The Imperative Landscape

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The Imperative Landscape (2014)

Photographic sculptures, print on cotton rag paper, mounted on aluminum, diasec finishing

This body of work was developed during Zen Teh’s residency in the mountainous city of Chiang Rai, Thailand, and was awarded the France + Singapore Photographic Arts Award. The Imperative Landscape is composed from Teh’s documentation of Chiang Rai’s dense forests. Eschewing a more conventional landscape format presentation, Teh has rendered her images on large geometric shapes, their connotations of a primordial symbolism and sacred geometry acting in concert with the monochromatic imagery to suggest a perspective of nature not as passive ground to be razed and built over, but as a powerful foundation and repository of cultural beliefs and spiritual traditions.

The Imperative Landscape: Microcosm (2023)

Print on acrylic, glass petri-dish

A companion series to The Imperative Landscape developed specially for this presentation at Warin Lab, Microcosm continues the interests and narratives explored in the larger-scale works, encapsulated into smaller ‘worldings’.