I’ve always been intrigued by our local newspaper stands and how they coexist with the digitisation of news. Their bare setup usually consists of a table, a couple of chairs, an umbrella, and crisp newspapers - of which, their varieties have been reduced over the years - laid out in neat, little stacks. Our current consumption rate of news does not seem to have a place for our old-time newspaper vendors. Perhaps the speed of flipping through the papers could not match our need for a quicker dopamine hit.
Similar to the newsprint analogy, making photographs with an Instax camera takes about 90 seconds after pressing the shutter button to form a print. Using @fujifilmsg’s Instax film for this feature became a reflection of the heydays of physical print way back when.
The uncles and aunties I met through doing this piece shared their stories openly but also spoke about how their trade may disappear in time. Through our conversations, I’ve realised that there are meaningful symbiotic relationships built around the communities they set their stalls up at. They were inadvertently physical nodes for other older residents to gather and look out for one another.
Without these third places, I wonder where would they go?
