I Remember (Jiak Kim) is helmed by three independents who thought it’d be good fun to log not just their own memories, but also those of the entire Zouk-going, semi-buzzed-still-must-Insta population that spans generations and genres.
Hence a website was built from scratch.
On the Exhibition tab which maps out Zouk and its vicinity, one can click on a location that rings close to home. Each icon leads to a photo of the place brightly, almost awkwardly lit. “In her raw state, void of crowds with house lights on”, a side of her we never quite got acquainted with.
Here’s where you share the most nostalgic, hilarious, tragic of nights and first light shared with friends and lovers, foregone or forged forever. The pre-eminent bangers & mash cart. Getting handed sour plum shots by the jug because the bar was hella busy that night. The ugly pavement waits for a cab that can’t turn in. It’s a eulogy of sorts.
On top of that, the hashtag #IrememberJiakKim has birthed an infinite scroll coffee-table book of over 2000 photos and accompanying captions – personal anecdotes that help curious viewers uncover other branches of this “family tree”.
Eugene (@geniemule), who photographed the series alongside Anton (@mellowedhigh) and Ashley (@ashlightman) recounts one of the most brilliant closing nights at Jiak Kim. The Final Balearic Night with Cher, Aldrin, djB & Jeremy (ft. Maniam) was on 18 November, and saw a tribe of culture-hungry youths meld with pioneers – about forty years young – who first formed the face of Zouk in the early 90’s.
“They were also the first Mambo-goers! Bringing it back that night was super sentimental,” says Eugene. “If you were a 70’s or early 80’s kid, you’d be familiar with both Balearic and Mambo Jambo Nights even though those happened in the 90s. Because those are your cultural developmental years – your teens and young adulthood. Similarly, late 80’s and early 90’s kids made Ready Set Glo a weekly affair in the late 2000’s, and people born in the 90’s dominate the millenial TGIW.”
This is goodbye, but only to Zouk as we’d known her for the past 25 years. Thanks to the digital age, we are free to wander and live vicariously through the headspace we share – where the many facets of Zouk Jiak Kim transport us.
It’s never too late to celebrate the inebriated kindred through #IRememberJiakKim. More importantly, new nostalgias, alluring characters, phenomenal music and overblown controversies beckon in the next quarter century and beyond. Meanwhile you can pre-order and wear your love in an I Remember T-shirt designed by Tell Your Children’s Lydia (@oakandbindi).
The front features the iconic Zouk tunnel and the back features logos from Zouk club nights since 1991.
I’ll always remember Jiak Kim. Not because the structure of the place was fascinating and hard to navigate with questionable sobriety, not even because it’s all coming to an end. It’s the people that make a place, and that loyal much follows Zouk Singapore into its next high, Y2017.