Singaporean. Based in Iceland.
Colours in
Icelandic
Hvítur er einkennisbúningur.
Ég þarf að vera í hvítum skyrtum með stuttbuxum og svo seinna buxum í 4 ár.
Þess vegna er ég ekki í buxum lengur.
Hvítur bolur er allt í lagi.
Hvítur er óhreinn því að það er erfitt að halda hreinu.
Gulur er heilagur.
Það er líka æskan mín sem ég man eftir að ganga á fjöru um sólsetur.
Gulur er búddismi.
Mér finnst appelsínugulur góður.
Og rauður því að munkaklæði eru með svipaða liti.
Ég held að það er ástæðan að ég er með svo margir appelsinugulur skyrtur.
Appelsinugulur er líka hrísgrjónaakrar, eða nálegt þeim.
Mig langar að láta af störfum og vera munkur sem sáir hrisgrjón.
Grænn er æska.
Ég ólst upp með mikið af grænum í sveitinni áður en íbúðir voru byggðar.
Mér finnst grár ekki góður út af því að það er litur steinsteypunnar sem tók æsku mína.
Thoughts
It’s been a long time since I spent time reminiscing about my childhood in Singapore, so being a part of COLOURS gave me a big wave of nostalgia when I was asked to participate. Translating the poem into Icelandic was a fun exercise for me and my partner as I had to ask him for help in some of the trickier translations. Certain words like 'uniform' (einkennisbúningur) are not as regularly used in Icelandic as they are in Singapore (Icelandic school don't have uniforms), giving him a view into aspects of my Singaporean childhood that he wasn’t previously aware of, and giving me a chance to recompose my own memories in the perspective of a now-adult.
Using TikTok to create the talking head video for COLOURS shows the contrast between nostalgic memories from the 90's and today’s most prolific and modern social media platforms. Some of my intended project matter was hampered by Iceland’s notoriously treasonous weather, so as much as I would have loved to show you beautiful and idyllic parts of Iceland, a particularly bad winter had other plans!
Cheryl Kara Ang is an Iceland-based film music supervisor who has spent the last five years consulting in the music business. She moved to Iceland in 2016 and is part of Iceland’s vibrant immigrant arts community. She regularly meets up with the close-knit community of fellow Singaporeans in Iceland and is vocal about immigrant representation in the Icelandic arts scene. Moving to Iceland gives her the opportunity to pursue hobbies that she could only have dreamed of in Singapore, such as figure skating, which she now does regularly.