Chua Chye Teck: Echoes in Concrete

Chua Chye Teck’s artistic practice explores the intersection of Singapore’s urban development and cultural heritage. Chua challenges conventional boundaries by documenting transient forms in overlooked spaces, blending photography and sculpture to reflect the city-state’s rapidly changing landscapes.

In Scholar’s Rocks (2013–18), Chua reimagines concrete fragments from construction sites, drawing inspiration from the aesthetics of traditional Chinese scholars’ rocks, gongshi. This connection to Chinese culture, however, comes from a unique perspective. ‘I’m the . . . third generation of Chinese migrant to Singapore,’ Chua notes, ‘and I think we understand Chinese culture from a very distant, very diluted [angle].’

Captivated by discarded concrete fragments, Chua found that photography alone could not fully capture their essence. This realisation prompted a shift in his artistic approach. ‘I decided to shift, to return to using my hands to carve again, for this project,’ he explains.^[1] Despite this transition to sculpture, Chua perceives a fundamental similarity between the two mediums: ‘It’s still similar to photography, where in photography, you just capture the image, you observe the image, but you don’t create. It’s the same [with Scholar’s Rocks] because you just make a form that highlights, you don’t really create.’ ^[2]

Chua’s work is rooted in his reflections on Singapore’s urban transformation. ‘When I produced this work, it was all about my thinking about my environment,’ Chua explains. ‘My reaction about my environment, how fast it changes, how fast they tear down and build, how fast we have to keep up our memory [to adapt] the new development.’ In response to these observations, Scholar's Rocks prompts a reconsideration of the narratives embedded in our surroundings and an examination of environmental transformations shaping the places we live. His dedication to capturing the ephemeral and unique approach to materials invites viewers to discover hidden stories within Singapore’s changing urban fabric.

The Shanshui: Echoes and Signals exhibition presents the entirety of the Scholar’s Rocks series for the first time, offering a cohesive vision of Chua’s exploration of urban change.