AWDB speaks with Haeju Kim, a senior curator at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), and the curator for this year’s Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale. Kim will present the exhibition of artist Robert Zhao, titled ‘Seeing Forest’, exploring the ecology of regrown greenery in land deforested and built over by humans. The artworks reference the various layers of life, from nature taking its course, to human intervention, coexisting together in a unique environment.
Throughout her career, Kim has been involved in a number of experimental projects for art galleries and organisations. Her interests of the body, movement, and memory are prominent in her curated exhibitions and shows.
Kim shared the research and themes for her collaboration with Robert Zhao at this year’s biennale, and how environmental and urban observations in Singapore translate for an international audience.
Please tell us a bit more about the theme for the collaboration with Robert Zhao and how its conception evolved.
‘Seeing Forest’ is rooted in Robert Zhao’s long-term research on secondary forests that he has accumulated for almost a decade. Secondary forests are forests that have sprung up over land previously disturbed by human activity, such as former plantations. These forests are usually on the margins of cities, and their ecological significance is often less valued compared to primary forests. Robert was intrigued by the patch of secondary forest just behind his studio at Gillman Barracks, and he set up cameras to capture the wildlife in the area. He also began observing the secondary forest near his house through the window, especially during the pandemic when everyone had to stay at home.
By capturing captivating footage of the secondary forests surrounded by newly developed buildings and overpasses, he reveals the value of these secondary forests as the last frontiers of untamed wilderness, which are strongly entangled with human histories. The exhibition ‘Seeing Forest’ will reflect what the artist encountered and realised through these spaces, unfolding a universe that demonstrates the complex and layered relationship between humans and nature.
By capturing captivating footage of the secondary forests surrounded by newly developed buildings and overpasses, he reveals the value of these secondary forests as the last frontiers of untamed wilderness, which are strongly entangled with human histories. The exhibition ‘Seeing Forest’ will reflect what the artist encountered and realised through these spaces, unfolding a universe that demonstrates the complex and layered relationship between humans and nature.
How has working on this project with Zhao been different from past experiences?
When I joined the project, it was just a few months after I had moved to Singapore. I was still settling in and trying to familiarise myself with the climate and geography of the city. Getting to know Robert’s works was a process of seeing and understanding Singapore in a unique and unusual way. I came to understand not only the geography of Singapore, but also its natural ecosystems. I believe that to understand a city, one must look at both the natural and human landscapes together and read how the local histories are imbued in the present landscape. I think the process of preparing this exhibition has created multiple pathways of learning for me, and it was special.
How does your own focus on the human body and memory relate to Zhao’s exhibition, touching on topics such as nature and urban environments?
My focus on the human body, memory, and performance values the sensorial experience in exhibition making. Zhao’s works invite the audience to experience this sensation of interconnectedness through the images and installation, and to explore the complex relationship and coexistence between the human and natural worlds, echoing my understanding of ecological thinking as a non-hierarchical perspective between humans and nature. I aim to structure the relationships between artworks, exhibition spaces, and audiences as experiential, temporal events. Zhao’s exhibition similarly immerses viewers in environments that gradually reveal our enmeshed existence within the continuum of natural and urban spaces over time. There’s also a dimension of the archival that Zhao’s works showcase, which resonates with my interest in memory and archives, and the question of how we can make archives speak, and how we can create archives as a space of empathy.
As the world is more connected and more globalised than ever, has that changed anything in your curatorial practice over the years?
I think the awareness of interconnectedness has intensified during the pandemic period. Rather than focusing on the globalised connections between nations and regions, the realisation that our bodies are interconnected with life forms beyond humans was strongly revealed through the issue of contagions. It demonstrates that despite disruptions in movement, there exists an invisible interconnectivity between bodies. The awareness of interdependence and the questions of coexistence seem to have intensified as well, particularly through climate crisis issues. I, too, am trying to reflect these aspects in my curatorial practice. The Busan Biennale, which I curated in 2022 under the title ‘We, on the Rising Wave,’ was an exhibition that heavily reflected this awareness and questioning of interconnectedness.
As ‘Seeing Forest’ raises topics such as the environment in Singapore, how relevant is this exhibition to the international audience of the Venice Biennale?
Robert’s exploration of secondary forests in ‘Seeing Forest’ offers new ways of understanding humanity’s relationship with nature, through which all audiences can find a personal response to. Offering a quietly fierce tribute to the undomesticated, unruly and free forests found along the margins of our urban lives, it examines the ways in which human urban design can shape the natural world, and result in a new ecosystem of migrant species that echoes a city’s human population. Through the intensive study of these frontier spaces, which are found even in the most modernised places around the world, ‘Seeing Forest’ reflects on the impact of historical events and urban development on the natural world and how it reacts in return. It conveys that these ecosystems are shaped by multilayered and complex interactions within the web of nature, which human life is an essential part of. We hope that it will inspire audiences to pay closer attention to the vivid ecosystems, and communities — human and non-human, visible and hidden — and contemplate the possibilities for mutual co-existence.
Through curating this exhibition, what sort of lessons can viewers learn about the natural world coexisting with humans in urban environments?
‘Seeing Forest’ illuminates secondary forests as places of radical hospitality and resistance, where traditional hierarchies of native and non-native, local and foreign, nature and culture are collapsed, allowing for a more organic equilibrium to emerge. They are also, to quote Robert, ‘a second chance’ for nature to find a way to reclaim its place after environmental and human disruptions, providing important visions of resilience, flourishing and regeneration in an always already-compromised world. The exhibition is an experiential and experimental space where visitors will experience this forest, brought to life through an assemblage of video works and sculptural installations. Visitors can discover the rich multiplicity of stories, histories and perspectives that constitute secondary forests and other marginal spaces. We invite them to experience these spaces as active and open-ended, and gain a deeper understanding of the world around us and our connected ways of being.
‘Seeing Forest’ will be presented at the Singapore Pavilion of the 60th International Art Exhibition in Venice (Venice Biennale), titled ‘Foreigners Everywhere’, and will take place from 20 April to 24 November, 2024. For more information, click here.
INTERVIEW COURTESY OF HAEJU KIM, SINGAPORE ART MUSEUM (SAM), AND ART WORLD DATABASE, APRIL 2024.