Main image: A hummingbird trap flower

What made you create the 'Institute of Critical Zoologists’?

The Institute of Critical Zoologists is a place where I can seek a different way to look at animals. A long time ago, I was an animal rights activist. I created difficult images of animals suffering in cages. After a while, I realized I wasn't really interested in being an activist for a subject that has no voice, it was really more about me than the animals. I got a grant to travel to all the zoos and circuses in Europe. In the 34th zoo which I visited in one month, I saw an elephant refuse the command of her trainer and the subsequently pin the trainer to the ground. Everyone watching was in shock and the kids were crying out loud as the elephant started charging around the cage. I realize I was more interested in watching humans watch animals. The Institute is a space in which my concerns can be experimented with, produced and mapped out in a systematic and formal way. 

Which photograph do you feel most represents your message?

This one, from here. Full explanation via the BBC.

Fish in eggs, Matsura. A

Do you have a favourite type of bird?

Blind Long-tailed Owl, Desert Variant of Little Owl

During the 1980s, variants of regional species of animals such as scorpions, owls and bats were found around the new regions of Singapore. Scientists believe that these species were forced into the reclaimed regions in the 1960s and these slightly paler-looking species are a type of desert variant that occur very rarely. Their deformities are believed to have developed in order for the animals to cope with life in the tropical desert. Very little else is documented on these variant species. 

Is the name of the exhibition anything to with the proverb "A bird in the hand is worth two in a bush"?

The proverb focuses on the reality of a small and current advantage, rather than the possibility of a greater one in the future. In the same way, the exhibition attempts to embrace our contemporary relationship with birds in all its absurdity, strangeness and wonder. It is useful to look at our current relationship with animals and reflect upon its ambivalence and irony.

What has been the reaction to your work so far?

A boy studying zoology from Chelsea wrote me an email asking me if I would do an exhibition on Polar Bears next and an artist emailed me if I would like to collaborate in using the Institute's camouflage cloak for a performance piece.

The Blind, Taiheiyo Evergreen Forests, 2008. Institute of Critical Zoologists 

The exhibition mixes fact and fiction, is it important for the viewer to know which is which?

It has always been human to try to see some sort of sign or to try to grasp some form of meaning in what we see. Most of the time we are interested in an authenticated reality but not the truth. Photographs have this ability to render us naive in our attempt to look for meaning. I think what would be interesting for us to do is to abandon this inept need for meanings.

At the end of this exhibition, what is your relationship now with birds?

I seems like I can say anything about birds and get away with it. We know so little about birds but at the same time we are also quite familiar with them. We have a strange relationship with birds. A relationship that remains difficult to talk about and much harder to even try to represent through images.

What differences have you noticed between the natural environment you grew up with in Singapore compared to now? What about how it compares to the wildlife habitats here?

I used to see flocks of swifts fly by my flat every evening in Singapore. This was against a backdrop of lush secondary forest. The swifts, the flat and the forest are all gone now to make way for new urban developments. Singapore is an island with re-appropriated nature that is turned up to volume ten. We have the region's tallest man-made waterfall and safari. It's quite strange to look at that waterfall.

I have not really explored any wildlife habitats here in the UK but the idea of foxes in cities and deers in parks sounds very exotic. I am also intrigued by the number of English birdwatchers that flock to our region every year. The idea that what I see everyday could cause such huge excitement for some is interesting. 

Jurong Falls

There is a trend for artists looking to use artifice as a way of portraying their message to the public, do you think this is something that will grow? Do you intend to exhibit like this in the future?

I do not categorize these messages into what is real and what is not. Someone once said that the "construction and reading of realities seems to be intermingled and indifferent. We should simply accept the uncertainty of representations as the core element of any representation of the real. As endless and instantaneous documents pours into our daily reality, the analysis of a ‘real event’ and its representation becomes increasingly difficult."

In a way, any form of representation is both artificial and real, at the very same time. It is useful to question why we need to grasp certain meanings to make sense of the world and what that really means. I think my works may not be the truth but they are very real. My work will be more authentic in the future.

Tell us about your expedition with The Arctic Circle Residency this year?

I will be sailing for two weeks into the high arctic with other scientists and artists. This is an expedition about our fears of climate change and its impact. I'll be looking at the recent phenomenon of mass bird graves in the Arctic where the melting ice caps have caused birds to migrate wrongly to cooler regions instead of the warmer tropics. As a result, millions of migratory birds are turning up dead in the Arctic.

#243, after 321 days. A bird that was carrying a small pin-hole camera (1.21cm x 0.7cm) made by Tomimaru Okuni tied to its feet while the bird was in Japan. The bird and the camera were later retrieved from the Arctic Circlc after 321 days. Journey from Japan to the Arctic Circle.

What is the future for the 'Institute of Critical Zoologists'?

Hopefully to carry on doing and expanding on the projects that are useful and to chance upon new ways of looking at our relationship with animals and images for The Institute of Critical Zoologists. 

For more information, please visit www.criticalzoologists.org