6.9, by Amrita Chandradas - Invisible Photographer Asia (IPA)

Many Singaporeans are perplexed and challenged to adapt to such a rapidly evolving environment. Locals watched their skyline change dramatically, their social landscape change to include foreign voices that sometimes seem like they drown out their own. This complex cataclysmic adaptation to an ever changing home, constantly picking up in pace, ever faster, leaves many tired, discouraged and falling behind. A Singaporean looks over the skyline of her home, a home that was not the same yesterday and may not be the same tomorrow.

They are few, but some have chosen not to change and move forward with their surroundings. They are the inhabitants of the last village of Singapore, Kampong Buangkok. For almost 60 years, Awin Bin Yudin has resided in the village together with his wife Salmah and their six kids.

Nek Nek Lisa resides in the last village of Singapore. She has dementia. Her daughter moved back to take care of her, claiming that moving her mother to a modern flat would lead to even greater memory loss.

87% of Singaporeans resides in HDB (Housing Development Board) estates. The room sizes vary according to price. Today, with the population rising, some couples have to wait 4 to 5 years before moving into their new homes. Most Singaporeans spend their entire lives paying for their house.

An expat office worker, looking out at the modern private housing from his luxurious office space. He has never visited the indoor of a public housing (HDB), despite living in Singapore for the past three years.

Domestic Filipino workers resting at the park located right behind Ngee Ann city mall on their only rest day, which falls on a Sunday. Most of them travel and work at Singapore with hopes to better the living situation of their families and relatives back in Philippines. Over the years, there is an influx of Filipinos working in Singapore taking up jobs that seem less attractive to Singaporeans, however their growing presence have caused many anxious Singaporeans to behave in a xenophobic manner towards them, some examples to note of are online blogs created to rouse anti-‐foreigner sentiments usually targeted towards them.

Liyana Sungep, 27 year old a white collared working Singaporean ponders at the changes made to the horizon of Singapore while on her way back home from work.

Mohammed Samsuri lives in a 45 sq. meter flat, which accommodates him, his wife and their six children. Unemployed due to his lack of education, he worries about the new population boom and the resulting competition for work. He is pictured here with three of his sons outside their flat.

"On the day I buried her, they told me she only had ten years left in her grave. How can I accept this? We are living ghosts in a ghost city.” SA pictured here in the foreground of Marina bay skyline, lost her mother to cancer recently .She quietly protests on protecting spaces for deceased loved ones instead of celebrating recent man-‐made futuristic monuments. Lee Hsien Long (Late Lee Kuan Yew’s son, now current prime minister of Singapore declared in a rally speech during August 2005 that the gardens by the bay (part of the Marina bays sands project) to be the national icon of Singapore, however other Singaporeans have disagreed and commented that other establishments with a richer history and nostalgic meaning should be made into national icons of Singapore.

Gravedigger exhuming a grave at Bukit Brown Cemetery. This is the largest Chinese Municipal Cemetery outside of China, housing 100,000 tombs. It is the main resting place for the pioneers who built Singapore's economy. The government has proposed to demolish a part of this cemetery to build an eight-‐lane highway and future high-‐rise buildings.

A gravedigger’s job is considered to be an inauspicious one, there are very few of them left in Singapore, due to the superstitious perspective towards this job. A gravedigger could take up to three hours to exhume a grave and conduct the appropriate rituals for the process. However due to time constraints and a time line to meet, mass exhumations are conducted with machines on unclaimed graves.

Descendant Dr.Lim visiting his ancestor, he has 7 direct ancestors buried at Bukit Brown and worries about the lost of connection and nostalgia as this cemetery is to be given away to modern development.

A local elderly musician taking a cigarette break at Bukit Brown cemetery during the Chinese Ghost Month festival widely celebrated by Taoist and Chinese folk religion believers. The instruments he plays are a part of a ritual known to appease the restless souls of the dead.

Taoist priests are believed to be able to collect restless souls. These priests perform a ritual for the souls displaced by the exhumation process at Bukit Brown Cemetery. The souls are then sent to the sea, for their rebirth. As the modern mindset has taken over, traditional ancestral worship has dwindled.

Singapore has progressed from third to first world within the last 40 years. What has been compromised in that process? The dead are being moved, traditions are slowly phasing out, buildings are getting taller, spaces are more constrained, xenophobia is on the rise and the future is just getting harder.

By the year of 2030, the government aims to increase the Singaporean population to 6.9 million by gathering more foreigners into the country, due to an ageing local population and dwindling birth rates. Progression comes with a price. As a Singaporean, I chose to go home and document the different paradigms of these changes. Dabbling with this complex issue, I unravel the various voices of the people residing in Singapore through their presented realities.

*** A work in progress till 2030. 5 images from this series was featured on Magnum photos blog and won the 30 under 30 documentary photographers by Magnum photos ***