用镜头寻找身份认同的新加坡摄影师

For years, Sim Chi Yin had felt unique, if out of place, within her family. Since starting out at Singapore’s The Straits Times in 2001, and later switching careers to become a full-time photographer, she never seemed to gain their approval.

多年来，沈绮颖(Sim Chi Yin)一直觉得自己是家中的异数，甚至有些不合时宜。自从2001年，她开始在新加坡的《海峡时报》做记者开始，直至后来改行成了全职摄影师，她似乎从未得到家人的认可。

“The fact that I go into gold mines or get myself into dangerous situations as a journalist, they think of that as, ‘Why do you want to do that to yourself? That’s just asking for trouble,’” she said. “I have a bit of a streak of activism and kind of a sense of social justice.”

“我做记者的时候，冒着危险到金矿去采访，他们觉得，‘你为什么要这样对待自己，这是自讨苦吃，’”她说。“我只是有一些行动精神和一点社会正义感。”

To most in her profession this might sound noble. But it takes on the opposite meaning in an apolitical family such as her own.

对于大多数这个行业内的人来说，这种行为堪称高尚。但是对于不关心政治的家人来说——比如她的家人——这其中的意义完全相反。

And you can understand why.

其中的原因不难理解。

In 1949, her grandfather, Shen Huansheng, a school principal and chief editor for the leftist Ipoh Daily newspaper, became a “Communist martyr.” A monument in Gaoshang with the inscription, “The tomb of martyr Shen Huansheng” proves it. But Ms. Sim never knew about much of his life until seven or eight years ago, when her mother showed her a photograph of him with a twin-lens reflex camera. The sight of the mysterious photograph led Ms. Sim, who grew up in Singapore but lives in China, to start asking questions.

沈绮颖的祖父沈焕盛是一位学校校长，亦是左翼报纸《保怡日报》(Ipoh Daily)的主编，1949年，他成了“共产主义烈士”。在（中国广东省）诰上村，有一块纪念碑上刻着“烈士沈焕盛之墓”，可以证明这段历史。但是沈绮颖对他的生平知之甚少，直到七八年前，她妈妈把他的一张手拿双镜头照相机的照片给她看。这张神秘的照片指引着在新加坡长大的沈绮颖去追寻答案，如今她定居中国。

In 2011, her uncle handed her a yellow piece of paper with an address and phone number. She cold-called the number. On the other end of the line, her relatives in China answered.

2011年，叔父给了她一张泛黄的纸页，上面有一个地址和一个电话。她拨了这个号码，电话那头是她的中国亲戚们。

“Hi, I’m Shen Huansheng’s granddaughter,” she told them. “And they were like, ‘What? After 62 years, who are you? Are you, like, a cheat?’”

“嗨，我是沈焕盛的孙女，”她说。“他们说，‘什么，这都是62年前的事了，你到底是谁，你是骗子吧？’”

But when they quizzed her about her father and his siblings, she passed the test and arranged a she arrived, members of the family “were bursting with stories” about her grandfather, who grew up in British Malaya but had gone back to support the “New China.” But in 1948, at the start of the Malayan Emergency, he was arrested, either for writing anticolonial editorials or for being suspected of helping secure funds for the Malayan Communist Party’s armed insurgency.

但他们问了她父亲和父亲的兄弟姊妹的事情，她通过了“测试”，于是去了中国访问。一到那里，家庭成员们给她“讲了无数她祖父的故事”。他出生在英属马来亚，为了支持“新中国”而回到中国。但是1948年，在马来亚紧急状态(Malayan Emergency)伊始，他因为写国反殖民主义的政论，或是被怀疑为马来亚共产党武装力量募集资金而遭到逮捕。

He was given two choices: stay a prisoner in Malaya or be deported to his ancestral village in China. He chose the latter, promising to settle there first and then send for his family.

当局给了他两个选择：在马来亚坐牢，或是被逐回中国老家的村庄。他选择了后者，承诺先过去定居，之后接来家人。

But first, he joined the local Chinese Communist guerrilla army unit, which in 1949 ran into the Kuomintang. He was imprisoned and later executed. His wife and five children, all still in Malaya, did not learn of his death for another two years.

但是他一到那里，就加入了当地的中国共产党游击队，1949年，这支部队遇到了国民党军队，他被俘后遭到处决。他的妻子与五个孩子依然留在马来亚，两年后才得知他的死讯。

Heartbroken, Ms. Sim’s grandmother banned the mention of her husband, China, or Communism in her home.

沈绮颖的祖母悲痛欲绝，从此在家中禁止提起她的丈夫、中国与共产主义。

Ms. Sim, a member of VII who freelances for The New York Times and others, launched “Roots” to retrace her grandfather’s past and explore her family’s connection to the wider diaspora.

沈绮颖是七图片社(VII)的成员，并为《纽约时报》等媒体兼职拍摄照片，她开展了“根”(Roots)这个项目，寻觅祖父的过去，探索自己的家族与更广泛的移民社区的联系。

“To me, this search for my grandfather’s story is also about finding a sense of vindication of doing what I do and being the way I am,” she said.

