Remnants, part of Sim Chi Yin’s ongoing project One Day We’ll Understand, takes us on a journey through traces of hidden histories. The work presents an unspoken archive of the Malayan Emergency, an undeclared war between the British colonial government and the resistance led by the Malayan leftists in the post-World War II period of independence movements. This was the longest conflict Britain fought after the War, but officially it was called an “emergency.” Tens of thousands were labelled “bandits” and “communist terrorists” by the state. They were detained without trial, jailed or deported.

The artist’s paternal grandfather was among the deported and was subsequently executed. In the 60 years since the family learnt of his death, he was never again spoken of again. Just as this trauma has sat quietly within the artist’s family, it is also deeply embodied in society, along with many other ghosts from this war. These are the starting points of One Day We’ll Understand, through which Sim questions if the consequences and legacies of colonialism have been reckoned with and reflected upon, and if global politics today is still informed or misinformed by unfinished, unexamined dreams of empire.

In Remnants, Sim shows unembellished photographs of belongings of the former leftists juxtaposed with evocative landscapes, opening a discussion on the subjectivities of history. While these objects are recognisable as articles of war and struggle, they are also items of daily use and represent the unrecorded stories, songs and memories of that war. These still-life subjects are contrasted with the landscapes that are staged by Sim. The landscapes possess a cinematic, aesthetic quality that evokes spatial haunting and the absent presences around sites of the Malayan Emergency. These are places which are imbued with memories both known and unknown.