Singapore hawker centres in ink and wash, before they change.
by Wei Lin Tan·🇸🇬Singapore, Singapore
Photographs of mail sent by Hawker Ink
A monthly ink-and-wash drawing of a specific hawker stall, drawn on site over two or three visits, with a written account of the stall, what it sells, how long it has been there and who runs it. Several stalls drawn in the first two years have since closed, which has quietly turned the project into a record rather than a sketchbook. Sent as an A4 print plus two postcards of details from the same drawing.
One per calendar month, from the creator
August 2026 · just now
Of the 47 stalls drawn since 2022, eleven have now closed. Three of them this year.
I have started asking permission to photograph as well as draw, and to record a short interview where the owner is willing. None of that goes in the mail — it goes to the National Archives, which have agreed to take the lot.
What went out, month by month
Forty-one years at the same stall. Drawn over three mornings before the queue built.
The sock-filter coffee setup, drawn in the fifteen minutes before it got busy.
A stall that closed six weeks after this was drawn. The drawing is now the only record I know of.
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