This work depicts the relationship between Malacca’s Kristang people and Encore Melaka (and the rest of the state’s reclaimed land.) Through the use of morphological maps and historical images, the work aims to highlight the contrast of these two entities.

 

Encore and its two micro sites form neat lines in a box, demonstrating the sort of serenity that was found in the wide uninterrupted expanses of fields and ocean. However, one would also notice that the dark, geometric shape looms heavily over the fluid, organic forms of the people below.

 

These people are the Kristang who lived in Praya Lane (marked on the map), formerly one of the major Portuguese settlements in Malacca. There were two things central to their lives: the ocean and music. The photos of these fishermen are translucent, indicating their fading presence amidst the threats that land reclamation projects pose to their livelihoods. There is a group of children — opaque and tinted with a lively red — and soundwaves and music staves around them as an expression of hope as to even though their connection to the ocean is realistically severed by the major developers today, they can still keep their culture alive through the spread of dance and song.