Joella
Angelica Ong
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In this conversation, artist Olafur Eliasson and Firdaus Sani, a descendant of the Orang Laut, the “people of the sea” in Singapore, peninsular Malaysia and the Riau Islands, discuss the importance of Indigenous knowledge, the situational specificity of working creatively and as activists, and the civic role of museums and artmaking practices.
Olafur Eliasson (OE): Do the Orang Laut, as an Indigenous community, have a sacred connection to the land? Most people think of Singapore as a largely Westernised, modern city, and these spiritual perspectives regarding the sanctity of the land may not be an intuitive connection to make. I was also wondering, does your family have a site-specific relationship to the island?
Firdaus Sani (FS): That’s a really good question. Yes, we do. My family, and others who lived on the island, are directly influenced by the various coastal communities around us. A lot of our practices might have derived from Hinduism. We recite mantras, understand that each space has its own guardian and prepare daily offerings. Animism, for example, also plays a big role in the practices of coastal communities. This is not just the case for the Southern Islanders—the Orang Pulau—but also the Orang Seletar and Orang Laut. I think many in the Orang Seletar community still pray to the mermaid spirit today. When we dismiss animistic beliefs and practices, we dismiss a huge part of our culture. These are practices that may seem “un-Islamic,” so the Southern Islanders were socially stigmatised when they moved to mainland Singapore. On mainland Singapore, many individuals within the Malay community were Muslims, so the Orang Pulau reshaped who they were to adapt to their new environment. Along the way, some of their traditions were lost. Some of my family members still have these beliefs and practise these traditions but may not talk about them because these traditions are frowned upon. I am not even allowed to learn them because my relatives want these practices to die with them. They believe that the younger generations are not capable of using such knowledge responsibly or wielding such power properly.
OE: We’re now speaking in 2024 and quite some time has passed since the 1970s. Today, the country is known globally for its efficiency and its tolerance, yet it functions with an autocratic system that is somehow still very democratic. Everybody wonders how on earth Singapore does it. The small scale of the country is just one factor, I’m sure. Is there still a hierarchy between different social groups in Singapore? How are Indigenous people seen in Singapore?
FS: I would say that there’s little to no recognition of Indigenous people in Singapore. Social hierarchy is purely driven by economics here. What we at Orang Laut SG push for is the acknowledgement of Indigenous cultures. When the Orang Pulau first moved to mainland Singapore, they were seen as lesser than or less equipped. They also lived a life of poverty. This affected the next generation. Some descendants of the Orang Pulau do not understand why their family members are poorer than others within Malay communities. This is the generational impact of displacement.
The coastal communities are facing increasing pressure to relocate. I recently spoke to one of the community members of the Orang Seletar in Malaysia and learnt that they only have about four to five years to live in their current location because the land is going to be repossessed by the Malaysian government. There are talks of Chinese developers taking over that land. My point here is that while factors like climate change are often touted as reasons for displacement and relocation, there are in fact other forces that affect these communities. Regionally, there has been an uptick in international organisations, missionaries and corporations approaching these coastal communities with the promise of economic support and betterment. But there is often a catch to their promises. Their developments end up eroding Indigenous cultures.
OE: It’s clear that these ancestral lands are incredibly valuable to your community. I’ve been thinking about what Indigenous or ancestral knowledge means and about how some knowledge resides in the land and some resides in our bodies. These are ways of thinking that exist outside of Western epistemologies.
What you’ve just mentioned is highly site-specific, and what Donna Haraway might refer to as “situated knowledges.” Haraway speaks about the problem of the unlocatable to critique capitalism and the irresponsibility it fosters. Within globalist schools of thought, if you are unlocatable, you cannot be held to account. It’s so hard to identify with something that is global. In this moment, when our world is facing environmental, climate-related and ecological catastrophes, thinking in situated terms is incredibly important. The idea of site-specificity is something that I’ve considered a lot. It’s about allowing knowledge to be an actor or an agent. Essentially, once knowledge is situated, it becomes a kind of trajectory. It becomes a verb instead of a noun. The challenge for the United Nations and large, transnational corporations is to move away from generalising terms that deprive Indigenous resources— knowledges, skills and capacities—of their potential for agency or activation. It is also to recognise the presence of both Indigenous and Western knowledges, and to shape means for them to co-exist instead of pitting them against each other.
