Robert Zhao 2
Details
Robert Zhao 2
Metadata (MODS) |
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|---|---|
| Titles | Robert Zhao 2: Clip 2 |
| Name | Robert Zhao |
| Name | Dr. Joanne Leow |
| Type of Resource | sound recording-nonmusical |
| Genre | Interview |
| Identifier | Interview |
| Identifier | Robert Zhao Clip 2 |
| Abstract | Robert Zhao and Joanne Leow discuss the space of reclaimed land and how Singaporeans negotiate that space as potential and void. |
| Extent | 3:12 |
| Form | sound recording |
| Note | Joanne Leow: Why do you think it was important for people not to go in? Why do you think it’s important not for these images to be disseminated? [0:07] Robert Zhao: It was a very sensitive topic globally, about sand and land reclamation, and if people were enjoying themselves inside it would kind of be really a bad thing, because much of the discourse about land reclamation is the suffering, or the destruction of the other landscapes on the other side, about how communities are affected when we take so much sand away from them, and dumping it onto our own spaces, and it’s a very damaging process as well. So, I think more and more of that is coming out these days, and it’s becoming very difficult to have a decent conversation about…I mean, maybe there’s no positive way to think about land reclamation now. [0:51] Joanne Leow: But at that point when you were making the photographs or thinking about the surreal nature of that landscape, did you think about it in terms of like, it’s sand, it’s not quite land yet—because it always has to settle, right, before they can build stuff… Robert Zhao: Yeah. Joanne Leow: …and now always they build tons of stuff on it. There are no images of it, it seems to be this part of history that’s hidden, visual history—does it seem to be in a kind of in-between space? Like it used to be ocean, now it’s sand, it’s not quite land because we can’t build anything on it, so, I mean, do your photographs try and think through that? Is that what you’re—I’m just, I’m curious. Did it feel like an in-between space? [1:29] Robert Zhao: When I was there, no. It feels like a very new land when you reach the sea. Joanne Leow: Why? [1:38] Robert Zhao: Because you can see the sea and the land meet, and it’s all manmade, you know, there’s nothing natural about it, that’s when you felt…but then you wouldn’t have the discourse about thinking about the larger implications of this process because you’re—I was really in awe of what was created when I was walking in that land. First of all, you walk so long, and there’s nothing and it’s flat, that is so unimaginable on our island. Nothing built, and there’s a horizon, I mean, so clear, and you reach the sea, and the beach there was much more beautiful than, easily, than Sentosa. This was before even the naval base was built. And I was very young then, so also it was one of the strangest experience I ever had. And it’s all new land, and it’s in the process to create. Yes it’s bad, but in the process, you create a lot of things that…for me, it was left undocumented. All the birds that came, all the marshes that was there, and a kind of different lifestyle of Singaporeans going there to do off-road riding, and huge amounts of bird-watchers go there. And for me, this, if we don’t document or talk about it, then we will never know that there was actually a little bit of engagement with that reclaimed land. Maybe it’s not important, but for me it was very interesting. |
| Access Condition | Contact Dr. Joanne Leow |
| Subject Geographic | Pacific Ocean |
| Subject Hierarchical Geographic | Asia--Singapore------Singapore |
| Subject Local Name | ----Documentation--Landscape / Skyline--Land Reclamation--Pacific Ocean-- |