At the heart of UTown grow two tembusu trees. Up till recently, I had always paid them little mind, content as I was to pass by them on my way to more pressing concerns. After all, what more is a tree than a tall, unruly bush? And yet, the tembusu tree is the namesake of our College, a source of inspiration, too, for Treehouse’s name and identity.

The name ‘tembusu’ comes from an indigenous Malay term for a specific tree native to Singapore and Southeast Asia. Because Malay does not use obligatory nominal plural markers, the noun ‘pokok’ (without quantifiers like satu or banyak) refers to either ‘tree’ in the singular or ‘trees’ in the plural. It is therefore possible to simultaneously speak of just one tree in its concrete instance, and all trees in an abstract conceptual sense—the oneness of ‘pokok’ encompasses all possibilities.

Such linguistic flexibility portends recent discoveries concerning our biological understanding of trees. Far from discrete, singular organisms, trees are vast ecosystems unto themselves, teeming with all manner of microbes which have adapted to specific regions of trees like heartwood and sapwood, canopy and root. And lest we forget, many insects, birds, and mammals call trees their homes, too. Just as we implicitly invoke ‘Tembusians’ under the communal name of ‘Tembusu College’, so too do we elicit ‘arboreal denizens’ in mentioning ‘tree’.

This is not to divert attention from the particularity of trees, but to express new ways of seeing them as entities of inherent communality and relationality. It is only through ecological relations with pollinators, seed dispersers, and decomposers that a tembusu tree can survive and thrive. And so it is with Tembusu College. From arts to sports to college management, every Interest Group plays a vital role in bringing the College to life. Through inter-IG collaboration, individual skills and talents mesh into a diverse medley that generates innovative projects and enriches the Tembusian experience.

Recently, Treehouse collaborated with several other IGs to bring two pilot projects to life. Together with Book Club and tArt, we held a zine making workshop over Arts Week to explore modes of expression beyond the pure written word. While writing has been, and always will be, Treehouse’s main approach of interest, we recognise that creativity is often cultivated and expressed through experimentations with the pictorial, audial, and broadly sensorial. Attending to more plural conceptions of self-expression, however, necessarily entails collaboration with other arts IGs who see and express themselves differently. We are immensely grateful for the insights Book Club and tArt shared regarding literary and visual expression respectively, and remain tremendously awed by the pieces our workshop participants produced.

Carlie, Claire, Jiayue, and Shreya show off their cool zines!

Our zines covered the whole gamut of colour, style, and topic

More significant, perhaps, was our complete redesign of the Treehouse Wall in collaboration with Huda, who planned and designed the Wall, and tArt. Over weeks of ideation and days of execution, the creative team transformed the Wall’s plain facade into a breathtaking mural of a tree in perpetual growth.

Huda and Jiayue prepare the Treehouse Wall before painting its design

This project was far longer in the making than its final form might suggest. First conceived by our predecessors, Junyi and Wanxin, the Wall only began to take shape through successive rounds of planning and designing over the past Academic Year. Even now, it remains unfinished in the best possible sense. We now leave it to our successors to shepherd it to its next form as an expression of the writing community in Tembusu.

Huda, Claire, and Jernyse add finishing touches to the Treehouse Wall

In this light, even writing itself—though seemingly solitary in nature—is never truly singular. What begins as the seed of an idea germinates and flourishes through the efforts of others into a blossoming piece of writing. While the writer’s heart and mind may be the soil in which their idea takes root, friends, editors, and fellow writers—as members of the wider ecosystem—play a vital role in refining and guiding its growth. They are the burrowing earthworms who enrich the soil, the hungry caterpillars who trim old leaves to stimulate the growth of new ones.

This is the kind of community that Treehouse hopes to foster—one that sparks relationality in an otherwise solitary activity. After all, no piece of writing stands alone, no matter how much we may wish the contrary. As the literary critic, Julia Kristeva, writes: “any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another.”

The Treehouse Wall, then, is a catalyst for this communal endeavour—less a finished, static product than a living nexus of connection. If the Treehouse website is the medium through which we lift Tembusu high on branches to the world, the Wall is the medium through which we return to our roots—to the people who surround and sustain us.

To that end, the Wall remains an open and evolving space. As its designer, Huda, reflects, she hopes it will “inspire more people to push the boundaries of what they think they’re allowed to do,” making “self-organised art … more visible.” This space promises to be where Tembusians receive the sunlight of inspiration, water the seeds of ideas, and linger a little longer on the sweetness of their fruits.

Like the magnificent tree it depicts, the Wall reminds us of the plural so often concealed in the singular. In its branches, we glimpse a Treehouse—and in that Treehouse, a Home of Possibilities.

About the Author

Zachary is a Year 2 Anthropology major who would like to encourage everyone to take an anthro class and try the laksa chicken rice at Red Spot.