I’m curious about how we can achieve that. From what I can see, Firdaus, you are, by will or by circumstance, trying to bridge them and offer possibilities for mutual recognition and co-existence. What I understood from your practice is that it is an attempt to foreground the ancestral and Indigenous knowledges and cultures that the world has lost sight of. As these cracks present themselves within modernity, you’re offering something fundamentally valuable. I’m very grateful for what you’re doing, even though I could not be further away from your activities this very minute—I’m literally across the planet.
This is the question my mind is turning around: How do I, as a Westerner, having grown up in a system that is safe, paid for and that has provided me with so much privilege, understand that the Western system itself stands on the shoulders of a past slave trade? I am a part of the very problem that I’m discussing. I have enjoyed the privilege derived from the issues that you have discussed, and I accept and acknowledge that I’m on the other side of history—the wrong side, if you will—which is why I feel that it is my responsibility to research and reconsider the tools I have been given. It’s urgent for me to become increasingly aware of where I stand and where others are situated.
FS: It’s the first time I’m hearing the term “situated knowledges.” I’m going to look it up after this conversation. What I’ve taken from it, based on your sharing, is the burden that I carry in terms of learning, transferring and maintaining this knowledge.
It’s a very soft advocacy that we’re trying to do at Orang Laut SG. We can’t say outright that we want land rights or Indigenous rights. Instead, we offer education. We share knowledges from my ancestral land and ancestors. I think that what we learn from our ancestors and what we try to educate others with are very nuanced.
We recently interviewed ten Orang Laut and Orang Pulau descendants as part of a collaborative work with NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore to investigate the connections between displacement and identity. I visited the Southern Islands in the 1990s before it was turned into a landfill, but having spent most of my life on the mainland, do I have the right to use the terms “Orang Pulau” or “Orang Laut”? I’m conflicted when I use these terms, even though my family lived on and had access to the islands. I’ve learnt all these skills and acquired the knowledge, and I can share them, but I still struggle to use these terms openly, and sometimes I cringe at them as well. This is a personal battle that I face. The ten descendants whom we interviewed were also hesitant to use the term “Orang Pulau.” They feel that this term is very closely related to the term “Southern Islander,” which does not apply to us. Like me, they have all the knowledge, which has been passed down from older generations and through familial ties. We worry that we won’t be able to transfer this knowledge to the next generation with the further development of the Southern Islands.
Even policies for boat docking restrict our access. The Southern Islanders were granted rights to dock their boats at West Coast Park. But these licenses were only issued to individuals who came from the islands. Based on our experience, when these individuals pass on, their licenses cannot be transferred to their children. This issue is ongoing. The younger generations are not allowed to acquire new licenses to dock these boats at West Coast Park, which makes it difficult for them to go out to sea and to get in touch with and practice our cultural traditions. Orang Laut SG’s advocacy is thus not just about sharing knowledge but pushing for the recognition of these places as heritage spaces. These are places that are important to the community.
The nuance of the matter, especially in Singapore’s context, lies in how we push for Indigenous rights without actually saying that we want Indigenous rights. If we said that, we’d be opening a can of worms. In Singapore, everyone is supposed to be treated equally. It is a very sensitive topic, and we are trying to navigate that while trying to advocate for what our community wants and needs.
OE: There’s complexity to being a contemporary young person who has to reconcile with an extended lineage or history. I imagine it’s natural to feel some struggle or imbalance when using vocabulary related to Indigenous traditions due to the stigma surrounding the language. The words themselves don’t seem to fully capture what it means to be a Southern Islander either.
This impulse to integrate seemingly contemporaneous knowledge with timeless generational wisdom reminds me of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s wonderful book, Braiding Sweetgrass.[6] Kimmerer talks about Indigenous knowledge and Western science as different approaches to understanding and being entangled with our surroundings, with nature. She offers perspectives on how Westernised humans may be brought to reconsider their own worldviews. In the book, she suggests that, instead of looking at a tree and thinking of it in terms of its utility, we should ask the tree, “What can I learn from you? Who are you?” This pushes back against the extractive nature of modern civilisation and Western knowledge systems, which have fallen short in protecting the planet. Indigenous epistemologies have much to offer, to make up for Western science’s drive to separate subjects in complex relationships into smaller, discrete objects of observation.
