Goodbye Dakota Crescent is a photo book put together by Lim Joo Hwee in an attempt to collate stories of this old estate. As a student who enjoys reading about History, she feels that stories of people tell more than any History textbook could do. As she struggles to catch up with the rapid development of Singapore, she feels the need to document and take away visual evidence of the existence of this estate in Singapore as a photographer before it disappears. Home to many elderly, she feels that no one story can adequately represent the whole estate as the people here are what makes the estate it is today. She also hopes to convey the beauty of this estate through her photos and keep Dakota Crescent as a fond memory in the hearts and minds of Singaporeans with the dreamy edits.
Despite the extensive coverage Dakota Crescent has received from the media as well as photo-documentation by the public, there is no platform that collates all the information about Dakota Crescent together. In addition, while youths today have expressed an increase in interest in all things old, there is hardly any citizen documentation of stories as the stories in this book were interviews done by media outlets and organisations. Therefore, this book hopes to collate information about Dakota Crescent so as to provide youths an avenue for a deeper understanding of this estate, rather than just viewing it from face value. This book also hopes to emphasize on the importance of the documentation of our daily lives, as each and every one of us, empowered by the tools of new media, has an important role to play in capturing our nation’ s history before it slips away.