one room flat

• Photographer
  Bob Lee Keng Siang, Malaysia
• Website
  http://

ONE ROOM FLAT
An intimate look at the lives of one-room flat dwellers in Singapore

A lone TV set, two mattresses, a rice-cooker, stove and an electric fan.
This is all 86-year-old Ham Lem Seng has in the one-room flat he calls home.
That's also the sum total of what he and his elderly flatmate posess.
You may find that kind of life a touch remote. But it is a life
replicated in many one-room flats islandwide.
There are about 4,000 lonely and often elderly people like Mr Ham in
Singapore. Like him, some did not marry. Others have lost their spouses.
They may be alone for an array of reasons but for most of them, the
end-point is the same: they spend their twilight years in one-room rental flats.
These self-contained units, which cost S$26 to S$36 a month to rent, are their world.
Among them, almost 2,200 are old people who are unable to work and have
no family support. They get by on monthly Public Assistance payments
from the Singapore Government.

Bob Lee Keng Siang is a photojournalist with a keen interest in people; his appreciation of the ordinary and his striking sense of empathy have enabled him to transform images of everyday life into insightful photographs. He has an acute sense for all things unusual. This trait -- honed over five years as a news photographer with the Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao and one and half years at my paper <<我报>> Singapore's first free chinese newspaper-- is apparent in his work.

Bob's images have caught the attention of many. His work was picked as the top Jurors' Choice in the recent Singapore Art Awards 2005. During the "ClickArt: World Photojournalists Meet" held in Singapore in 2003, he beat 200 over top photojournalists from 32 countries to clinch the top award in the "Behind the Scenes" category.

Bob's lens has illuminated numerous social issues that deserve our attention. In his most recent social documentary photographic exhibition " One Room Flat" held in December 2004, he offered an intimate look at the grim living conditions of one-room flat elderly dwellers, reminding Singaporeans of this group of poor, forgotten elderly living right within our community.
In 2003, he trained his lens on two lesser-known communities in Singapore and produced a fascinating insight to the close-knit communities of the Sikhs and Jews. That was his first solo exhibition, entitled "Have a Little Faith". It was sponsored by the Central Singapore Community Development Council and was exhibited in the Singapore History Museum .

He has since compiled selected works from the two above mentioned exhibitions and published two photography books.