Image by Marvin Montefrio.
Green Circle Eco farm is the only farm in Singapore that takes a ‘food forest’ approach, marrying agricultural cultivation with ecological principles. They follow organic farming principles with special emphasis on environmental conservation and sustainable agriculture. Despite appeals to conserve the soil and the immense educational richness of the farm, Green Circle Eco Farm has closed in 2022, due to their lease expiring and the land being reclaimed by the government for military purposes.
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This journey begun some years ago with a small, multidisciplinary team of collaborators who came together to witness and document the closure of Green Circle Eco Farm. It started as process of spending time with a senior farmer and documenting the sunset of the farm, which involved into a multi-layered, evolving piece that was grounded in the exploration of our relationship to land in Singapore, the loss of green spaces, and the spirit of community and persistence.
Together, we filmed a short documentary, and in the same year, held a community film screening; a year later, Ethel wrote a long-form retrospective piece; and yet another year later, it transformed again into a public sharing and storytelling session.
We continue to be invested in keeping the memory of the farm alive years after its physical closure, and using storytelling and gathering as a method of broadening the paradigm of what we think is possible for communities and land in Singapore.
Contributors: Felix Galistan, Ethel Pang, Rachel Tey, Marvin Montefrio, Ong Wei Lin, Xie Yihui, & Bekah
A group of storytellers – writers, photographers, videographers – were invited to document the last few months of the farm, and tell a story inspired by the process. We worked on a short documentary film that reflects on the meaning of “endings” & “beginnings”; what does the closure of a space mean? What continues to live on? How can we be inspired by the story of the farm and Farmer Evelyn, and how are we called to transplant it elsewhere?
Towards the tail end of that year, we conducted a community film screening and gathering at Yale-NUS College, as a gift to the community.
Ethel wrote a retrospective piece covering the lessons learnt from the farm’s closure. This is the link to the article **https://www.jom.media/lessons-from-green-circle-eco-farm-honouring-a-diverse-biocultural-community/.** (However, this is behind paywall—please reach out if you’d like to access this article.)
As part of Singapore Art Week 2024, we were invited by Post-Museum to be a part of the programming for ‘Alternative Ecology: The Community’, where we screened the second cut of our short film, and held a sharing session about our experience witnessing the last few months of the Farm. We concluded the session with a communal storytelling session, where participants were invited to share a story of Evelyn and the farm, or alternatively listen attentively, allowing for the story to continue living on.
Recording of storytelling session here:
Recording of Evelyn and GC.m4a
At this juncture, we’re returning to thinking about farm, lands, amidst other leases ending (Edible Garden City, Bollywood Veggies (petition going around to try and stay its closure), at the same time other big moves happening (GUI moved from its old space to new space, building up the Kampung Kampus).
