ART AND COLLABORATION
We often imagine artists working alone in their dark, paint-filled studios, their lives getting shorter
with each breath of toxic turpentine or thinner laced air. Skinny, pale and haters of the world andother people, the stereotypical artist would never been seen working with someone else in theirwork.
Fortunately, we now live in the twenty first century and the daily routine of a professional artist isradically different. For a photographic artist like Zen Teh, the story of the stereotypical artist almost
seems like a story of her alter ego. The nature of her medium means that her studio is basically thelaptop, and the world seen through the camera lens. Outside of the gallery, she is also interested
in raising awareness for the environment and building a more harmonious relationship for herselfwith nature. This is clearly reflected in her works: images of green, trees, forestry inundate thesurface. In November 2016, prints from a series of her work, The Imperative Landscape, captured
the imagination of Alliançe francaise de Singapour and Teh was recognised as the winner for the7th France + Singapore Photographic Arts Award.
Part of the award is a solo exhibition at Alliançe francaise de Singapour’s Société Générale Gallery
in this year, almost a year after the award. And so with the support of Alliançe francaise, Teh
opened her 3rd solo exhibition, Vestiges: Tracing urban-nature on Wednesday, 6 September 2017.

Installation view of Vestiges: Tracing urban-nature.

Chloe ,“Art and collaboration.”, Intersection, http://intersection.sg/art-and-collaboration/Sep, ( accessed date 8 Sep 2017)

Following on a string of collaborations, the new series of work for Vestiges, Garden StatePalimpsest, is produced through a partnership with architectural researcher Nicole Teh. Zen’s
practice is notable for the varied yet highly successful collaborations that she had accomplishedwith scientist Professor Ching Jianhong, product and UIUX designer Sharifah Nasser, theCommunity Health Assessment Team at Institute of Medical Health and ex-classmates Hera (artresearcher) and Ong Fangzheng (conservator). Each collaboration has expressed the strengths,
interests and style of the collaborators involved. Garden State Palimpsest is no different,
reflecting the personality of both Nicole and Zen.

Nicole and Zen Teh.

Some background on Nicole: a graduate of the BSc Architecture program from the Bartlett Schoolof Architecture in University College London, her work was exhibited in the summer show in theRoyal Academy of Arts in 2016. She is also a recipient of a scholarship from DesignSingapore, withwhich she will be embarking on the Masters in Architecture program in Bartlett.

Installation view of Vestiges: Tracing urban-nature.

In-between Spaces. Exhibited at In Silence.
Courtesy of the artist and Pearl LamGalleries.

Following on the concerns also expressed in In-Between Spaces (2016), Zen thematises the loss
that comes when nature is overtaken by urban development her new collaborative work.
In-Between Spaces was produced in collaboration with Sharifah and was a reaction toward theloss of the Green Corridor. The concrete buildup manicures the space that nature is allowed tobe in, merely a tiny sliver in the shape of a hallway or corridor. Yet even that is being lost: bystacking the triptych on the wall, the work takes on the metaphor of a high rise building, possibly
one of our HDBs. We are left only with tiny slivers of space chosen by the state for a small urbangarden. The plinths of Garden State Palimpsest can be similarly read as a rising up from the hutsof the kampong to the skyscrapers of contemporary Singapore. Four bars make up the structureof each plinth, their grey tones echoing the grey of In-between Spaces and the facade of thegeneric high-rise building.

Installation view of Vestiges: Tracing urban-nature.

Each cluster of plinth-scrapers come in varying heights, creating a dynamic visuality that also
suffuses the LED daylight white light installed on the surface of each plinth. At the same time, itprovides a different viewpoint for the visitor: from the side. If each plinth is a skyscraper, then theside view is akin to a city scape, akin to the ones taken by tourists at Marina Bay Sands or used torepresent us as a city in major newspapers. To run through this metaphor to its end is
disquieting: by emphasising the skyline of the city, or creating that ideal city skyline, we havebroken down the kampongs, the communities that have had a different and cleaner relationshipwith nature. All we are left with are tiny square spaces on the top of the plinth-scraper where wemight begin to create our urban garden.

Installation view of Vestiges: Tracing urban-nature.

So what have the artist-architect duo grown in their garden state? Fragments of marble andconcrete, apparently. Zen explains that these fragments are salvaged from construction sites orwhere concrete Singapore is fragmenting in its find to control nature. This could be the break on
the sidewalk or where the roots of a tree bursts through from under the roads. Photographs aretaken around the site where the fragment is salvaged and imprinted upon the fragment througha chemical transfer before being treated. Each piece is carefully chosen and arranged according
to the reimagined kampong site by her interviewees.
With her architectural expertise, Nicole also produced speculative drawings about plans for
future development in Singapore on acrylic blocks. They stand among the marble and concrete
fragments. Taken together, each cluster is a deliberate confusion of looking back at kampong lifeand looking forward at even greater urbanisation. It is unclear what we are supposed tounderstand about the situation at this point: do we support heritage and conservation, even in its
fragmented form, or do we abandon the desire to reminiscence and look forward to greater
efficiency in the city?
Zen’s work does not actually provide any kind of solutions to the environmental issues that she
observes and thematises in her work. Rather, through careful research and visual impact, she
presents the problems that she sees to her viewers. It is up to us viewers to think and to make ourown decisions on whether or not to activate ourselves into changing the way we lead our lives.
Do we ignore what is happening in our country and to our environment now that we know aboutit? Can we remain guiltless in our passivity? Through her work, Zen softly raises this conundrum
that has no right or easy answer.
Exhibition runs until 7 October 2017.
Vestiges: Tracing urban-nature
Solo exhibition by Zen Teh in collaboration with Nicole Teh
7 September to 7 October 2017
Société Générale Gallery
Alliançe francaise de Singapour