Three large murals used to grace the walls of Paya Lebar Airport, depicting scenes from Singapore and Malaysia. Librarian Dahlia Shamsuddin, the daughter of one of the artists involved, recounts her efforts to uncover the fate of her father’s mural.

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About the Guest

Dahlia Shamsuddin is a senior librarian with the Resource Discovery & Management, National Library Board, where she catalogues legal deposit, gift and donor materials. She has worked in public, academic, law and national libraries doing reference, circulation, digital and print cataloguing work.

Resources

Dahlia Shamsuddin, “The Forgotten Murals of Paya Lebar Airport,” BiblioAsia 17, no. 2 (2021).

Rebecca Tan, “How Changi Airport Came to Be,” BiblioAsia 17, no. 3 (2021).

“Paya Lebar Airport,” Singapore Infopedia, published 2014, National Library Board.

“Design for Airport Murals: 2 Win Prizes,” Straits Times, 24 March 1963, 8. (From NewspaperSG)

Justin Zhuang, Independence: The History of Graphic Design in Singapore since the 1960s (Singapore: The Design Society, 2012). (Call no.: RSING 741.6095957 ZHU)

Credits

This episode of BiblioAsia+ was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Gibson Analytics. The background music “Di Tanjong Katong” was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Dahlia for coming on the show.

BiblioAsia+ is a podcast about Singapore history by the National Library of Singapore.

Transcript