In my photo series “Tropical Terrarium”, I explore the irony of Singapore’s uneasy relationship with nature in an era of rapid development. As the constant cycle of construction and destruction threatens to further obliterate any remaining traces of nature in land-scarce Singapore, the absence of nature prompts a feverish obsession to romanticise and immortalise elements of nature through artificial constructs, dazzling emblems of the city’s lofty aspirations to be both a world-class garden city and a modern metropolis.

In the presence of artificiality, quiet neighbourhoods and forgotten corners take on a life of their own, giving a tantalising glimpse of the history behind the space and its inhabitants.