Singapore

In Seeing Forest, artist Robert Zhao Renhui offers an evocative exploration of secondary forests—forested areas that have regrown over land previously disturbed by human development. These areas have become the threshold between undisturbed primary forests and developed urban environments.
Rooted in several years of accumulated observations, the exhibition explores the multifaceted life of Singapore’s secondary forests, as well as the manifold worlds within them, encapsulating the landscape’s histories of settlement, colonisation, migration and mutual co-existence amongst species.
Through an assemblage of video and sculptural installations, Seeing Forest explores the lesser-seen stories and moments of apparent dependence between human society and nature. The presentation reveals how these transitional spaces can offer points of intersection for history, sustainability, and discovery, while suggesting that the edge of a city – especially one that is so carefully planned – may be the most intense frontier in existence.