Asia Journalist

Transit is a project based on the intra-city railway system in Singapore, the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT). Built in 1987, it is used by 2.8 million people daily. Using photography, the author paints a collective portrait of commuters, capturing the daily theatre that the eye fails to see. 

„As commuters today, we distract ourselves endlessly with our smartphones or iPads, to anaesthetise ourselves from the unnatural and uncomfortable experience of transit. We create private spaces for ourselves in the most public of spaces. 

As commuters, we observe an unspoken rule not to stare at each other’s misery. As a photographer, I broke that last rule twice over – I recorded the stare, and continue to be amazed by what the stare reveals“. (by Edwin Koo)

The book will be launched at the National Museum of Singapore on 7 April, 2015. 

http://www.transit.photo/#about

Kim Young-oh, the father of a Sewol ferry student victim, went on hunger strike for 46 days, emerging as an icon in the fight against repression in Korea. (by Jun Michael Park)

http://junmichaelpark.com/portfolio/essays/kim-young-oh-sewol-hunger-striker/

The tiny island nation of Nauru, an eight-square-mile speck of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, was once one of the richest countries in the world, with a phosphate industry accounting for 80% of its economy. But around the year 2000, everything changed. The phosphate that had enabled many to live in affluence at home, buy houses abroad and send their children to expensive boarding schools was running out. The island needed to reinvent itself urgently. (by Vlad Sokhin)

http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2015/no-way-nauru/