Sim Chi Yin, a photographer from Singapore, launched her "Shifting Sands" series to explore the global sand crisis. This project has taken her to various countries, including Vietnam, where she documented rapid erosion in the Mekong Delta due to large-scale sand mining and dam construction by China upstream. In Hiep Phuoc, southeast of Saigon, she met Nguyen Thi Hong, a 45-year-old tea-seller whose home was lost to a landslide. Despite Ms. Nguyen's loss, she had already set up a new tea stand. Sim used both literal and abstract photography to depict the impact of sand extraction.
Sim began investigating her family history related to the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960), a largely overlooked anti-colonial conflict in British Malaya. Her grandfather, a member of the anti-colonial movement, was deported and executed in China. This led her to create the "One Day We’ll Understand" project, which has been displayed in various forms, including at the Venice Biennale.
Sim's background includes a BA and MSc in History from the London School of Economics, and she is a PhD candidate at King’s College London. Her work has received recognition and sparked discussions on historical representation and the ethics of archival documentation.