Monumental Weddings: Wedding Portraits At National Monuments September 3, 2012

Monumental Weddings presents a collection of about 150 rare archival and contemporary wedding photographs taken at 34 of Singapore’s national monuments from the early twentieth century to the present. These unique images capture more than just couples on their wedding day - they also feature historic buildings which have earned a permanent position in the landscape of Singapore as preserved monuments. By dint of having been taken in or in the vicinity of these monuments, these photographs have become artefacts that reveal not only changes in wedding fashions, venues and photography, but also certain sociological and cultural trends and developments.

Broadly organized into four main segments interwoven with audio-visual memoirs, the exhibition highlights the characteristics of Early Wedding Photography in Singapore and the popularity of monuments as wedding venues, the origins and evolution of Mass Weddings on the island, the Ties that Bind monuments, communities and families together, and the distinct architectural features of our monuments that serve as Monumental Backdrops to wedding photos. Through four short films shot on location at the monuments, PMB presents a perspective of weddings as ‘personal landmarks’ framed against national monuments in which special histories of ordinary people lend to the buildings’ existing monumental histories.