A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World (2013) A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World is a project commissioned by
Singapore Biennale 2013:
If The World Changed. Responding to this title, the installation seeks to document and reflect upon the impact of human intervention on the natural world, whether by deliberate, direct means, such as square apples in South Korea, or by evolving to adapt to the stresses from their changing environment. Its accompanying publication, designed in collaboration with graphic designer Hanson Ho of H55, is presented as an encyclopaedic dossier in an archival box. Its design won The President's Design Award's Designer of the Year 2014.
A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World has been exhibited around the world including at the Centre of Contemporary Photography, Australia; Les Rencontres d'Arles, France; and Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography, Switzerland, in 2015; Chobi Mela IX, India, in 2017; Sunderland Museum and Winter Garden, United Kingdom; and FotoFest, United States, in 2019; Center for Book Arts, United States, in 2021; and 9th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, China, in 2022. The set of 64 photographs from this project has been acquired by
Tate Modern, United Kingdom.
Trying to Remember a Tree (2016) What started as an effort to memoralise the end of life of a young raintree in 2015 turned into an ongoing documentation of trees removal in Singapore, a series that continues till today. Then, when the tree was cut down to make way for construction, Zhao dragged the branches back to his studio, subsequently spending a year photographing every leaf there was. The resulting diptych portraying all 28,017 leaves was exhibited at the Rockbund Art Museum in 2018. •
Trying to Remember a Tree III, The World Will Surely Collapse (2017) Commissioned by and first presented at
JIWA: Jakarta Biennale 2017, this work features an old and large tree that had collapsed near Zhao's home after a storm. Fourteen photographs line up sections of the tree's trunk on the ground, echoing the way trees are cut for easy removal in Singapore. Yet edited and sequenced from their original, they highlight the contrasting ways in which fallen trees are treated: promptly removed by humans or, allowed to remain as part of the ecosystem in nature. •
Trying to Remember a Tree IV, The Time Tree (2019) Commissioned by the
National Arts Council's Public Art Trust in commemoration of the Singapore Bicentennial in 2019, the public art installation hypothesises what a 200-year-old tree – responding to the bicentennial anniversary of the founding of modern Singapore – might look like. Referencing Singapore's tallest recorded tree, The Changi Tree (also nicknamed as The Time Tree) which was documented from 1888 and felled by the British in 1942 to prevent the Japanese from using it as a ranging point during World War II, the work takes the lifecycle of trees – its life, death and renewal – as a marker for time and a new way of reflecting on historical narratives. •
Trying to Remember a Tree V, It Takes Time (2021) Another commission by the Public Art Trust, this is a site-specific artwork that follows the growth of a single tree, selected by Zhao from the site where the work was to be situated, for twelve months. The installation comprises twelve light boxes, each one added to the site every month as the tree grew over the same period. The title of the work is displayed as text on the back the light boxes, inviting its audience to connect deeper with nature with small, subtle changes that often go unnoticed. •
Trying to Remember a Tree VI, Watching a Tree Disappear (2018–ongoing) This is a live video feed from a camera installed by Zhao to document the decay and eventual disappearance of an Albizia tree that fell after a storm in 2018. Whenever motion is detected by the camera, it records and sends this recording to a live streaming website. This project continues until the tree decays and disappears into the ground.
Christmas Island, Naturally (2016) This work is based on over two years of research and fieldwork on
Christmas Island, an external territory of Australia located in the Indian Ocean. As "an experiment in natural history investigation" into the evolution of Christmas Island's ecosystem, the work traces and reflects upon the devastating impact of nearly 150 years of human settlement on the island's unique biodiversity and endemic flora and fauna, such as the introduction of invasive species into and extinction of native ones within its fragile ecosystem. This work was commissioned by and presented at the
Sydney Biennale (2016) and subsequently as solo exhibitions at ShanghART Singapore and ShanghART M50, Shanghai, in 2017. In the following year, it was shown at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore.
