One Day We’ll Understand

One Day We’ll Understand is a part documentary, part theatre, and part lecture multimedia performance by CultureLink in partnership with Chamber Made and commissioned by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay.

The performance explores memory, inheritance, and restitution in the wake of the Malayan Emergency, and combines haunting imagery with narration and archival footage. Dating back to the anti-colonial war in British Malaya and beyond, it tells the story of Sim Chi Yin as she uncovers her family’s buried past and legacies of colonialism, to contemplate possible futures.

The archival visual direction of the poster was designed to reflect the historical and emotional depth of the performance. Textures for the background resembled aged, torn archival papers and were used to evoke a sense of history and lost records.

Juxtaposed images with torn-edge treatments mimic the style of personal journaling, reinforcing the themes of memory and documentation, while the flipped paper elements were integrated to mirror the performance’s cover image, symbolizing the act of revealing hidden histories and uncovering the past.