Mater
Mater
2024
Weathering steel
Yale-NUS College, Singapore
Sculpture commissioned to commemorate Yale-NUS College [2013 - 2025], a pioneering four-year residential liberal arts college in Asia, jointly founded by the National University of Singapore and Yale University.
Sitting on top of the hill, the library looks into the garden.
The Campus Green, a cloistered garden of learning.
It houses an elusive Margaritaria indica, the only known mature individual found in Singapore.
The site is an aboretum; a refugium.
Standing rooted on the slope is a cube.
A human-made object with straight lines and flat planes.
Its presence in the garden is odd and surreal, yet strangely compelling.
Could it be a minimalist scholar’s rock?
Or perhaps an asteroid chunk from another planet?
Its symmetry is articulated by the layered construction of weathering steel sheets.
An intricate mitered joinery pattern is revealed where the plates meet.
As the metal cube reacts to moisture in the environment, a layer of oxide forms on its surface.
While the corrosion is deemed to weaken the steel, the rust in this case, becomes a sheath - protecting and preserving.
Enveloped by a patina, the cube ages from a bright yellow ochre to a red ochre, a burnt sienna, and then to a very dark brown.
Through this process, the hues of the earth are depicted.
And an industrial material naturalised.
The cube is hollow.
The opening is a portal, a conduit, or an oculus.
It is both here and there.
Linking the past, present, and future.
It looks to infinity.
Framing and capturing a memory, or a vision.
Like a ring, it binds and strengthens.
A symbol of commitment.
Bringing people together, and holding things in place.
Within the cube encloses an illusory square.
It traces the outline of a gap that transverses the four sides.
An angled quadrangle, a geometric figure with four equal edges and right angles.
A perfect square.
A two-dimensional construct.
While its geometry is obscured in our three-dimensional world, the square is undoubtedly present.
The knowledge of its existence is an enlightenment.
In this instance, the unseen subverts the tangible earthly matter destined for entropy.
Freed from this fate, the intangible persists, transcending time and place.
A closer look at the cube reveals a fragmented form made up of two equal parts.
A gap runs between them.
Could it be a fracture, an interstice, or a void?
Or what if the cube is a seed pod?
Once again, the imagery of a flourishing garden comes to mind.
The seed of knowledge.
A learning landscape.
A nourishing ground.
Photography by KHOOGJ