Sammel)

By Hema Mohan

In our human existence, time weaves itself through our personal narratives, aging us year by year. So it does to every other living being on this earth. In Critical Conversations: Telling Our Stories, speakers Sarah-Tabea Sammel and Sherman Ong painted an illuminating picture of how we as individuals are situated within larger conceptualizations of Time. As the closing talk for the Critical Conversations series, the speakers sought to bring a holistic understanding of Time as a medium of connection between us all.

Connections are always present around us. We may be able to catch glimpses of them if we open our minds to see the various forms in which they can exist. I found it very intriguing when Sarah elucidated this thought through her photography project, Tree Project, which involved photographing people against trees. She asked “How does a 40-year-old person compare against a tree that is 400 years old?” This juxtaposition was meant depict our relationships with nature due to our co-existence with them.  My favourite picture was of a 1- year-old baby girl photographed with a small plant sapling, both still in their infancy. It was the picture that really opened my eyes to the notion that parts of us are mirrored in other living beings, especially in ways we may have never before considered.

It is our connections with others that helps us realise that history can be a very intimate and personal affair. The labels we give ourselves or those that are given to us have a part to play in the connections we may feel with people and spaces. Sherman Ong revisits the history of foreign immigration into Singapore. Through his NUSANTARA film series, he compares the sense of novelty and loss current immigrants feel to that felt by immigrants in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. He adds that time and thus, sometimes history can be very cyclical. The emotions we feel now are akin to those felt by people long before us and soon by those who come after.

Dr Kamalini, the moderator, ends the talk with a note on the politics of remembering. She asks what makes us remember and yearn for something and leaves us with a thought: “How truly different are we in our longing to eternally grasp what is dear to us?”. After this talk, we may find that we are not that different at all.

Critical Conversations: Telling Our Stories was streamed live on 10 March 2021 and is available on YouTube here