We began this beautiful journey as an exploration into our surroundings. As a trained architect the most intriguing part was the discovery of the myriad cultures that made up present day Singapore and the built environment that embodied it. It has been a slow path towards the expression of the art and craft that eventually culminated into the home decor items we have presented on our website.
Last week, as I walked around in the Tanjong Katong area once again after a period of three years I felt nostalgic. I remembered my first few steps towards my hobby of documenting urban spaces and their details. I looked at the tiles on the shophouses of Katong very lovingly, as if they were flowers in my garden. The story of our coasters flashed before my eyes. The mere fact that the process of documenting these Peranakan tiles later turned out to be an interesting project for Arzoo Arts Collective, was a miracle in itself.
Sometimes we click photos and keep them in photo albums and we forget about them. In the case of the Peranakan tiles, I felt that I could not let them hibernate in my album. I owed it to them and I had to find a creative expression for the photos. Whilst our Singapore theme coasters were extremely popular in 2018 and 2019, we introduced our Peranakan tile designs in our range of new releases in 2019. These took off very well with our customers, and our sets have been gifted to families and friends in the USA, Japan and India.
Many of our customers bought an extra set for their homes, as well as for gifting. When we saw the commitment of our customers for our designs, we were thrilled that we could offer them a beautiful keepsake of Singapore - a ‘slice of Singapore’. This year has been slow in terms of the movement of products, nonetheless we can say we did okay with the support of some of our regulars and new buyers.
It feels sad to announce that we sold our final set of Peranakan Tiles coaster sets. It felt like the winter had set in and there were no leaves on the trees. However, we await the spring when we will receive our next batch of coasters from our production workshops. It has been an arduous, but fulfilling journey for Arzoo Arts Collective to showcase the culture of Singapore.
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