22 August 2025
Our neighbourhoods are so much more than streets and buildings – they are where we meet, dwell, and inscribe the stories of our lives. How different would our stories look without the backdrop that these estates provide, and how can we intentionally make room – both in our lived environments and in our lives – for the stories that our neighbourhoods have to tell?
Poet Theophilus Kwek, whose latest book draws on oral histories and family stories from the Commonwealth area, the researcher Cristina Nearing (SUTD) and community organiser Rebecca Toh (Casual Poet Library) in conversation about the stories we live, and the stories we live in. The event will start with a short poetry reading, followed by a sharing and discussion among the panellists – with questions welcome from attendees!
About the Speaker
Theophilus Kwek is a writer and editor. Two of his previous collections of poetry were shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize. In 2023, he was the youngest writer and first Singaporean to be awarded the Cikada Prize by the Swedish Institute, for poetry that ‘defends the inviolability of life’. His latest book COMMONWEALTH explores the stories of a community through the lens of family and oral histories.
Rebecca Toh is a photographer and the accidental founder of Casual Poet Library, a community-funded shared library situated in the heartlands of Singapore. Each of the library’s 180 shelves is rented and maintained by a different individual, while a roster of volunteer librarians take turns to keep the space open.
What started as a project about building a space for books became an unexpected adventure in building community and connections — Casual Poet Library began its life as a single tentative post on Instagram and became a reality in just three months, powered by a large group of passionate supporters who rolled up their sleeves and offered their time, skills and gifts, in whatever form they could afford.
Cristina Maria Nearing is an urban researcher at the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, based at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, where she works on projects such as the Placekeeping of the Rail Corridor. This project explores how public, private, and civic actors come together in the long-term management of the former railway lands.
In May 2025, Cristina presented From Proposal to Placekeeping: Collaborative Transformation of Singapore’s Rail Corridor at the Open Landscape Academy Symposium. The presentation explored what enables or constrains meaningful collaboration in Singapore’s context and reflected on the site’s earlier history as a site of informal farming and railway shrines.
Outside of research, Cristina volunteers on Sundays at a helpdesk for Filipino domestic workers.
