Robert Zhao 3
Details
Robert Zhao 3
Metadata (MODS) |
|
|---|---|
| Titles | Robert Zhao 3: Clip 3 |
| Name | Robert Zhao |
| Name | Dr. Joanne Leow |
| Type of Resource | sound recording-nonmusical |
| Genre | Interview |
| Identifier | Interview |
| Identifier | Robert Zhao Clip 3 |
| Abstract | Robert Zhao and Joanne Leow discuss the difficulty of comprehending the impact of land reclamation and how time and scale function on reclaimed land. |
| Extent | 4:48 |
| Form | sound recording |
| Note | Joanne Leow: And did it change the way you looked at the island, or looked at our process of progress or development? [0:06] Robert Zhao: Earlier on, not so much. It was only when I started becoming more ecological in my work that I started to realize, actually, the implications of this is larger than the beautiful landscape. I find it hard to talk about those larger implications at the moment, so I haven’t found a useful way to talk about it. I try to talk about it. There was a version of the work where I say that there were mask from Indonesia found deep buried in the sand, to kind of tie it back to where they come from. I’m really interested in the aesthetics of it. I also talk about fulgurites, these things that, when lightning hits the sand, a kind of glass is formed because of the high heat, and you get that in most deserts around the world, or in America when the sand composition is correct, and Singapore being the lightning—one of the lightning capitals. So, I started to imagine that actually fulgurites were found in the reclaimed land. I think I found one or two before when I was in Tanah Merah simply because they were weird, but it was only later that people told me that it was actually a fulgurite. You won’t notice them because they just look like buried sticks in the sand after the rain. So, if you actively look for them we can find them, but not sure if it’s a possible thing to find now because it’s so hard to walk in the land. But, for me, once again, this object is a thing that is something that is created because of our reclamation and because of what we are, a lightning capital, and once again something strange is created. So, for me, I like all these things or kind of object that talks about that time or that process. [1:58] Joanne Leow: Because it’s so large, it’s so overwhelming, the implications of it are like, I mean, just to think about the transnational implications of it are so overwhelming—it seems to me that you’re approaching it in oblique ways, like from found objects and certain angles of photography in order to try and come to an understanding of it artistically. There’s no way you can take it all in, right, in a way. [2:16] Robert Zhao: Yeah, because when you’re walking—I don’t know how many people who are interested in reclaimed land actually walk in one before—because when you’re walking inside for, like, two hours, trying to reach the sea, it’s a very…for me, it was a very, the strangest ever, experience, because it’s unnatural, and there’s just so much sand! And some of the sand are stockpiled high up, like, ten meters high, and then you walk through this valley of sand, it just goes on and on, it’s like, it’s just unthinkable. [2:57] Joanne Leow: Do you think, in some ways, it’s almost like coming face-to-face with what globalization and development means? Like, you know how we always say, “oh, globalization,” you just use this word, right, or you just use this word “international development,” and you don’t really think about the scale. So, in some ways, it sounds to me like what you’re trying to do is to wrestle with scale. Scale, and in some ways, I guess—because in Archive, you’re thinking about time as well. So how do you relate? Is there a way to relate, to think about like, “oh my god there was so much sand, so much, so much, so much sand,” but then there’s also—this passage of time is really interesting, because you started going when you were really young, and you’ve been going for a while, and then now it’s like… [3:39] Robert Zhao: And I can’t go anymore. Joanne Leow: …inaccessible, precisely. So, is there a way that your work, because it’s photography, also tries to connect that? Like there’s the framing of picture, where you’re like ‘tiny human figure—gigantic sand dunes,’ but then there’s also this like… what do you think your work is trying to say about time in that space? [3:57] Robert Zhao: I think that reclaimed land is a very strange beast because it only exists for five years, you know, in different parts of our island. Our island is like this perpetual sandy tropical forest surrounded by sand that’s growing, and then, you know, there’s always sand somewhere surrounding us, patching us up, for five years, and then it grows, and then five years again. There’s always these sandy parts moving here and there. Yeah, I think for photography it’s interesting that you can kind of imagine a space and time that’s before…for me, it is very easy to go back and forth or into the future with photography, because it is just—it is just the nature of the medium. |
| Access Condition | Contact Dr. Joanne Leow |
| Subject Geographic | Pacific Ocean |
| Subject Hierarchical Geographic | Asia--Singapore------Singapore |
| Subject Local Name | ----transnational trade--Landscape / Skyline--Land Reclamation--Pacific Ocean-- |