Holding Time Gently

The conceptual and emotional foundation of Holding Time Gently was co-shaped with themes gleaned from our conversations with clients on legacy. A common thread ran through them: the profound importance of family and family as a metaphor for continuity, trust, and care across generations. Legacy was often expressed not only in terms of wealth, but also in terms of the values our clients wished to pass down, such as resilience, humility, and a sense of rootedness.
 
This resonated strongly with the artist’s practice, which explores the oft-overlooked and the mundane. In Holding Time Gently, the domestic setting of the shophouse became a vessel through which these ideals could be made tangible. It allowed the mapping of private intergenerational stories, each anchored in a specific historical era, into a single shared architecture. There is thematic clarity but also emotional texture, a reminder that sometimes the most powerful form of connection is shared in the silence/time held gently between generations.

1920s – Elder Artist
He represents the foundational figure, an individual whose creative labour supports the family and whose hands record memory and emotion through art. His presence honours the quiet sacrifices of earlier generations who built a world for others to flourish in and hints at a future generation filled with hope and possibilities.

1940s – War-era Chef
He symbolises survival, resourcefulness, and nurturing through food—all the ways in which love is made tangible in the face of adversity. His rhythmic, grounded actions embody a generational resilience that still resonates.

1960s – Post Independence Tailor
She captures the ethics of mending, adapting, and providing, stitching the next generation’s future together. Her presence evokes the care woven through every family ritual, no matter how small.

1980s – Modern Homemaker
She reflects an era of aspiration, where balancing modern domestic work with familial devotion became the new normal. Her folded laundry and warm household gestures remind us of the unseen labour that sustains a family’s daily rhythm.

2000s – Tech Savvy Student
She embodies the contemporary pressure to excel, yet still grounds herself in small acts of care: a tissue offered, a glance up from the screen, bridging generational traditions while navigating rapid change.

2020s – Eco-conscious Parent
He represents a redefinition of familial care that thinks about sustainability and the future with both pragmatic and emotional attentiveness. His gestures show how family values adapt to new global challenges while remaining rooted in love.

2050s – Future Archivist Child
She is a poetic symbol of continuity and possibility, and archives memory through a holographic lens while still reaching back for human touch. Her character suggests that even as technology evolves, the essence of family, closeness, tenderness, and remembrance, endures.

In Holding Time Gently, the mise en scène is deliberately designed with symbolic depth: a hand-cranked sewing machine, an enamel spice tin, a jam jar. These are not random period indicators, but memory cues. They speak of labour, intimacy, and generational rhythms. The tailor’s thread unspools across time, while the old radio playing in the corner references a shared soundscape that once tethered strangers together across domestic boundaries. Even the Future Archivist’s holographic gestures mimic traditional acts of sorting, preserving, and passing on, echoing what elders have done with fabric, food, and stories.
 
The shophouse setting is central. It functions as a memory architecture, a container of layered histories echoing the lived-in, evolving spaces many (early) Singaporeans have grown up in. It allows each character to inhabit their own temporal zone while sharing spatial proximity. The house becomes a palimpsest—walls bear silent witness to change, shadows stretch across timelines, and the creak of a wooden stair hints at footsteps past and future.

For Holding Time Gently, the process began with listening intently and over time. There is a desire to express legacy not as something monumental, but intimate. From there, the artist envisioned the shophouse as both a literal space and a symbolic vessel housing seven characters from different eras, where each embody gestures of care and continuity.
 
The execution was layered and iterative. From location, art direction and casting to the choreography of movement and sound, each decision had to balance authenticity with atmosphere. One pivotal challenge was how to ensure each character felt real and grounded, while still functioning as part of a broader temporal tapestry. The solution was found through a blend of documentary and staged elements, inviting the performers to embody gestures that felt natural to them, while allowing light and sound to guide the emotional pacing.

For Holding Time Gently, the creation process blends traditional cinematic storytelling with contemporary digital tools to evoke an emotionally layered, time-traversing experience. The following techniques and tools were employed to realise the immersive, multi-sensory installation:
 
Cinematography and camera work
Camera system: A high-resolution cinema camera was used to render deep blacks and fine dynamic range, as well as subtle chiaroscuro effects and period-specific lighting moods.

Framing and blocking: Each character was framed using theatrical tableau compositions, referencing Renaissance paintings and baroque staging, as well as actual archival photographs of Singapore through the generations. Selected static shots were also stitched together to create panoramic spatial continuity across eras.
 
Video stitching and layering
Different compositing software programmes were used to stitch the seven character narratives into a continuous, looping digital fresco. This stitching required careful masking and roto-scoping to create seamless transitions.

Temporal blending: In the archival footage within the scene of the futuristic individual, motion overlays and soft temporal fades were used to allow gestures to rise and dissolve gently, mimicking memory recall.
 
Digital matte painting and set extension
Scene augmentation: Certain architectural elements like Peranakan tiles, staircases, or antique furniture were digitally extended or enhanced to create continuity within the historical shophouse interior.

Atmospheric depth: Volumetric lighting and particle simulations (such as dust, mist, and ambient glow) were rendered to suggest a memoryscape rather than a fixed time or place.
 
