Second Nature
Marvin Tang, Rusydan Norr, Woong Soak Teng and Quek See Yee
Group Exhibition
30 May - 8 Jun 2025, 11am - 7pm
Growing up in a city where the narrative of nature permeates the collective consciousness, the artistic gaze is often green-tinted. This pervasive presence – from the intimacy of potted plants and allotment gardens to the grandeur of Supertrees and hoardings – in turn shapes the sentiments and philosophy of its inhabitants. Yet, are works with nature, necessarily about nature itself?
Second Nature invites you to hold nature in your thoughts and consider this question through the lens of Marvin Tang, Quek See Yee, Rusydan Norr and Woong Soak Teng. Using different modes of inquiry, their ongoing explorations excavate the metaphor of nature to reflect on histories, consumption patterns, adaptive processes and the embodied self.
About the Artist(s)
Marvin Tang
Marvin Tang (b.1989, Singapore) works with images, videos, and installations to manifest his
research. Surveying the peripherals of historicity and evolving social policies, his practice examines
systems of power and resistance. He is particularly interested in applying this research to
Singapore; attempting to investigate her own historical account and relationship to the expanded
narratives across the globe.
Marvin currently teaches at the School of Arts, Design, and Media and Lasalle College of the Arts.
He is also the lead producer at Superhero Me, an inclusive arts collective striving to create
opportunities for creative advocacy in the field of neurodiversity.
Rusydan Norr
Rusydan Norr (b.1998) is a Singapore-based visual artist. His visual practice employs a play on perceptibility as a way to illuminate the mundane. Bridging horticulture and experimental photography, he delves into the temporal and speculative representations of ecosystems in urban commons. Presently, he is interested in the way subjective meaning and value shifts within biological artworks and landscapes.
Woong Soak Teng
Woong Soak Teng (b. 1994, Singapore) practices in the intersections of art making, producing, and project managing. Her personal projects examine human tendencies to control natural phenomena and nature at large. Current research interests include the human experience of living with spinal deformity and the role of image-making and representations of human bodies in the medical field. She forms one-third of the art collective, DASSAD.
Soak graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography and Digital Imaging at the Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design and Media. She has participated in festivals and exhibitions internationally in China, Denmark, Greece, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Spain, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway. Her accolades include the Steidl Book Award Asia, Objectifs Documentary Award 2021, Kwek Leng Joo Prize of Excellence in Photography 2018 and Singapore Young Photographer Award 2018.
Quek See Yee
Quek See Yee is a designer/artist practising across research, spaces, objects and play. The art practice is guided by a series of experimentation and questions in and around the real world, expressing the structure of our everyday lives to the ties we hold within the context of the tropics.
This series reflects on the strangeness and disconnect between urban life and nature, that we dont know better or any other ways of living. Our treatment of nature is methodical—timed, controlled, and often serving our needs in ways that feel detached from the life around us. The familiar structures of the city relegate nature to a secondary role, treating it as a mere backdrop to urban existence, where it is controlled and shaped to serve human needs.