8am in

Lost Bodies: Poems between Portugal and Home is a collection of poems written by Heng Siok Tian, Phan Ming Yen, Yeow Kai Chai, and Yong Shu Hoong over the course of a 12-day trip to Portugal. Each day, one of them would suggest a stimulus, and from each stimulus, another would provide the first and last lines of a yet-to-be-written poem. All this while, Kai Chai was writing poems in Singapore, responding to the same prompts.

The poets were in the same space, and experiencing the same day – yet each dreamed a different world with their words. This reflects how one’s individual timeline exists in parallel to everybody else’s. On a similar note, the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows had coined the word Sonder, or “the realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own”.

Bringing these two thoughts together, we started 8AMin to share the parallelism of our lives, for us to be aware of the presence of these connections and crossovers with the people around us.

Let’s share a moment each day at 8 am together, alone, to be alone, together.

Tag your photos with #8AMin to join the community, and for us to be able to add your moments to the community pool.

Additional tags you can use: #sonder #8AM #everydaysingapore #parallel