Asian Civilisations Museum (20 to 31 May 2023, part of Singapore Heritage Festival)
This installation reimagines the river teeming with bumboats ferrying goods between the ships anchored offshore and the warehouses that lined the river bank. Between the bumboats and the warehouses, the goods were carried either by coolies manually on their shoulders, or using lorry cranes.
In 1984, this scene disappeared when the last phase of the Singapore River clean-up exercise started. The bumboats were relocated to Pasir Panjang, the warehouses resettled to industrial parks, and residents resettled in HDB flats.
