| Note |
Robert Zhao: It’s Singapore, you’re not sure whether it has happened, or it can happen in the future. My work is not very fantastical, it’s kind of bordering—it’s very possible, but maybe it’s not, or maybe it can happen in the future.
[0:16]
Joanne Leow: Yeah, there’s a really strange odd timelessness to it. Because when you see a landscape that’s devoid of all features, like the sand dunes, then you can’t—there are no markers for you to tell, “oh this is 1990, oh this is 2000.” Because, you know, let’s say you look at the landscape of, like, Orchard Road, then you can tell—
Robert Zhao: Yeah.
Joanne Leow: —when you took the photo depending which buildings are there. But this landscape that you’re photographing and that you’re using, there’s no way. You were talking about, as well, about how it’s mobile, like the sand keeps moving, like it’s moving up, so it’s really really interesting to me how there is no way to tell, the land becomes timeless. Or do you think there are ways to tell?
[0:53]
Robert Zhao: I think it’s very hard to tell. There aren’t that many visuals of sand and land anyway, of Singapore at least.
Joanne Leow: They’re kind of taken from the aerial…
Robert Zhao: Yeah, I mean there’s—sometimes postcards will document it, but it’s not specifically trying to imagine or visualize the process.
[1:16]
Joanne Leow: Yeah, because it’s a really aerial view, so you’re kind of removed from the human scale, but that’s not what your photographs do, right. There’s a very planning eye, like Singapore must look planned, kind of visual—although when we extend it, the palimpsestic map of how far we’ve gone, your work takes us to the level of the body, to the level of eyeline, like what does it actually look like when you’re standing in the shore that keeps disappearing. |