At Warin Lab Contemporary, two worlds miraculously connect at the exhibition "Land & Water" -- a place that reflects the problem of man-made pollution via art.
Zen Teh, a Singaporean artist and environmentalist, is interested in the relationship between man and the natural world. It all started at the time of her grandmother's death. Teh followed the tradition of a vegetarian diet for 99 days after a Buddhist family member in Singapore passed away, however, she decided to remain a vegetarian from the age of 14 until now. This incident began her interest in the search for meaning and understanding of her relationship with nature and the environment.
She later graduated with a Bachelor's in Photography and Digital Imaging and a Master's of Arts in Interdisciplinary Art and Education from Nanyang Technological University, which became the foundation of her art practice that consisted of photography and painting, along with interdisciplinary investigations into the impact of human interaction with the natural landscape.
Zen Teh at Warin Lab Contemporary. (Photo: Thannachanok Sriuaipornchai)
"My practice is centred around looking at our relationship with nature, and often these scenarios are quite complex. They highlight certain aspects of the environment and society and how it informs and affects daily life," she said.
At the "Land & Water" exhibition, which is running until July 29, Teh presents her idea in two separate parts called LAND and WATER. The exhibition takes its title from the Chinese term used to refer to a landscape, and also the name of the traditional Chinese painting genre, shan shui, meaning mountain and water.
Over the course of her artistic journey, Teh has travelled across many landscapes of forests and mountains as well as bodies of water. She is interested in the deleterious effects of encroachment from urban development and human activities. Here, land and water are inextricable, and reveal countless narratives about our precarious relationship with the natural world.
LAND presents two bodies of works that address our consciousness of and about the landscape that exists at the peripheries of our built environment. Their layers of history, as well as the narratives and emotions, are attached to these places.
Impermanence And Cosmos (2015). (Photo: Thannachanok Sriuaipornchai)
"The Imperative Landscape" (2014) is a series of photo sculptures developed during the artist's residency in the mountainous city of Chiang Rai. She photographed the rapidly urbanising dense forests and pieced them together onto acrylic panels to present the issue of the area in Chiang Rai that is being transformed by man. Eschewing a more conventional landscape format presentation, she rendered her images on large sacred geometric shapes, which can be subdivided into three other works: Consciousness (2015), Cosmos (2015) and Impermanence (2015).
Acting in concert with the monochromatic imagery, "The Imperative Landscape" endows a primaeval quality while enticing visitors into the deep, enigmatic forest, suggesting a perspective of nature not as a passive ground to be razed and built over. Rather, it is a powerful natural foundation filled with a storehouse of wisdom that is a repository of cultural beliefs and spiritual traditions.
The companion series to "The Imperative Landscape" was developed specially for this presentation at Warin Lab, and illustrated in the form of Microcosm (2023). It continues to expose the issue of an encroached landscape but is brought to a miniature world so that viewers can appreciate the beauty in the minuscule realm more intimately through a magnifying glass.
Consciousness (2015). (Photo: Thannachanok Sriuaipornchai)
WATER comprises a presentation of Mirror Of Water (2018). The inspiration for this work arose from an ordinary day. The artist strolled down a canal in Singapore as usual but there was one difference. Teh noticed the sheen of the water's surface shining in rainbow colours.
Such beauty was like a poisonous flower. When she observed closely, she found those sweet sights were actually oil residue on the surface of the water and bubbles that periodically rose up to the water's surface were caused by marine life struggling to breathe. However, due to the residue of oil caused by human activities, those breaths of life are swallowed and overshadowed by pollution that has an adverse effect on the ecosystem.
Due to these tragedies the environment has to face, Mirror Of Water was born to reflect the impact of pollution on the wider ecosystem. Teh created a large black sloping basin that represents the canal at East Coast, Singapore, that stretches around the city with its pitch black oil. Hemispherical shapes tinged with smoky colours are placed in the middle of the river like the full Sun sinking on the horizon, which is parallel to a slick of oil reflecting on the water's surface at marmalade dusk.
Mirror Of Water (2018). (Photo: Thannachanok Sriuaipornchai)
In order to demonstrate her message with clarity, the artist also produced a five-minute loop film that captures what actually happened in the waters of the East Coast Canal in Singapore, which is contaminated with oil slicks as sponges of marine life try to breath. She also added voices of people in the community who are living normal lives, whether cycling or strolling, without anyone paying attention to the canal in need of help. For this reason, Teh created Mirror Of Water to make people realise the need for serious observation and awareness of water pollution, which eventually led to the creation of campaigns to remedy this.
"We try to use this work to highlight oil residue pollution in the water and what you see in the video is what actually happened in the canal in the East Coast in Singapore. As you can see, it has more and more bubbles because marine life at the bottom of the canal is trying to breathe but it's covered with oil. So, I think I want to make people notice this pollution and call for action," she said.
"Land & Water" is now on view at Warin Lab Contemporary until July 29. Visit facebook.com/WarinLabContemporary.
Microcosm (2023). (Photo: Thannachanok Sriuaipornchai)
