Everyday Pilgrimage

Everyday Pilgrimage captures the familiar moment of everyday Singaporeans. Seen from below, a crowd ascends an escalator heading towards the Bukit Panjang MRT gantry after a long day, commuters in a collective ritual marking the transition from work back towards home. The title deliberately gives significance to this routine, transforming the daily commute into a modern-day pilgrimage, a journey imbued with unspoken sighs and weight.

Here the photograph documents the moment in between work and home. The journey's end is in sight, but the arrival remains invisible. The movement embodies the duality of urban existence; a shared purpose in the slow and steady climb, yet profound anonymity within the mass. Each figure hidden in high-contrast black and white becomes part of a singular form, a community of worn-out workers, carried along by the currents of routine, stability, and financial expectation. The low angle crowds them together, like a herd moving slowly, yet also directs their gaze upwards, towards an unseen destination of a better life, status, or simply the sanctuary of their own home.

The placement of lights along the escalator walls takes on an almost spiritual quality, reminiscent of temple or church lighting, further reinforcing the ritualistic metaphor. They give a kind of sacredness in this ordinary moment, elevating the ordinary to become a totem of capitalist spirituality, of hard work driven by meritocratic values.

Everyday Pilgrimage serves as a poignant homage to the fatigue we carry into this daily ritual, inviting viewers to recognise themselves in this majestic climb. In our own everyday pilgrimages, where are we truly heading? Is the destination worth the journey? Whilst the image doesn't offer easy answers, it gives permission for us to reflect on our own professional and vocational pursuits. For that melancholic beauty and critical contemplation of the paths we tread, day in and day out, just before we arrive at the gantry.