Along East Coast Road, you'll find a giant mural of a turtle painted on the side of a shophouse. "Katong" refers not only to the leatherback turtle, but to the rippling effect of the sea mirage. In the not-so-distant past, turtles came to lay their eggs in Katong. How might we remember Katong amidst its ongoing development and land reclamation, and how can we travel through our memories?

Join long-time Katong resident and educator Dr Angelia Poon as she takes us on an unconventional walking tour that focuses on the natural and personal history of the neighbourhood. Pairing the walk with poetry readings about Katong, you’ll be invited into Angelia’s personal stories of growing up in Katong and explore how we foster kinship with the natural environment through our memories. 

From where the shoreline used to sit, to the family bakeries that have given way to hipster cafes, and the rain trees that remain along Ceylon Road, you'll learn how to travel in place without ever leaving your neighbourhood.

The walk is inspired by the book Making Kin: Ecofeminist Essays from Singapore.

About Angelia Poon
Angelia Poon teaches Literature at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. Her research interests include postcolonial theory and contemporary Anglophone literature with a focus on issues pertaining to globalization as well as gender, class, and racial subjectivities. She co-edited Singapore Literature and Culture: Current Directions in Local and Global Contexts (Routledge, 2017) and Writing Singapore: An Historical Anthology of Singapore Literature (NUS Press, 2009). A firm supporter of Literature in schools, she has also co-edited two poetry collections for students, Little Things (Ethos Books, 2013) and Poetry Moves (Ethos Books, 2020).