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Authoring Nature: A Fable of Singapore

Part 2 Project 2018
Natalie Cheung
 National University of Singapore | Singapore
Authoring Nature prompts us to rethink our relationship with nature as wildlife increasingly encroaches into cities. This three-act structure thesis depicts Singapore's vice-like grip on its image; an attitude largely defined by a capitalistic city overly dependent on the showmanship of tourism, revealing our attitude toward nature based on aesthetics than appreciation, as it becomes a tool for national branding - begetting the question: What exactly does Nature mean in Singapore?

Natalie Cheung
Tutor(s)
Prof Sakamoto Tsuto
2018
A City of Fables - Singapore’s contrived attitude towards Nature
Otterly in Love - a bizarre tale of our unusual adoration of a specific wildlife species; the river otter
The Curated Image and an Anxious State - a natural migration of otters from habitat in the mangroves to populated city centre
Crafting the Picturesque - A reconstruction within Singapore’s most celebrated public space for a harmonious spectacle between otters and locals
A Nature’s Fable - After many years, Nature was not what Nature seemed to be
Stage One: The Picturesque - “Behind every sprinkle of nature in the city, a clean up crew.”
Stage One: A City Sanctuary - “A beautiful sunny day out in an urban beach right in our Central Business District. Singapore probably is the only first class city capable of cohabiting with our wildlife.”
Stage Two: Inside-Out / Outside-In - “It’s better to keep them in. With the spiralling ramps, we can observe them at all angles, at all times of the day! What a wonderful way to still co-exist with wildlife in the city.”
Stage Three: An Ottered City - “What was revealed underneath the rigid grid of steel was not just a mash of twigs and branches but a precise system; complex and unfamiliar. An unexpected deviation from the intended curated image, but a nature true to its
Stage Three: Nature Beyond Us - In the quiet of the mess, otters continued on as they did; packing their twigs to make more nests and exploring out further into the city to find more places to rest. Nature, is unpredictable and uncontrollable. Who knows w
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