Youth.SG knows one man who has documented a series of postcards that he sent to his ex lover. These postcards are now compiled into a book. Meet the artist, han, and get to know more on why and what compelled him to do this.Titled the sky i wish to share with you, this limited edition book comes in only 500 copies, each signed and numbered by han himself. The beginning was the end, as han had put it, because when the couple broke up, he started sending the postcards, the first dating back to 2005.

Initially, his postcards were photos of the sky. These showed Qiao Ling, his ex lover, how beautiful the sky was from where he stood at Sheares Bridge.

As time went by, he realised he had more things to say beyond what his pictures of the sky could express. Given the time that they had spent together was not long, he felt that there were still so many more things they could have done together. His postcards then took on numerous subject matters of what went on in his everyday life to illustrate his life and emotional state.  The pictures depicted what they could have done and experienced together, from a holiday in Tioman to a flash flood close to where he was staying.

In one of the postcards taken in eastern Singapore, a lone plane flies across the bright blue sky. His note to Qiao Ling was as simple as the picture, but not any less thought-provoking.

“Qiao Ling. Theres one every five mins. Imagine how many backpackers on this plane? Hmm.”

Sending these postcards started as something that he had wanted to do for a friend, but it developed gradually, and soon he adopted it as his personal project. Eventually, he asked to borrow the set of postcards he had sent her and photographed each one against white paper. His story of unrequited longing emerged in the form of an art book. His work was submitted for the 2008 Singapore International Photography Festival and was featured in the competition.

THE SKY I WISH TO SHARE WITH YOU

The project being a personal one, han took it on himself to fund the book. When we complimented him on how beautiful the colours of his photographs were, he recalled one point where the printers were not quite happy with how particular he was with the colours: "I actually sat down with the printer person to make sure the colours of the pictures in the book were almost same to the original pictures."

His main objective is to get people more aware of the different forms of art, and breathe life into these forgotten ways.

“Postcards are a lost form of art, and I feel that people should still photograph things in film, then print them out,” said han. “As one day we might forget the feeling of touching a print, and how a print might look like, because we’ve got all these new technology devices. Digital prints can always be so perfect and never age. But prints would age with us.”

Some things don’t disappear, they just stay out of sight. If you look hard enough, they are there. Look around you. What do you see? JC

PHOTOS: HAN

the sky I wish to share with you is available at Polymath & Crust (86 Club Street) and Cat Socrates (03-39B Bras Basah Complex)