Peace Centre - glitching hologram of memories, fading into the past.
A couple of weeks ago I went to Peace Centre, to check it out before it closed down. A few years ago, while looking for a flat, Peace Centre popped up as the one having really big flats with a suspiciously low price. “You won’t want to live there, it’s not safe” - said real estate agent, looking at me with a strange gaze. For some strange reason no more questions were asked. But her words got stuck in my head. I had to check it out before it would vanish into oblivion. It didn’t disappoint. A poorly lit empty carpark, ghost-like corridors, blinking lights, half of the lifts broken with jammed doors. Art deco violet walls of a shut down casino, diamond chandeliers, piles of cables on the floor, strange ghostly clubs and dark, shut down wellness salons. Everything was grand and mysterious, like a glitching hologram gradually dissolving into the past. I was standing in front of a mirror, in one of these dark rooms, taking a selfie on my phone. All of a sudden the door behind me squeaked and opened. A guy entered the room. I couldn’t see his face, it was too dark. What he was doing here? I caught myself on a thought that if it was Moscow or any other “normal” city this encounter would be terrifying. Imagination was drawing a vivid picture of a perpetrator intending to kill me. But this was Singapore, so no trace of fear came through me. We had a brief chat about the state of the place and how confusing it is, then each went our own ways.
After the apartment block, it was time to visit the mall downstairs. Recently, I saw a black and white photo taken there, shot on film, It looked so 60s. Made in contra light photography style, with a man sitting against graffiti made on a big glass window. The geometry and composition was brilliant. I wanted to see where the photo was taken. It was different, very different, once again certifying that it all depends on the eye of the photographer. In real life graffiti was so vibrant, the sun shone through it. The people on the street were walking in another world, paying no attention to me taking photos of them, just perfect.
Following on with exploring the place, somehow I found myself in a tucked away room. There was someone in the corner. It was dark. Immediately, the image of Gollum from “Lord of The Rings” materialised in front of me, as if I heard him hissing “My Precious…”. It was a worker fixing or painting something in the far corner. How and why he was doing this in the darkness, I don’t know.
Further down the corridor, following the “Fire Lift” sign there was a cleaner’s room. It was surreal, a mixture of dilapidation, skankyness and strange motivational slogans. The kind of place where the last survivors of an apocalypse would live. The word “RELAX” in capital letters stencilled on a dirty wall, covered with broken tiles. A cardboard box with “Acoustic control for your living experience” written on it, an old, sepia-coloured “Air New Zealand” advertisement poster on the wall, a grotesque curved body-shaped vase next to step ladders in a corner, which supposed to serve as a shower, “No Smoking” sign with cigarette buds scattered along the floor under it. All this visual extravaganza was topped off with a red sign: “OPEN FOR BUSINESS”.
The best moment of this trip was yet to follow. I walked up a flight of stairs to the second floor, turned left. In the distance, ahead of me, at the end of a long corridor, there was a brightly lit studio. A woman - sorting her paintings. I moved closer. Framed by a cascade of dark, wavy locks, her pale face looked like a perfect photograph. The table, cluttered with a mishmash of watercolour paintings, looked like a chaotic palette of spilled emotions. In the corner, a throne-like grotesque chair, looking as is it was salvaged from the ruins of a forgotten empire. Near the wall, above the cabinet, perfectly arranged set up of vases with brushes and an abstract painting. There was a bright studio light in the corner like skilful spotlight ready to accentuate any detail. The entire setup resembled a living canvas. The door was open, I walked in, said hello, and we started talking. I had an inkling that Alena was from the same side of the world, we slid into talking Russian. We sat together for an hour or so, feeling as if Alena was someone who was close to me, though we had only just met. Synchronicity at its best.
We decided to grab a cup of coffee in the neighbouring cafe. We went out through a back door. There was an uncle sitting at the exit. He smiled and we started talking. I asked him where he’d go after the Peace Centre will be demolished. He did not reply. Instead, he told me that all of his life was connected to this place, his family owned a shop in Peace Centre and that he’d been working there since he was 18. I returned to talk to him later on. His name was Vejai Singh. Big, kind eyes, draped in laugh lines and a heartfelt grin. He showed me photos when he was young, he was handsome. One photo was a portrait of him with a retrospective gaze. I wonder what was on his mind. In another, he was riding a bike, with a careless open smile. He walked me to the shop, his family used to own, it was a sports shop, ‘Olympic Sports’. Vejai kept a plastic bag they custom ordered at the time. It had a picture of one of the pioneers of Singapore bodybuilding, Rohmat Juraimi. Vejai still remembers how much they paid to get him featured on their bag. A friendly woman, a cleaner, I guess, joined us, she was so smiley, offering me sweets and laughing. They asked me where I was from and we spoke about it for a bit before they followed me to the exit. It felt as If I had found a treasure, a treasure of genuine human connection.
Peace Centre, Singapore, constructed in 1977, stands in a row of icons alongside Golden Mile Centre and People’s Park Complex. It was among the first shopping malls to open after Singapore’s post-colonial construction boom. About to be demolished, it will linger only in the memories of those whose lives were connected to it. I went to bid it a final farewell.
