All living things are constantly changing and evolving, adapting to cope with and respond to the various pressures that they face, such as predators, competition and environmental change. More recently, the human species has emerged as the single main perpetrator of the various pressures that threaten the survival of other life forms. A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World is an attempt to document the ways in which humankind has altered this planet, and continues to do so.

A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the world is a project initiated by Robert Zhao Renhui.

"...Responding to the title of the Singapore Biennale 2013, “If The World Changed”, Zhao has created an installation titled A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World, which seeks to document and reflect on the myriad ways in which human action and intervention are slowly altering the natural world. Based on the evolutionary premise that all living things constantly change and adapt to cope with and respond to their changing environments (or risk extinction), Zhao’s Guide presents a catalogue of curious creatures and life-forms that have evolved in often unexpected ways to cope with the stresses and pressures of a changed world. Other organisms documented in the installation are the results of human intervention, mutations engineered to serve various interests and purposes ranging from scientific research to the desire for ornamentation.
Several specimens in this installation are based on fact; others are works of fiction. The line between these two is often an indistinct one, as scientific advances within the last half-century have made possible what was previously believed to be impossible. While drawing on the encyclopaedic tradition, which is premised on the basic human desire to catalogue and to order knowledge so as to better understand – and command - the world, Zhao’s Guide also questions the limits of these systems of collating, ordering and disseminating knowledge, by blurring the lines between fact and fiction, and oscillating between the modalities of science and art, thereby inviting us to consider the roles of these disciplines in our apprehension and understanding of the world." - Curator, Tan Siu Li

An installation of of objects and photographs will be presented at The Perankan Museum.
The project is a Singapore Biennale 2013 Commission.

Installation view, A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World.
Installation of 26 diasecs, moon dust, robotic cockroach, banana plant bonsai, man-made grapes,
European tiger mosquitoes, man-made eggs, medicinal eggs, unbreakable egg and long-life peanut

Friday 25 October 2013 — Sunday 16 February 2014
The Peranakan Museum, Level 3
Gallery open:
10am – 7pm daily (last admission at 6.15pm)

39 Armenian Street , Singapore 179941

http://www.singaporebiennale.org/?page=artist_bio&artist=52

A poster designed by H55 also accompanies the installation for the exhibition.

Limited copies available through out the course of the Biennale.

84cm x 59cm, double sided

Supported by Alsodominie