Teo Xiao Ting

We begin with the story of two birds: the sociable weaver, and the kampung chicken. A sociable weaver’s nest often resembles the hollowed-out husk of a coconut, a dense and delicate lattice of grasses and leaves stitched together by beak. As fledglings, these industrious little creatures spend a good deal of their time poking and pulling strands of grass and blades of leaf through any holes they can find.

In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am I am what is missing. When I walk I part the air and always the air moves in to fill the spaces where my body’s been. We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole. Keeping Things Whole, Mark Strand As a young first-generation migrant, I sometimes felt fettered by my over-dutiful nature and fatigued by my tendency to hyper-empathise.

“Small Hours of the Night” opens on a young man smoking a cigarette. Half cast in shadow, he cuts a pensive, enigmatic figure. Two unhurried minutes pass before he notices another person nearby. Without pleasantries, but not unkindly, like he has been expecting the arrival of someone familiar, he invites them to sit down. His eyes linger on them, and he breaks his gaze only when offscreen, a hesitant female voice ventures: “You know, I know we have a very good relationship.