As Singapore imports sand for urban expansion, a ghost town bearing its name lies buried underneath sand on the other side of the world. Sandcastles parallels two Singapores: one in Michigan where mass deforestation in the 1800s stirred surrounding sand dunes to swallow it whole, while its namesake in the East emerged from sand by reclaiming what was once only marshland and water. Through a poetic and mythological approach, the ephemeral nature of sand underscores humankind’s fraught relationship with the element: how can we trust the very ground we walk on when it’s built with and destroyed by nothing more than sand?

Directed by Carin Leong