Penghibur Hati Lara

Solace of the Heart

A site-specific installation that meditates on the longing experienced in a parent-child separation, the feelings encountered with departures and arrivals, dislocation and reconnection. The installation is made up of a series of portraits with parent-child couplings captured in moments of reunification unfurl in the slight breeze through a forest just off Tanah Merah Besar Road.

This work was created in response to the film "Darah Mudah" by Jamil Sulong, a seminal Malay-language film that was produced in the last decade of pre-independence Singapore. The title of the installation was inspired by the line “Kau penghibur hati-lara” (you are solace for my painful heart) sung by Fauziah, the female protagonist in Darah Muda, in a lullaby to her baby daughter before the arrival of her fugitive brother, whose actions lead to Fauziah’s separation from her husband and child. The site of the installation adds weight to the location as a place for reunions: in the film, the location is the park by the sea where Fauziah incognito spends brief moments with her daughter; different sites of separation and meeting currently occupy the site—the airport that sits on reclaimed land and the prison complexes to the west.