I am drawn towards the idea of co-existence between Western and Indigenous knowledges. I’m thinking here of the work of the Colombian anthropologist Arturo Escobar. He takes inspiration from the Zapatista movement in Mexico and writes that they “voiced with amazing lucidity and force [... that they] want a world where many worlds fit.” While we are caught up in the current global capitalist dominant world order, how do we create a pluriverse, that is, a universe consisting of many worlds that co-exist? The superficial assumption that Indigenous or ancestral knowledge is outdated must be challenged. This comes back to what you were sharing, Firdaus, about the boat licenses and how they cannot be passed on to future generations. The licenses have been granted to the older Southern Islanders and their boats, but their boats are contemporary—they sail today. It is all a question of perspective.
Creating opportunities to nurture multifaceted perspectives in civic society and allowing a dynamic range of views and contexts to thrive is incredibly important. Art museums, for instance, can do this by creating spaces where rules are pliable and where we may share an experience without having to agree. I am referring to a space where we can acknowledge that being different is valuable. In the museum, two people may look at the same painting and identify with or appreciate very different elements. This discussion of difference can take place within what I sometimes call “safe spaces”—not in the sense of safe spaces for people or groups to share without risking criticism but safe spaces for diverse ideas and cultures. The art museum as a safe space can in turn serve as a model for how to be together with people who may approach or see things differently.
I also think part of what we’re talking about here is the status of emotions. What is important for me as an artist is that my artworks and thinking honour complex thoughts and feelings, like the ones that you, Firdaus, have in relation to the term “Orang Laut.” To me, the difference between a good museum and a great museum—or good art and bad art—is whether it goes beyond visitors’ immediate feelings to address more fundamental needs. This happens when someone encounters a work by an artist that makes them feel like it acknowledges and articulates a need or a longing that they had but could not quite describe. They may feel as if the artwork, and even the museum, really see them, and so they leave the museum feeling listened to. They may experience a sense of belonging at the museum in realising that they are not alone. A sense of community may emerge from this sense of acknowledgement and recognition— of being seen, met and heard. A great artwork or museum can reflect some of our longings, our deeply felt needs.
FS: I had a very candid conversation with some Southern Islanders about how they would feel if our histories were to appear in museums. A lot of us have this sentiment that we would have failed as advocates for the preservation of our culture if we only appear in museums.
It cannot end in museums for us. I agree with your thoughts as to the function of museums, but we still want to preserve our culture and be represented in cultural spaces beyond museums. That’s what we’re trying to work towards, and why visual art is so important. Visual art allows us to draw upon the intangible parts of our culture and to showcase them.
Much of our culture goes unseen. It is kept within our community, and we are careful about how we share our narratives while being sensitive to the needs of our community. This act of sharing is also about finding our audience and making sure that they are able to understand what we’re trying to share.
Masthead image: Olafur Eliasson. Moss wall. 1994. Reindeer moss, wood, wire. Dimensions variable. Work in progress: Singapore Art Museum, 2024. Tate Collection, London. Image credit: Joseph Nair, Memphis West Pictures.
Excerpted from Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey – Singapore, published in conjunction with Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey, an exhibition organised by Singapore Art Museum from 10 May 2024 to 22 September 2024 at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Learn more about the book here. The book is available for purchase from the Epigram Coffee Bookshop at SAM, The Gallery Store by Abry at National Gallery Singapore and all good bookstores.
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[2] The Orang Seletar are nomadic sea people who roam among the mangroves and rivers of the Johor Strait, which is between Singapore and the Malay Peninsula.
[3] Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Feminist Studies 14, no. 3 (Autumn, 1988), 575–99.
[4] Orang Laut SG is a non-profit organisation that promotes cultural preservation in Singapore.
[5] Orang Laut SG and NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore conducted a series of video interviews with Orang Pulau descendants for a project titled Air Sunyi (“silent water” in Malay). The project is part of a larger effort by Orang Laut SG to create awareness and recognition of the distinct cultural identity of Singapore’s Indigenous islanders, many of whom have kinship ties with sea-based communities across the larger Riau Archipelago. Air Sunyi explores the enduring significance of the term “Orang Pulau,” and the ancestral connections that remain for islanders and their descendants.
[6] Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (London: Penguin Books, 2013).
[7] “In moving from a childhood in the woods to the university I had unknowingly shifted between worldviews, from a natural history experience, in which I knew plants as teachers and companions to whom I was linked with mutual responsibility, into the realm of science. The questions scientists raised were not ‘Who are you?’ but ‘What is it?’ No one asked plants, ‘What can you tell us?’ The primary question was ‘How does it work?’ The botany I was taught was reductionistic, mechanistic, and strictly objective. Plants were reduced to objects; they were not subjects’.” Ibid., 41–42.
[8] Arturo Escobar, Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2018).
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