I was recently in Singapore for a few day to pick up copies of two new books that have been published, one in Singapore, and one in Jakarta (these last had been brought to Singapore for me). I was only there for three whole days, but each day I took the chance of going to photograph a temple or place of interest.
The first place I went to was the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum in Chinatown. This looked good when I was researching places to go, but turned out to be far better than I had realised, and is in fact one of the best private collections of Buddhist artworks I have seen.
The temple is built on five stories in Tang dynasty style architecture, and inside is crowded both with functioning and well-designed shrines, and also with museum type artefacts on the various floors. From just one afternoon there I managed to get one of the best albums I have on my Photo Dharma website.
One of my books was published at the Phor Kark See Temple at Bright Hill. This is one of the best established and richest temples in Singapore, and they have under their new, young and forward-looking Abbot, Ven. Sik Kwang Sheng, opened an excellent Dharma Propagation Unit, which has published a number of my works before.
My visit was just on the lead up to Vesak 2017, and I took the opportunity to go round and photograph the many shrine halls and statues in the temple. Here again the temple has taken great care in the quality of the artworks they have in the shrines, and I have published a good album from the trip.
On the remaining day I went to the Asian Civilisations Museum, one of four museums in Singapore, which focuses on pan-Asian cultures and civilisations. At the time they were holding an exhibition of works from the Korean Joseon dynasty.
Besides the special exhibition it also houses fine works from India and China, and a good collection of secular materials, all of which are on display in the album I have posted taken on that day.
