SINGAPORE - Personal stories of subway passengers around the world - from a Singaporean talking about being in an interracial relationship, to an Austrian man reflecting on old age - have been syncopated against the music of trains, station announcements and footsteps in an immersive installation at the National Museum of Singapore.
The video and audio footage, shown on large multi-channel screens at the Life Underground exhibition, comes from French artist-film-maker Herve Cohen's ongoing interactive web documentary of the same name. Often, resonances can be found between stories on adjacent screens - a video of an elderly woman in Belgium recalling a lost love, for example, might run alongside one by a Japanese teenager talking about his crush.
"I'm always curious, when I travel in a foreign country, to discover it by taking the subway," says Cohen, 55, whose show is part of the ongoing Voilah! France Singapore Festival.
Since 2016, his project has taken him into the subways of 18 cities, including Singapore - which he says was not the easiest place to film in.
"It's not like Los Angeles or Santiago, where people want to talk and are super-outgoing. In Singapore, people are more private."
Still, his interviews with MRT passengers in Singapore - like those in other countries - are surprisingly revealing.
"I had so many people open up to me in a way I would never have imagined," says Cohen, who has an assistant with him during the interviews. "My guess is that it's because they don't know me and may not see me again. People need to talk and I'm ready to listen."
The project, which was originally intended as a feature-length documentary, has received funding from the French ministry of culture as well as the various subways, whom he contacted with the help of the International Association of Public Transport.
There is one question Cohen asks every time: "Could you share a dream that you had recently during your sleep and that stayed with you?"
This has yielded some provoking answers. Erick, a Guatemalan migrant in Los Angeles, dreamt that someone had shot him in the ribs. Syrian refugee Amjad, plagued with worry in Berlin, dreams about his parents every night.
Some people in the documentary left a particularly deep impression on Cohen. They include Lily, a 90-year-old woman in Brussels with a gold cane and kindly smile who spoke of a love affair she had with an American soldier she met during World War II. They wrote letters to each other, but the relationship did not work out. She never married.
Cohen, who hopes to expand the Life Underground web documentary to include areas such as India and the Middle East, says the project is about encouraging people to be curious about others, to look around. "Maybe they can do that when they are on the subway, instead of being deep into their phones. My dream is to have people realise that we share more than the things that divide us."
Ms Wong Hong Suen, the National Museum of Singapore's Deputy Director (Curatorial and Programmes), adds that Cohen's work "reminds us that beneath the surface, humanity is connected and that we are each members of a global urban community".
VIEW IT/LIFE UNDERGROUND
WHERE: National Museum of Singapore, Gallery10, 93 Stamford Road
WHEN: Tomorrow (Oct 9) to Oct 31, from 10am to 5pm. There will be a talk by Herve Cohen tomorrow (Oct 9) from 7.30pm to 8.30pm
ADMISSION: Free. Register for Wednesday's (Oct 9) talk at lifeunderground.peatix.com/ ($5 per person, limited spaces available)
INFO: Visit nationalmuseum.sg/our-exhibitions/exhibition-list/life-underground (immersive exhibition) and life-underground.com (Life Underground interactive web documentary)
