Iffa Taheera binte Ibraham
Walking with the Commeownity
Iffa Taheera is a social and multidisciplinary designer with a background in design communication. She is interested in ways of seeing and being, with visual design and marketing experience across sectors including non-profit organisations and the secondhand retail industry. She has worked across multiple mediums, ranging from websites and social media to print, within diverse teams. Through these experiences, she has engaged with different communities, gaining insight into their everyday lives.
She explores and makes sense of the world and people through ethnographic work— listening, noticing everyday rituals, and getting to know people and their experiences. Her work is grounded in the belief that no one exists in isolation, and that people are continually shaped by the communities and environments around them.
Working in neighbourhoods and everyday spaces, Iffa engages directly with individuals and communities. Documenting their stories through photographic, reflective, and narrative lenses, she uses visual and motion design to make them more accessible. By bringing attention to individuals, communities, and everyday practices that often go unnoticed, her work creates opportunities for conversation, understanding, and reflection.
Iffa hopes to continue deepening her ethnographic practice by working with and learning from different communities, using design as a medium to bring their stories to light.
Walking with the Commeownity
Void decks are used everyday and through informal care, yet these practices remain unrecognised and unsupported. Walking with the Commeownity aims to surface these existing practices—with community cats as catalysts—to strengthen a shared sense of place and belonging that brings the community together in the void decks of Hougang.
Where cats gather, people often follow. Nocturnal and sensitive to changes in their environment, cats also reveal which parts of the void deck are quieter and more suitable. In doing so, they indirectly highlight areas where people may feel more comfortable lingering.
Across nine months in the void decks, cats revealed themselves to be quiet yet central residents of the neighbourhood, bringing people together both harmoniously and through moments of tension.
The void deck is a public space continuously negotiated by different users.
Some residents may not like cats as much.
Some residents may find cats unhygienic.
Some residents simply see cats as part of the backdrop of the void deck.
Instead of relieving tensions or solving problems, Walking with the Commeownity creates opportunities for us to recognise how the void deck is used by cats, cat feeders and residents.
Through this, we can have conversations, get to know one another and develop understanding on why we do what we do—be eye level with the cats and each other.
The act of squatting or bending down to cat height; to be eye level with them.