Seeing Forest: Encounters, Evidence and Ways of Knowing | te Online Lectures
Seeing Forest: Encounters, Evidence and Ways of Knowing
《观看森林：相遇、证据与认知的方式》
Speaker: Robert Zhao Renhui
Language: English
9AM EDT (New York) / 1PM GMT (London) (*Attendees in other time zones, please convert to your local time)
How do we come to know a forest through the encounters we have within it? Similar questions extend across Robert Zhao Renhui’s practice: what can we know from what we observe and document, and how much can such evidence really tell us? In this lecture, Robert shares the fieldwork and artistic processes behind his investigations into Singapore’s secondary forests. Moving between the Institute of Critical Zoologists which he founded in 2018 and his project Seeing Forest, he traces how repeated visits, camera observations and found objects become photographs, moving images, installations and publications. Through stories from the field, this lecture reflects on what images reveal, what remains uncertain, and how sustained attention can change our understanding of the lives and histories that make up a place.
𓆙𓃚𓆐𓅂 𓆙𓃚𓆐𓅂𓆙𓃚𓆐𓅂𓆙𓃚𓆐𓅂𓆙𓃚𓆐𓅂
SCHEDULE
Talk (60min)
Q&A (30min)
ZOOM LINK
Registrants will receive the Zoom access link 1-2 day before the talk begins. Please check your inbox (including spam/junk folders).
HIGHLIGHT
Replay: Registrants will receive a replay link valid for one month after the lecture concludes. The replay does not include the live Q&A session.
Further Resources: Registrants will have access to a Digital Reading Room for this lecture, featuring supplementary materials and references related to the lecture.
𓆙𓃚𓆐𓅂 𓆙𓃚𓆐𓅂𓆙𓃚𓆐𓅂𓆙𓃚𓆐𓅂𓆙𓃚𓆐𓅂
SPEAKER BIO
Robert Zhao Renhui is a Singaporean artist whose work examines the complex relationships between humans and non-human life. Working across photography, video, installation, and research-based projects, he investigates secondary forests, invasive species, and landscapes shaped by disturbance. His long-term projects explore how animals adapt within environments altered by colonial histories, urban expansion, and industrial development. He is the founder of the Institute of Critical Zoologists and lives and works in Singapore. Zhao represented Singapore at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024) with Seeing Forest, a multi-year study of a secondary forest in Singapore. Recent projects include 5 Albizias (Singapore/Maluku), research on sloth bears in Hampi (India), water deer in the United Kingdom, and urban deer in Tokyo. Through sustained observation and fieldwork, he challenges distinctions between native and invasive, natural and artificial, proposing instead that disturbance itself becomes habitat.