You are invited to be a part of the next phase of City Shrines: Paper Pinwheel Project. It was something that I had started since late 2011, and I may have shared the ideas with some of you.

I started working on this project at SEED festival, making 289 paper pinwheels over a weekend exhibition, having one-on-one conversations with visitors as I made the pinwheels in the space. Some even joined in, and made a couple of pinwheels themselves.

Following that, I listed a few places that I wanted to “remember” and plant these pinwheels. I also took stories from my parents and family, and added those places to the list. I went on to plant the pinwheels at these locations, and photographed them.

Since then, a website has been in development – where these photographs could be uploaded and geo-tagged, so that it would end up consolidated on a map of Singapore. (Think Google maps and the pin drops)

The next stage is very exciting. I partnered Pamela Ng, and now an exhibition is in order for May, in a bedroom of an apartment in River Valley.

Essentially, City Shrines: Paper Pinwheel Project looks at remembering place. Responding to the rapid development of Singapore, and how places are so often, so quickly redeveloped, City Shrines: Paper Pinwheel Project acknowledges the ephemeral nature of our attachment to Place in Singapore, and the transient quality of these spaces. City Shrines: Paper Pinwheel Project aims to consolidate a collection of memories, and hence identities as opposed to what seems to be the perpetual search for a collective identity.

I am inviting you to join me in this project. From now till May, make a pinwheel and plant one yourself. Send me a photo along with the exact address of the place.

More than that make a date with someone. It could be a friend or someone you don’t know. Make a pinwheel with them, and plant it together with them. Tell them your stories. Listen to theirs. Send me a photo along with the exact address of the place.

Make a date with 3 people. Make a date with more. Encourage them to take another friend.

This project has continually evolved since the first ideas, and it is in collaboration that it’s taking shape and discovering different possibilities in and around it. This is but one of the next stages of this work, and I am hoping to develop it for different cities, with different artists, with different outcomes. I hope you will say yes and partner me in this process, and be part of building this body of work together.

Please feel free to ask me any questions, discuss possibilities, and pass this on to someone who you think might be interested to come on board City Shrines: Paper Pinwheel Project.

Jamie