Most Singaporeans (about 80% of us) live in blocks of Housing Development Board flats, a type of public housing provided by our government. Last year I started a photo project to document the corridors of our flats. I thought it would reflect a lot about our national character and who we are as a people. Because the corridors are such a mundane part of our lives in Singapore, it’s not something that we give much thought to. I used to travel a lot and disliked being in Singapore because I found little beauty in it. But after years of being a tourist in someone else’s country, I began to appreciate the little things that make Singapore so unique. Including, of course, its charming little corridors.

Singapore is a tiny city-state who has only been independent since 1965. We are young, perfectionistic, modern, ambitious, worldly and free; a melting pot of contradictions actually, which makes Singapore a rather interesting place to live.

Any day when the weather is good (and by “good” I mean when it’s not horrendously hot and humid).

Safety. Singapore is one of the safest places in the world. Living here I feel as if I am insulated from all the dangers of the world, from the murders and the robberies and the tornadoes and the earthquakes that haunt and ravage other places on earth.

Singapore can be uninspiring sometimes. We need more ground-up creativity, and not just in the form of a bunch of similar-looking coffee shops and pop-up stores.

That we are so free. Outsiders often have the impression that we’re a repressed and oppressed group of people. The truth is most of us do whatever we want to do and no one’s really there to stop us! We aren’t tied down by traditions and, because we’re a multi-racial society, we are quite used to embracing the differences of our fellow Singaporeans. You can be gay, straight, an office worker, an entrepreneur, married, single – generally no one really cares!

Lee Kuan Yew, our former Prime Minister.

Tokuhiko Kise (furniture designer), Tadao Ando (architect), and Steve McCurry (photographer).