Forging national identity through iconic landscapes: Poetic cartography of Edwin Thumboo

Abstract

Landscapes, both natural and built, however timeless they may appear, like the evolving nature of identity, evolve, and even those few structures which are retained for heritage value are subject to periods of prominence in historical periods. As a practice in planning, design, management, and nurturing of the built and natural environment, landscape is closely connected to national identity. It is invested with cultural processes and is therefore, a discursive construct through mediations and meditations. It is not only a geographical but also an aesthetic concept produced through memories, visualizations, imaginations and myriad modalities such as painting, poetry, prose, photography and the like. Landscape becomes an affective bond between people and the land and is therefore, an icon of identity. This paper investigates how the evolving landscape of the city-state of Singapore reflects the evolving national identity of Singapore from being a Third-World shipping and manufacturing centre to being a Global city of finance, knowledge and innovation, on into the cyber present. It investigates how the evolution is reflected in the poems of the Singaporean poet, Edwin Thumboo, an eye-witness poet-cartographer who has lived through the times and has witnessed the momentous changes in the city-state.