'Inside Out': Singapore's migrant workers turn photographers
Color and cloth was the inspiration for this photo snapped by Filipino Cherry at East Coast Park. Turiyah Mansyur is a slight woman from Kendal in Central Java. Aged 30, she’s been in Singapore 14 years. She loves taking photographs and has a naturally artistic eye.
Mansyur is one of the participants of "Inside Out" (migrantvoicesinsideout.wordpress.com), a project that aims to bring about greater understanding between migrant workers and their host society, through photos taken by the workers.
The photographs shows their perspective of Singapore, their thoughts and their feelings, and Mansyur has the most photographs on show.
One is of a girl in a tudung, framed by the grilles of a gate, taken at the old Tanjong Pagar Railway Station. Another is of a row of people’s knees (two of which belong to Mansyur’s friend) sitting on a bus; two photos are simply of the play between light and shadow on the walls of her employers’ home; and there is a also a charming series of household objects.
“I take photos of things in life that I find interesting,” says Mansyur, whose soft-spoken manner belies the pride she has in her work. “The things I find interesting with my own eyes."
"Taking photos makes me happy,” she says. “I love Singapore so much.”
Cherry, 26, is from the Philippines and has only been in Singapore for just over a year. Her picture of a group of people standing on a beach, with a coconut tree casting its shadow over them, became the poster photo for the "Inside Out" exhibition.
“I took this photo at East Coast Park,” says Cherry. “I liked the different colors of the clothes the people are wearing, especially the red and white sari of the woman in the middle of the picture.”
“I didn’t expect my photo to be chosen for the poster,” says Cherry who currently lives at a shelter run by HOME (Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics) “I’m very happy, this is my first experience taking photos.”
Over the course of the project, the aspiring photographers went to different parts of Singapore and took pictures of whatever caught their eye. Their works were then reviewed in class and the best were selected for this exhibition. This project is run entirely by volunteers and has been organized annually since 2006.
“Photography was an outlet for our participants,” says Sam Chin, one of the volunteer instructors and project manager for "Inside Out." “They learnt that a camera could do things they didn’t know it could, and they got to see areas of Singapore beyond where they work.”
“Sometimes the personal and emotional issues of the workers cropped up,” says Chin. “For example, one participant broke down in class because problems she was having with her employer meant that she had to leave Singapore for a while. That made us think -- these workers do so much to take care of our needs, we too should cherish them, slow down and think of their welfare.”
- More on CNNGo: Day in the life of a migrant worker in Singapore
This is Chin’s second year working with "Inside Out" and he plans to continue. He is also a photography undergraduate at Nanyang Technological University.
“I am very proud and happy to see this project come to fruit,” he says, smiling.
“I’d like to expand our reach,” he says. “Right now, we’re working mostly with the expat employers; and we’d also like to get more local employers to support this project.”
“Getting funding has been tremendously difficult,” says Shaun Teo, president of Migrant Voices. “The arts are still viewed as a privilege, especially for the group of people we are reaching out to, and so less deserving of funds than say more concrete causes.”
And the local arts authorities like the National Arts Council won’t fund us because our target group isn’t Singaporean.”
This year "Inside Out" received funding from the Lee Foundation and Kwan Im Thong Hood Temple. As this project’s dedicated pool of volunteers like Chin, Teo and many others, continue to build it up and raise awareness, hopefully this issue -- and many other issues that migrant workers face in Singapore -- will become a thing of the past.
