When I saw the news about bits of the Berlin Wall installed in Singapore’s very own Bedok, I was first bemused then confused and somewhat uncertain.

The intellectual in me screams – decontextualised history! With bits of the wall, hauled outside its ‘original’ site, encased in a glass case – essentially objectified, it’s totally decontextualised. How much of what Foreign Minister George Yeo said is “an icon for reflection about history, about the human condition, about how we treat fellow human beings” will be translated in such situation?

True, not everyone can afford to go to historic sites, which when turned into tourist attractions, lose all meanings too. Yet, are the meanings lost irrevocably when the object is divorced from its place?

The little idealist in me wants to believe that the installation can indeed inspire. Yet when the news finished with the item that a bistro has been planned as part of the installation and that it will be opened later, the sceptic in me nods. Meaning is lost.

P/S: the other bits of the Berlin Wall have been scattered all over the world too. You can find their location in the BBC map found in this earlier entry.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 17:36 and is filed under Places, Reflections, Singapore. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.