People
There’s something about Nguan’s photographs that keep you looking. Maybe it’s the film-like quality of their global cityscapes, awash in light. Or perhaps it’s the pensive gazes of his subjects, oftentimes the young and elderly, that make you stare back. Caught in the crossroads of change, you wonder what exactly they are thinking or dreaming of.
There’s something about Nguan too that keeps the imagination going. The publicity-shy Singaporean, who goes only by his first name, opts for an email interview so that he can proofread it “64 times”, in his own words.
This enigmatic 37-year old has been consistently producing such evocative works since his early series on Los Angeles and Coney Island in the US, a country where he studied and then worked for a decade. Imbued with a creative streak since young, Nguan pursued a degree in Film and Video Production at Chicago’s Northwestern University, taking notes for a film career that turned into photography.
At the turn of the millennium, he bought his first camera. “I was in search of inspiration for the scripts I thought I was going to write,” he says. “I saw interesting things every day and wanted a camera to help me remember.”
The camera became more than just that. In 2001, he was living just a mile away from the Twin Towers when they came crashing down. It jolted him out onto the empty streets with his camera. “The shock of 9/11 still informs all of my work. The places and people that I photograph are photographed on the assumption that they will very soon cease to exist,” he said in an interview with This is the What, “[A] morbid way to think, but hopefully it gives the work a kind of urgency.”
Nguan returned to Singapore in 2008 and continued travelling. He shot Tiananmen During the Olympics and also went to Japan, which led to his first photo book, Shibuya (2011). It was only from mid-2010 that Nguan began spending more time here, documenting this year’s General Elections with See Change, his first major work about his home city.
Currently planning for an exhibition next year, here’s what this photographer is thinking: variously irreverent, cryptic, and proofread, they are – like his work – spontaneous dreams emerging from discipline and control.
POSKOD.SG: You switched from movie production, in which you were trained, to photography because you were frustrated at how many people and how much expense it took to make a movie. Are you averse to people?
Nguan: You figured it out, Sherlock. No, actually I’m intensely fascinated by people; that should be evident in my photographs. Having to work with them is a different matter! It’s about a desire for control. Movies are a collaborative art, and no matter how good a communicator you may be, the final product will always only be a version of your vision. Thus, my aversion…
You spent almost a decade in the US studying, working and travelling. In your own words, you were “moving around like a fugitive”. Where were you escaping from and what has brought you back to Singapore? Will you be staying for good?
Let’s just say I was having some issues with my local bookie and they were recently resolved. Whether I stay or not depends on the result of the S-League football game between Gombak versus Tanjong Pagar.
What have you been working on in Singapore?
I’ve been working on my as yet untitled Singaporean opus. I plan to devote the next five months to it. I will present a lyrical, slightly sad, frequently evocative vision of Singapore, provided Gombak don’t lose. If they do I will present a lyrical, slightly sad, frequently evocative vision of North Carolina.
Has it been any different trying to make photos here as compared to cities like New York, Tokyo, and Los Angeles where you’ve shot extensively?
Yes, compared to those cities Singapore is underrepresented in contemporary visual culture, so I would say it’s been easier. I’ve worked a lot in over-photographed places, and the challenge was always to come up with a fresh depiction. That’s not so much of a problem here.
You seem to work on film almost exclusively. Why so?
One of photography’s functions is to help us remember what may not exist tomorrow. When you photograph with a film camera, you’re capturing heat in the form of light onto the emulsion. So when you hold a negative or slide made in the presence of your Mom, or your dog, or Marilyn Monroe, or a crowd of strangers, you have in your hands something that had been irrevocably transformed by the warmth of their living, breathing bodies. That piece of film is tangible evidence of their lives.
You’ve talked about how your photos are “street portraits” and about “the decisive glance”. Why are these important to capture?
A number of my projects, especially my book Shibuya, are attempts to explore if pictures can still be perfectly valid as portraits if they were made without the collaboration of their subjects.
“The decisive glance” is something I made up in reference to Bresson’s “decisive moment”. A photographer working on the street usually waits for a confluence of events, gestures or patterns before releasing the shutter. Since I approached the pictures purely as portraits I gazed into the eyes of passers-by and waited for them to look back. I was hoping to capture a glimmer of recognition — some acknowledgement of shared humanity. Sometimes I garnered reactions that were shy, playful or suspicious. Shibuya is a saga of relentless eye contact that only ends when someone blinks.
Do you consider your images documentary work or fine art? And does it make a difference to you?
I’d rather avoid categorisation if possible. My images are documentary in the sense that they are based on real life and interactions with chance. But if it comes to the crunch I’d take beauty over truth every time.
Photography to you is a medium to tell stories without “beginnings and endings”, but what stories do your images tell then?
More effective mediums exist to tell actual stories: movies, short films, plays, novels. A photograph is the middle of a story. The best photographs have a suggestive power that draws you into their worlds; they leave you curious about their befores and afters. The great thing is that it’s left to the viewer to fill in the blanks.
While your photos are of people in different cities, there seems to be a common feeling and look that is communicated. Is this what you once referred to as “emotional globalisation”? What do you mean by that and how does that define your work?
I meant that all around the world people laugh and cry at the same things, increasingly at the same time. I’m intrigued by what human beings have in common rather than what’s exotic or what makes us different. I want to take the measure of our collective dreams.
Many Singaporean artists dread being asked how their nationality informs their work, but I came across your response to this which I thought was very interesting. You said that Singapore’s “mishmash culture” is seen as a “crisis of identity” by others, but you think it’s a very “21st century situation”. Could you elaborate on that?
Singapore’s culture is so richly intertwined with others’ that it’s difficult to ascertain what solely belongs to us and what is mostly owing to Chinese, Malay, Indian or British influence. Our so-called “national dish”, Hainanese Chicken Rice, was invented somewhere else; it says so in its name! We haven’t rechristened it. Why bother? We’re cool and we don’t care.
The rest of the world – those Johnny-come-latelies – will become more and more like us as globalisation takes hold and the planet merges into one. But we were here first, at the cutting edge of mishmash and the forefront of hotchpotch. A diverse sensibility lies at the core of what it means to be Singaporean, and it shapes my work in every way.
You must walk around a lot for your shoots. What are some interesting places you’ve been hanging around for your photography?
I love the ebb, flow, and medley of life in the town centres, especially Toa Payoh Central. Of course I’m also attracted to the older parts of town. I was driving along Geylang Road last week when night was falling, and as the modern details around gradually became obscured by the darkness, revealing just the silhouettes of shophouses, it felt like I was being transported back in time. 
For more of Nguan’s work, visit FIVEFOOTWAY.
Words Justin Zhuang
Images Nguan
