Robert Zhao Renhui: Learning to See a Tree

How many times do we walk past a tree without truly seeing it? This simple question lies at the heart of Robert Zhao Renhui's artistic practice. The Singaporean artist uses photography, video and installation to explore the delicate relationship between people and nature. Although his works often resemble scientific documentation, they ultimately challenge the ways we observe, classify and seek to control the living world. In Trying to Remember a Tree, Zhao dedicates the entire exhibition to the life of a single tree. After the fall of a large rain tree, he carefully records every stage of its existence: its 28,017 leaves, its slow process of decomposition, and the subtle transformations that time leaves on matter. What would normally be treated as little more than urban debris becomes the central subject of a compelling visual narrative. Through photography, surveillance footage and installation, Zhao turns this single tree into a lens through which to reconsider both the city and our relationship with nature. Rather than speaking about ecology in abstract terms, he invites visitors to slow down and look more attentively. As the artist often reminds us, before we can understand a forest, we must first learn to observe a single tree. It is in this patient attention to the smallest details that his work reveals a quiet yet deeply moving poetry of the natural world.