The Bizarre Honour (2017) Presented as a natural history museum within a terrace house in Singapore, this installation surveys over a century of contentious relationship between Singapore and animals, insects and pests. Reflecting personal collecting habits and interests and utilising almost four years of research, over 300 natural and scientific "curiosities", ranging from colonial photos, taxidermy and animal traps to tropical field equipment, are exhibited, accompanied by a dossier comprising memos, photographs and information relating to the exhibition.
The Lines We Draw (2019) This work depicts murmurations of more than 50,000 migratory birds when they fly up into the sky from the shoreline of
Yalu River every morning during the annual migratory season. Located between China and North Korea, the river serves not only as a political border between the two countries, but also as a checkpoint for the birds when they travel to Alaska from New Zealand. Created during the artist's visit to Yalu River in 2019, the work seeks to investigate the systems humans set up to understand other species.
A Great Sign Appeared (2021) This work looks at the threats of urbanisation and the transnational impact of climate change on avian colonies in Southeast Asia, such as the sudden appearances of
Asian openbill storks in 2019 and that of flying foxes in 2020 in Singapore. The former was attributed to the unseasonal drought in Thailand and the latter, possibly to the destruction of their natural habitat or sustained hunting. Such ecological connections, as well as more mundane encounters with non-human species, became more apparent to Zhao during the COVID-19 pandemic. This work won Zhao the Silvana S. Foundation Commission Award (Singapore) in 2020.
The Forest Institute (2022) Building on Zhao's earlier work ''Queen's Own Hill and its Environs
(2019) and four years of research on the secondary forest around the Gillman Barracks precinct, The Forest Institute'' is a large-scale architectural art installation built on public space within the Barracks. It focuses on Berlayer Creek, a tributary that courses through the forest, and one of two remaining mangrove swamps in the south of Singapore that is also a refuge for numerous species of migratory birds and other animals. Its architectural design, by architect Randy Chan, draws reference from the Bornean longhouse. The installation includes several large-scale prints of fauna and a Forest Observation Room, which can house up to two adults and two children overnight for a fee.
Seeing Forest (2024) Conceived for the Singapore Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition ‒ La Biennale di Venezia (2024),
Seeing Forest reveals the adaptive responses of nature when it inhabits previously deforested land, thereby highlighting the complex relationships between nature and human life (and/or intervention). It comprises a two-channel video
The Owl, The Travellers and The Cement Drain, in which two travellers takes us through the secondary forests in Singapore and the life forms that lie within; an installation
Trash Stratum, a crumbling cabinet of stacked wooden boxes with 15 screens, archival photographs and found shards from the forests;
Buffy, a towering structure with an image of the Buffy Fish Owl; and
A Guide to a Secondary Forest of Singapore, that maps out the forest ecosystems within which both natural and man-made elements co-exist.
Everything the Forest Remembers (2024) This series of images documents the ongoing transformation of small glass shards in the Gillman Barracks forest as they interact with natural processes of erosion and growth. Once remnants of human activity, the discarded materials now exist as part of the forest ecosystem, slowly blending into the environment shaped by rain, roots, and time.
The Centre of All Things (2024) Extracted from a motion-sensitive instant camera positioned near the stump of a fallen Albizia tree, this series of images documents the dead tree's ongoing interactions with its environment and its contributions to the ecosystem as it decomposes. The ICZ publishes newspapers routinely from the perspective of the tree, providing insight into the quiet, persistent changes within this landscape.
Every Tree is its Own Universe (2024) This series of images centres around the Albizia tree, a species native to the Maluku Islands in Indonesia and introduced to Singapore intentionally in the 19th century. Photographed in its place of origin and four different parts of Singapore—Tampines, Punggol, Jurong and Woodlands, the work highlights the significant role of the Albizia in rewilding disturbed spaces. == Awards, exhibitions and residencies ==