Project Outline:

For this dérive assignment, I was tasked to create a psychogeographical map and soundscape based on a chosen location—without prior research—to experience it through personal observation, emotion, and movement. The final outcome had to be an A3 visual map with at least five images and text, accompanied by a 3-minute audio track that reflects the atmosphere of the journey.

This dérive project led me through Joo Chiat Road, where I documented my journey through spontaneous observations, ambient sound recordings, and quick photographic captures. Instead of treating the Peranakan Houses as the main destination, I focused on the in-between moments—street vendors arranging produce, casual conversations outside shops, worn tiles, stacked boxes, hanging signage, and everyday textures that define the neighbourhood’s lived reality.

Inspired by the idea of collecting memories, I designed the final A3 map as a sticker book/scrapbook collage, where each cut-out element feels like something picked up along the walk, pasted down like a visual diary entry. Paired with a 3-minute ambient soundscape, the piece invites viewers to experience Joo Chiat not as a postcard tourist spot, but as a layered, lived-in space made up of human fragments, sounds, and fleeting encounters.