Songlines

"I believe that anybody living anywhere upon the face of the globe, if they were to simply take the time and do the research, would find an incredible nest of wonders buried right where they were standing, right in their own backyard. I think that all too often, in the 21st Century, and throughout the 20th Century, we tend to spend our everyday existence walking along streets or driving along streets that we have no real understanding of, even if we see them everyday, and they just become fairly meaningless and bleak blocks of concrete, whereas, if you happen to know that such-and-such a poet was incarcerated inside an asylum upon this street or that such-and-such a murder happened here or that such-and-such a fabulous, legendary queen is buried in this vicinity: all of these little stories, it makes the places that we live much richer if we have a knowledge of these things. All of a sudden, you're not walking down mundane, dull, everyday streets anymore, you're walking down fabulous avenues full of wonderful ideas and incredible stories."  

Alan Moore, "Five Questions for Alan Moore"

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Researching on the idea of paths and how one navigates around their place and I chanced upon the project New York Songlines. Inspired by the Aboriginals' Songlines where "intricate series of song cycles identified the landmarks that one needed to pass to get where one needed to go.  These songs described how the features of the land were created and named during the Dreamtime, the timeless era when the giants, heroes and monsters that serve as totems for the Aboriginal tribes walked the earth. By singing the songs in the proper order, the Aborigines could walk across their nation's vast deserts and always know where they were."

 That prompted me to recall my own experience about my home in Singapore, in Bishan. I may not know exactly which street I am on, I don't know exactly where BLK 282 could be for example, but I know how it all looks like very clearly because whereever I had to go, I needed to walk around my home area and key locations where memories are stored remain as such: key anchor points, which reminds me of a mental map.

I love this idea of songlines, especially so for Aranui (my Major Design Project - probably the only thing I'll keep talking about until the end of October), because Aranui can be a rather placeless place on first glance; its true inherent value lies in the invisible hidden interaction among its residents. How can I unmask these hidden and somewhat intangible values into the every day landscape? Would it need to even be something physical? Or would the physical merely be an outcome from these invisible interactions? And the idea of songlines - perfect, since Aranui is such an abundance of the Pacific Islander culture (not the only culture but it could be one of such regional significance across Christchurch) and Island culture tends to focus on oral traditions. And once again, this really reiterates my belief that design is all about narratives.

Quite intrigued by the ideas of soundscape and narratives and culture and stewardship. Hmm.

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