I’ve been building an open-source cultural stewardship and AI literacy toolkit alongside the Pulau Brani Project because I increasingly feel that access to advocacy, storytelling, archives, technological literacy, and public participation should be democratized. Too often, the ability to shape public narratives — to preserve memory, articulate community concerns, build educational tools, experiment with technology, or advocate for what matters — is treated as the domain of in

My (irrepressibly brilliant) mother, Dr. Mardiana Abu Bakar, presented Pulau Brani — The Narratives We Need to Remember: History, Memory and Masterplan at the Singapore Heritage Festival, drawing on her thirteen years documenting Kampong Telok Saga to recover two interwoven stories of the island. She traced the rhythm and enchantment of life on Brani before 1973, when our Orang Laut community was evacuated for Singapore’s first Naval Base - a world of stilt houses suspended o

Feminism, Labour, and the Hidden Architectures of Maritime Life Epigraph “The sea remembers the names that history forgets.” Conceptual Framing While a lot has been said about maritime commons and conservation, too little is written about the people who sustain the world—particularly the women whose labour, emotional stewardship, ecological knowledge, and economic participation formed the hidden architecture of island life. This essay will position Pulau Brani not as an isola

Editorial Introduction The history of Southeast Asia cannot be understood from the land alone. For centuries, the seas surrounding the Malay Peninsula, the Riau Archipelago, and the Indonesian islands formed one of the most dynamic maritime systems in the world. Long before modern borders, these waters connected communities through trade, migration, knowledge exchange, and shared environmental stewardship. This three-essay series explores that maritime world through the lens

Pulau Brani and the Languages of the Nusantara There are places where history is written in stone, and others where it lingers in memory. Pulau Brani belongs to the latter. Standing today at the edge of Singapore’s southern harbour, it can be difficult to imagine the island as it once was. Container cranes now punctuate the skyline, and the waters around it carry the steady choreography of global shipping. Yet beneath this modern surface lies an older world: a maritime landsc

Pulau Brani, Isle of the Brave, Ep. 01: Back to the Sea

Azman and his sister Mardiana reminisce about the freedom, adventure, and natural scenery of their childhoods growing up on the island of Pulau Brani, just off the coast of Singapore. They describe in detail their childhood escapades and the challenges of living away from the mainland.

Azman and Mardiana visit current day Pulau Brani, now a port facility, and reflect on what has changed since their childhoods. They...