Changi, Singapore, possibly 1970s
2012 - Photography (Photography)
Robert Zhao Renhui
Changi, Singapore, possibly 1970s is from the series “As We Walked on Water” (2010-2012), which looks into Singapore’s history around the phenomenon of land reclamation. After exhausting the country’s own soil from its tiny hills and ridges, the government had to buy sand from Malaysia and Indonesia to continue its reclamation efforts. At the early stages of a land reclamation project, the imported sand would sit idle for some time, forming an artificial desert-like landscape. By fictionally representing these landscapes, Zhao’s image fluctuates between history and story making, echoing the equally undermined condition of the man-made nature of our landscapes as they gradually become part of the real environment.
Robert Zhao Renhui’s multimedia practice questions fact-based presentations of ecological conservation and reveals the manner in which documentary, journalistic, and scientific reports sensationalize nature in order to elicit viewer sympathy. Zhao portrays humans as figures curious about their natural environment, which is at times mysterious and unpredictable. Through observing human behavior in front of animals, Zhao’s critical lens examines various modes and preconceived notions of what he calls a “zoological gaze”—the manner through which humans view animals and nature. This perspective challenges the dualistic separation between the human and the non-human worlds. Under the name of a fictional institution, The Institute of Critical Zoologists (ICZ), Zhao’s work creates visual ambiguities that destabilize assumptions about the ways in which images present facts, represent reality, and disseminate truths. Zhao was in residency at KADIST San Francisco in 2014.
Colors:
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Robert Zhao Renhui
2012Expedition #46 is a work from the series “The Glacier Study Group,” which consists of artists, scientists, activists, and enthusiasts of glacial and polar activity in the Artic Circle to conduct scientific investigation, data collection, and glacier sampling...
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Book Review: "Writing the Modern: Selected Texts on Art & Art History in Singapore, Malaysia & Southeast Asia" | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles September 12, 2018 By Carmen Nge (1300 words, five-minute read) In the vast firmament of Singaporean-Malaysian art history, no star illuminates as radiantly as T...
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Rivane Neuenschwander
2007Mapa-Mundi BR (postal) is a set of wooden shelves holding postcards that depict locations in Brazil named for foreign countries and cities...
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Asli Çavusoglu is in residence at KADIST Paris from February to May 2020 to develop a project based on previous research she conducted on colors, extending her interest for their political histories towards the production of fabrics colored by naturally cultivated and fairly distributed vegetables, fruits and other edible plants...
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Gan Chin Lee
2019In Studies of Chinese New Villages II Gan Chin Lee’s realism appears in the format of a fieldwork notebook; capturing present-day surroundings while unpacking their historical memory...
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Robert Zhao Renhui
2012Expedition #46 is a work from the series “The Glacier Study Group,” which consists of artists, scientists, activists, and enthusiasts of glacial and polar activity in the Artic Circle to conduct scientific investigation, data collection, and glacier sampling...
© » KADIST
Robert Zhao Renhui
2014Created during Zhao Renhui’s residency at Kadist SF in 2014, Zhao Renhui began observing and cataloguing insects inspired by the scientific impulse towards exhaustive taxonomy of Sacramento-based Dr...
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Robert Zhao Renhui
2014Created during Zhao Renhui’s residency at Kadist SF in 2014, the photographic grid features a selection of some 6,000 members from single family of flies –hoverfly– identified over the last 25 years by Sacramento-based Dr...
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Robert Zhao Renhui
2016The photograph Proxy II (Beetles) by Robert Zhao Renhui belongs to a series, titled Christmas Island, Naturally, that focuses on the ecology of Christmas Island; a remote volcanic land formation in the Indian Ocean...
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Through a hand-painting process, Shi Guowei created Manufactured Landscape ...