Sound design integration
Although the sound was developed as a separate compositional layer, the video timeline was meticulously constructed to sync with generational audio cues, creating an embodied audiovisual rhythm. Subtle sound-reactive visuals, such as the rustling of fabric, a floorboard creaking, or a flicker of ambient light, respond organically to shifts in the soundscape. This allowed the installation to feel sonically alive, with time not only passing but also pulsing. Sound artist Jian Han approached the soundscape like an emotional cartographer, mapping intergenerational textures through field recordings, analogue synths, and archival material.
 
Each character is accompanied by a microcosmic sound environment: the distant hum of a radio for the 1920s painter; the sizzle and rhythm of mortar-pounding spices for the 1940s chef; and the gentle whirr of a sewing machine for the 1960s tailor. These are not literal Foley sounds, but audio that was abstracted and layered to evoke emotional memory rather than documentary realism.
 
Colour grading and mood building
Each era was treated with its own tonal palette such as sepia browns for the 1920s, washed-out grain for post-war scenes, and iridescent cooler hues for the 2050s. The Look Up Tables (LUTs) were layered and hand-tuned to reflect each decade’s cinematic texture while maintaining visual harmony.
 
- Time as material: The digital format allowed for real-time looping, slow-motion layering, and simultaneous yet asynchronous movements, conveying the idea that time is not linear but layered.
 
- Memory archiving motif: The Future Archivist’s interaction with holographic interfaces was modelled using motion-tracked animation and light overlays to simulate a memory archiving system that is part oracle, part observer.

In Holding Time Gently, chiaroscuro techniques borrowed from classical paintings are employed within the digital frame to heighten contrast and guide attention. Light is used sparingly, often sculptural, to define a subject’s emotional interior, such as the solitary glow illuminating the 1920s painter’s canvas or the slant of afternoon light passing across the folded laundry in the 1980s homemaker’s space.  These are not stage lights; they are emotional cues. The darkness is not a void, but the presence of time, absence, and memory.
 
Dimensionality is enhanced through layered planes within the frame. Subjects are often separated spatially by corridors, windows, or overlapping thresholds. The use of shadow subtly modulates these separations, giving depth and tactility to the composite. Flickers of passing shadows, like a curtain shifting or a figure briefly obscured, create the feeling of something transient, unseen yet deeply felt.

Lead creative agency
Stellaire Pte. Ltd. - Harmin Kaur & Mahika Shenoy
 
Artistic direction and production
Visual Artist / Director - Sarah Choo Jing 
Producer - Soh Hui Min 
Director of Photography - Charles He 
Production Designer - Michelle Cheong 
Gaffer - Reuel Yeo
Music Composer - Ding Jian Han 
Costume Designer - Rena Kok
Editor - Mathias Choo
Colorist - Joel Chew
  
Production crew
Production Runner - Ang Jason
Production Assistant - Fok En Yi
First Camera Assistant - Ashraf Arifin
Camera Intern - Aleeya Mysara Binte Kamis
DMX Operator - Abdul Fattah
Grip - Dragon Neil Wesley
Junior Grip - Zulhilmi Adam
Art Assistants - Arendayen Abegail Loreno, Amanda Cheng, Clarice The
Hair and Makeup Artist - Leny Fu, Kelly Lau, Adelene Siow
BTS Videographer - Lau Kin Leung
 
Cast
Elder Artist (Musician/Painter) (1920s) - Abdul Halim
War-Era Chef (1940s) - Peter Teo
Post-Independence Tailor (1960s) - Pu Guoming
Eco-Conscious Parent (2025) - David Oh Zhu Yu
Modern Homemaker (1980s) - Rebecca Wong
Tech-Savvy Student (2000s) - Lisa Pereira
Future Archivist Child (2050s) - Nur Amel Ezzah binte Mohammad Effendy
 
Film and equipment support
True Color Media 
 
Exhibition design
Dezign Format

Sarah Choo Jing (b. 1990, Singapore) is an interdisciplinary artist working with photography, video, and installation. Her work explores contemporary urban life, solitude, and the uncanny.
 

Choo earned her MFA from the Slade School of Art in 2015 and is based in Singapore. She was recently commissioned by Maison Valentino for the Soho House Residency at Singapore Art Week 2024. Her accolades include the Lumen Prize for Art and Technology (2021), 3rd Place in the Women United Art Prize (2023), and finalist spots for the 29th IVFA Awards (2024) and Audemars Piguet Art Commission (2020). She also received the ICON De Martell Cordon Bleu Photography Award and Kwek Leng Joo Prize for Excellence in Still Photography (2013).
 
Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as the Asian Art Museum (San Francisco, 2023), Turku Art Museum (Helsinki, 2019), National Museum of Singapore (2017), and Busan Museum of Art (Korea, 2016). She has also shown at Art Paris (Grand Palais, 2015), START Art Fair (Saatchi Gallery, 2015), and Photo London (Somerset House, 2015). Her works are in the collections of the Chrysler Museum of Art, Singapore Art Museum, National Museum of Singapore, and The Arts Club Permanent Art Collection (London).