Heroes and Legacies, Death and Mourning.
Heroes and Legacies, Death and Mourning.
The photograph above shows Lee Kuan Yew’s cortege passing the Parliament House of Singapore on Sunday 29th March 2015. It was a gloomy, rainy day. Guards and officials lining the opposite pavement gazed and saluted. The policeman, head down, in his bright traffic greens was still and sombre. The drenched ‘silent majority’ consoled each other. Even the sky is crying, we will be silent no more they said.
The photograph below taken the night before at Hong Lim Park shows a tribute board with scribbled messages from the public. One of them read “Hero(e)s can die, but their legacy is immortal.” The board was cut, shaped and rendered like the dark silhouette of a faceless, mouthless man. An accidental portrait of the ‘silenced’ and a parody of anonymity and death itself.
I ponder the complexity of narratives, of his versus theirs, of heroes and legacies, and inevitably, the nature of death and mourning.
I can’t do much but not be blind. I hope at least he meets her. R.I.P.
