The Southeast Asia Cultural Collection (SEACC)

Did you know that ISEAS Library holds a rich collection of photographs that document Southeast Asia’s diverse cultural heritage?

The Southeast Asian Cultural Collection (SEACC) has its origins in the 1980s and was first launched in July 1981 as the Southeast Asian Cultural Research Programme (SEACURP). In the face of the region’s rapid urbanisation and modernization, SEACURP’s goal was to create greater awareness about the importance of the region’s cultural heritage and traditions in order to provoke conversations among planners and other decision-makers about more holistic strategies for national and regional development [i].

The foundation of SEACURP was the collection of over 22,000 photographs and slides, and six filing cabinets of notes from the late American architect Dorothy Pelzer (1915-1972). Pelzer had spent much of the 1960s travelling extensively across Southeast Asia to document traditional dwellings and ways of life. Before her death, she had designated her friend Datuk Lim Chong Keat, a Malaysian architect, to carry on her work [ii]. Datuk Lim became the first project director of SEACURP.

This spirit of documenting the traditional habitats and built-forms of the region carried on into the work of SEACURP, which over the next few years grew rapidly and subsequently merged with the Programme on the Cultural Heritage of Southeast Asia (CULHERSEA), a complementary programme which had focused on other ethnographic and cultural heritage research. The result was Southeast Asia Cultural Programme (SEACUP). At the time of its formation in 1987, this combined archive held an estimated 72,700 photographs, negatives, and slides and 650 audio and video recordings [ii].

Most of the materials in SEACUP were primary research materials assembled by researchers who had carried out fieldwork in the region, and thus SEACUP focused on three main themes: habitats, folk traditions, and local history and memoirs [iii]. The selection of images below reflects these themes.

In the 1990s, the programme started to wind down as research priorities shifted. It was no longer actively collecting materials by 1996 [iv], though the Library has continued to maintain this valuable collection of original ethnographic research materials. Around the year 2000, the programme was renamed the Southeast Asian Cultural Collection (SEACC), by which it is now still known [v]. Today, SEACC has around 84,000 photographs, slides, and negatives, including the Made Wijaya collection. Much of the archive has been digitised and is available for reference at the Library.

Reflecting the wide cultural diversity throughout Southeast Asia, SEACC remains an invaluable documentation archive of communities and ways of life across the region.

Habitats

Ways of working

Everyday life

References

[i] Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, ISEAS Annual Report 1985-1986 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1986).

[ii] P. Lim Pui Huen, “The Southeast Asian Cultural Programme of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,” Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 4, no. 1 (1989): 135–45.

[iii] Ong Choo Suat and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Southeast Asian Cultural Heritage: Images of Traditional Communities (Singapore: Programme on the Cultural Heritage of Southeast Asia, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 1986). ISEAS Library Call No.: DS509.5 O59

[iv] P. Lim Pui Huen and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies: a commemorative history 1968-1998 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1998). ISEAS Library Call No.: DS524.8 S6I58      

[v] Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, ISEAS Annual Report 1999-2000 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000).