HONOURING A STORIED ISLAND, SHAPING ITS NEXT CHAPTER.
“For me, Pulau Brani has always been more than geography—it’s memory held in salt air, in kampong kitchens, in the tides of lived experience. Once a home to navigators, tinworkers, and storytellers, the island now lives on in fragments: a faded photo, a family recipe, a name remembered. Stories rolling off my grandmother’s tongue…
The Pulau Brani Project began as a quiet offering to my grandmother, Khadijah Omar. A way to hold on to her stories before they slipped through. But like all living things, it grew—organically, unexpectedly—into a wider vessel. A cultural platform, still grassroots at heart, now carried by a growing community bound by memory, place, and the instinct to preserve what matters.
Today, our platform archives the island’s past, activates it in the present, and invites the public to imagine Brani’s future—not as a spectacle of development, but as a shared space of heritage, dialogue, and regeneration.
This is not nostalgia. It’s a form of resistance. A way of saying: the island was never empty. The stories were—and are—always here.”
Amira Karim,
Founder of The Pulau Brani Project
OUR PURPOSE
The Pulau Brani Project is a community-led cultural platform. We collect, share, and co-create the stories of Pulau Brani—both past and evolving—through oral histories, archival objects, public programmes, and open calls for participation.
We are a living archive—shaped by the people who remember, the ones who are still discovering, and those imagining what this island could become next.
WHAT WE DO
ARCHIVE & PRESERVE
Images, letters, recipes, maps, and ephemera—each object a doorway into Brani’s layered histories.
ACTIVATE & SHARE
Public events, workshops, walks, and exhibitions that bring heritage into the present.
RECORD & REMEMBER
First-hand stories from former residents, descendants, and coastal communities
across Singapore.
QUESTION & IMAGINE
Research, essays, and artistic contributions that connect Brani to broader conversations around land, identity, and cultural regeneration.
Former residents and their families
Cultural practitioners, researchers, and educators
Grassroots and community organisers
Planners, developers, and decision-makers
Local and international visitors with
a love for memory, place, and meaning
WHO IT’S FOR
We welcome anyone who’s ever called Pulau Brani home—or wants to know it more deeply. This project exists for
STEP INTO THE CHAPTERS OF PULAU BRANI
Brani: Memories of an Island
Pulau Brani was once home to vibrant kampongs, football fields, open-air cinemas, and a community bound by sea and song. This eBook gathers first-hand memories, photographs, and stories from islanders who lived through its celebrations, struggles, and resettlement.
Written by Nur Hazimah binte Abdul Halim, Nur Muhammad bin Mohammad Thahirruddin, and Nurulhuda binte Suhaimi.
STAY CLOSE
TO THE ISLAND,
WHEREVER YOU ARE.
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TERMS
© 2025 THE PULAU BRANI PROJECT
PRIVACY POLICY