Art and Environmentalism

Singapore Artists Raise Environmental Awareness

by Helena A. Cochrane

Running under the stream of creative resilience at the January 2022 Singapore ArtWeek exhibitions was a strong current of concern over survivability. Singapore artists examined art forms, in addition to the spaces in which artworks are created and displayed and what they depicted. Artists based in Singapore and from across the globe exhibited works intended to stimulate, soothe and sometimes provoke us.

If Covid hasn’t stirred our collective consciousness about dramatic adaptations we must make to move forward in a world of depleting resources and polluted surroundings, it will be hard to fathom what further crisis could do so. In a document from 2015, the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) published “Creative Responses to Sustainability,” posing the question of how art can call us to action in the face of alarming signals of climate change.

According to environmentalist Bhavani Prakash, Sustainability “personally (sic) means, leading a life where we feel connected to all of existence, extending kindness to all species, and all living ecosystems.’

ASEF’s call to artists to bring this ethos to the forefront is based on the perception that artists’ outlooks are less rigid, their networks more interdependent, their creativity necessary to their professional survival and personal development. Additionally, the ASEF wrote: “Artists play an underestimated but significant role in capturing the changing values and norms and preoccupations of contemporary society.” Both public and private funding have supported a number of artists in Singapore who showcase environmental issues, as well as those whose practice utilizes materials that tread a light carbon footprint.

The Silvana Sutanto Foundation was established in honor of Ms. Sutanto, a wildlife photographer who perished tragically while pursuing her passion. The foundation’s inaugural commission winner is Robert Zhao Renhui, who documents the interplay between natural and built environments here in Singapore, principal among his South East Asian locations. His thrilling photos of flocks of migrating spoonbills are just one of the ways he demonstrates that interplay and comments on the impact of urbanization on nature. Zhao has also filmed and studied Singapore’s secondary forests, those grown up around spaces formerly inhabited by people. His videography is a fascinating record of the tenacity of the natural world in the city.

Zen Teh Shi Wei’s two exhibitions, Peripheral Spaces and A Familiar Forest, on display at The Art Gallery of the National Institute for Education and Lee Wee Nam Library at Nanyang Technological University demand our attention. They feature materials and concepts that highlight the effects people exert upon their natural surroundings and our evolving relationship with the environment. Ms.Teh received the Young Artist Award from the Singapore National Arts Council in 2021.

Mirror of Water, 2019. Zen Teh Shi Wei

Other exciting and innovative works of art are in the digital realm at Sustainable Singapore, an exhibition in augmented reality sponsored by MeshMinds, which partners with the UN Environmental Program. This 2020 initiative invited 20 artists to use digital imagery and the Artivive App for the viewing of animated works that address urgent environmental concerns, such as exotic animal trafficking in Southeast Asia. The images come alive, sparking empathy and wonder.

I am especially indebted to Pamela Ng, fellow art lover and Singaporean arts writer, whose familiarity with the artists discussed above helped me immeasurably in the writing of this piece. https://www.instagram.com/ goldenheartalchemy/.

Since moving from Philadelphia in 2018, Helena has been active with AWA's Walking with Women, Writers' Group and International Choir as well as with Urban Sketchers of Singapore.