The year was 2000 when an unprecedented outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) in Singapore claimed the lives of five children. Professor Poh Chit Laa, then a researcher at National University of Singapore, felt herself grieving with a mother who lost two children to the disease. She…
In 1994, I was playing the trombone on the main stage in a cruise ship somewhere on the Caribbean Sea. I was playing with the 5th Dimension, a pop/soul/R&B band that had its biggest hits almost 30 years earlier. While performing, I was flooded with emotion from a long-lost memory.
Most people…
Professor Yuka Fujimoto lived in Japan until she was 12, and then continued her schooling in Malaysia. By age 16, she moved to Australia and found herself as one of the few Asian students in her grade at a high school in the countryside of Toowoomba. “People didn’t understand why I ate rice,” she…
Park benches are an everyday feature in most parts of the world. Typically, they offer respite for tired legs, a momentary break from the office or a moment’s rest while the children burn-off excess energy. You might not think of them as the basis for art but for Professor Matthew Sansom, they have…
