Riot Recollections - Irene Yeo

Collections
1613932
Title
Riot Recollections - Irene Yeo
Year/Period
15 December 2013
Region
Singapore
Material
Dimension
Object size: 100.0 x 66.7 cm,
Object size: Refer to parts
Accession No.
2025-00477

This image is part of the "Riot Recollections" (2014) series by documentary photographer Zakaria Zainal and writer Prabhu Silvam. It consists of portraits of eye-witnesses and their accounts of the riot that struck Little India on 8 December 2013 — the worst outbreak of violence Singapore had experienced in four decades since the outbreak of communal riots in the 1960s. The incident, sparked by a fatal accident involving a migrant worker at the junction of Race Course Road and Hampshire Road, injured 54 officers and 8 civilians and damaged 30 vehicles.Hitting the ground fresh a week after the incident, Zakaria and Prabhu sought to better understand what provoked the outpouring of anger by adopting the "vox populi" approach. Depicted here is Irene Yeo, who runs an antique liquor shop in Little India. Having been in the industry for over four decades, Yeo had seen her share of inebriated customers over the years but felt they generally meant no harm. She firmly believed that the riot was neither motivated by alcohol nor race, but just a combination of factors "at the wrong place, at the wrong time".