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Singapore Heritage Festival 2026

  • 17 hours ago
  • 1 min read

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 over water, tidal foraging, the glow of phytoplankton under the full moon, sampan journeys to Lazarus Island, and the water-dragon guardian myth our family has carried through generations—alongside the displacement and “landsickness” that came with resettlement into Telok Blangah’s HDB flats, where so many islanders found themselves unmoored from their livelihoods and sense of home.




Situating Brani within Singapore’s broader southern archipelago and the Nusantara maritime sphere, she contends that as the Greater Southern Waterfront reshapes the island once more, its layered past as a frontier of tin smelting, colonial fortification, and Orang Laut settlement deserves to be remembered rather than erased—a point she crystallizes in the observation that “the sea remembers the names that history forgets.”


Click on the picture below to view her presentation:


STEP INTO THE CHAPTERS OF PULAU BRANI

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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.

The Pulau Brani Project — A rich history of Singapore's maritime heritage
The Pulau Brani Project — Homes on Brani Island

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