“对于我来说，寻访祖父的故事也意味着为自己所做的事与自己所成为的人寻找意义，”她说。

She will continue her project with funding from the Asia Society’s ChinaFile. But, for now, fifteen of her photographs are included in a zine as part of a group project called “TwentyFifteen” — “Twenty” because there are 20 photographers and “Fifteen” because each zine contains 15 photographs. Launched by Singaporean photographers, the publications have been released one at a time over the past two years, in honor of Singapore’s 50th anniversary. All of the staff worked on the project for free.

她的项目得到了亚洲协会(Asia Society)的“中参馆”(ChinaFile)资金赞助，将会继续进行。不过目前，其中的15张照片已经被收录于一份杂志之中，这份杂志属于一个名为“TwentyFifteen”(20-15)的项目，“20”的意思是有20位摄影师参加，“15”的意思是每份杂志收录15张照片。这个项目由新加坡摄影师们发起，是为了纪念新加坡建国50周年，过去二年里，以每期推出一个人的方式发行。所有人都是免费为该项目工作。

Ms. Sim’s zine launched on September 5th.

沈绮颖的专刊将于9月5日发行。

“Over the last few years there have been a lot of Singaporean photographers who are doing quite well regionally as well as globally,” said Tay Kay Chin, who spearheaded “TwentyFifteen” along with Darren Soh. “And I thought the time is right for Singaporeans to photograph something close to their heart and share it with the rest of the world.”

“在过去几年里，很多新加坡摄影师在国内外都有出色的成绩，”摄影师郑家进(Tay Kay Chin)说，他和达伦·苏(Darren Soh)是“TwentyFifteen”的领军人物。“我觉得现在新加坡人应该多拍贴近自己心灵的东西，与全世界分享。”

Chow Chee Yong, who lives and teaches photography in Singapore, is one of the contributors. His “Senseless Spaces,” focuses on the evolution of buildings and landscapes in Singapore.

赵志勇（Chow Chee Yong，音译）现居新加坡，教授摄影，也是该项目的供稿人之一，他的作品“无意义的空间”(Senseless Spaces)关注新加坡建筑与景观的进化。

“I always enjoy shooting architecture and landscapes,” he said. “As such, I started noticing bits and pieces of buildings or spaces that have reconstructed, such that it looks kind of ridiculous.”

“我一直喜欢拍建筑和景观，”他说。“因此，我开始关注经过重建的建筑或空间上的细节，这样的东西看上去有些荒谬。”

One of the first spaces he shot was of a building with three steps, leading into a wall with no door, but several circular windows. “This is a common space where many people passed by,” he said. “However, to me, it just did not make sense. I started questioning, ‘Why are there steps? But, it does not lead to a door.’ As you can see, it is just basically senseless.”Bernice Wong, who submitted part of “School of Hard Knocks” for the zine released in March, looked at Singapore’s “urban poverty” through Mel, a single mother of seven.

他拍摄的第一批空间之一，是一座有三个台阶的建筑，台阶通往一座没有门，只有几扇圆形窗子的墙壁。“这是一个普通的空间，每天有很多人从这里经过，”他说。“但是我却觉得荒谬。我开始发问，‘为什么会有这些台阶？它们并不通往一扇门。’你可以看到，这是完全没有意义的。”伯妮丝·王(Bernice Wong，音译)为杂志带来了“沉重打击的学校”(School of Hard Knocks)，它是通过梅(Mel)，一位七个孩子的单亲妈妈的视角观察新加坡的“城市贫民区”。

“The impression that people have of Singapore is that of a first-world country, a very clean and green society, with little social ills,” she said. “But the fact is that like all developed countries, we have our fair share of social problems and a huge income inequality gap.”

“人们觉得新加坡是第一世界国家，是清洁的绿色社区，社会问题不多，”她说。“但事实是，和所有发达国家一样，我们也存在着大量社会问题，以及严重的收入不平衡现象。”

“The Land of My Heart” is the work of John Clang, a contemporary artist from Singapore now living in New York. In the ninth zine, issued last October, his work explores elements of time: the past conceptualized by text over image, the present shown through urban landscapes “in flux,” and the “constant” represented by “the Singapore Girl,” which he says has “always been the icon for Singapore.”

汪春龙(John Clang) 是一位新加坡当代艺术家，现居纽约，他为去年十月发行的第九期杂志提供了“我的心灵国土”(The Land of My Heart)这组作品。他的探索时间的成分：被图像的文字解说所定义的过去，以及通过都市景观的“流动”而呈现出来的现在；还有“新加坡女孩”(the Singapore Girl)这组作品中所反映出来的“常态”，他说，女孩们“一直都是新加坡的符号”。

One of his images shows a sculpture in front of a stark white building with three “Singapore Girls” surrounding it. Over one white row of balconies he wrote, “NO, SINGAPORE IS NOT CHINA.”

他的一幅照片是一栋纯白建筑前面的一座雕塑，有三个“新加坡女孩”围绕在它周围。在一排白色的阳台上，他写道，“不，新加坡不是中国。”

“We are constantly insecure about our identity,” said Mr. Clang. “It’s time we show the world who we are, and not what we have.”

“我们经常对自己的身份怀有不安全感，”汪春龙说。“现在我们应该向世界展现我们是谁，而不是我们拥有什么。”