Visual Arts

For the benefit of the possible intelligences that may find these treasures after humans have long gone, we have translated one of the photographs of our wheat gleaning ceremony in Singapore into binary code.

This is the second resin eye that was inside the crocodile (the first is in the NUS Museum). We include this eye in our offerings so that it may watch over our grain, together with a four-lined tree frog, two blue bees and assorted butterfly wings. It is a gesture aligned with what Donna Haraway

 A biscuit tin formerly containing Mermaid Brand Cream Crackers with wheat designs on the outside was chosen as the box to house the wheat as well as test tubes of salt, needles and Singapore’s very own NEWater – all for the wheat’s ritual protection.

A biscuit tin formerly containing Mermaid Brand Cream Crackers with wheat designs on the outside was chosen as the box to house the wheat as well as test tubes of salt, needles and Singapore’s very own NEWater – all for the wheat’s ritual protection.

Zachary Chan and Muhammad Faisal Bin Husni in a ritual ‘wheat gleaning ceremony’ in Singapore. We requested permission from the spirits of the crocodile, the wheat and Panglima Ah Chong to take the grain of wheat to the mountain in Svalbard. A DVD of the performance was buried along with the artworks. Photo: Kee Ya Ting

The artist’s book is the main artistic contribution of the Project. It draws together the entangled stories of what we know about the crocodile, the seed and the spirit of Panglima Ah Chong, alongside a series of odes to them. Here, all the artists are helping to hold our 4.7m book – the exact length of the saltwater

The one grain we were able to find in the wheat from inside the crocodile was inside this husk, now buried inside the mountain in Svalbard. You can see the grain on the bottom row, second from the right. Photo: Kee Ya Ting

The interior of the crocodile photographed at the then-Raffles Museum of Biodiversity in 2013. Photo: Kee Ya Ting

The first known image of the crocodile, shot in 1887 at the mouth of the Serangoon River. Photo: Original photographer, owner and copyright unknown. Reproduced in Tan, Kevin, Y.L. Of Whales and Dinosaurs. The Story of Singapore’s Natural History Museum. National University of Singapore Press 2015 pp 42-43