n. 355 - natural progression: Engaging with Raffles’ involvement in natural history

n. 355 - natural progression: Engaging with Raffles' involvement in natural history
Essay edited by Yeo Wei Wei
2022

Essay written for the book Raffles Revisited: Essays on Collecting and Colonialism in Java, Singapore, and Sumatra, edited by Stephen A. Murphy. The volume grew out of the Revisiting Raffles symposium [March 8 - 9, 2019] held in conjunction with the exhibition Raffles in Southeast Asia: Revisiting the Scholar and Statesman [February 1- April 28, 2019] at the Asian Civilisations Museum, co-curated with the British Museum.

This essay provides an account of the research and thought processes behind n. 355 – natural progression, Grace Tan's artwork commissioned to complement the Asian Civilisations Museum’s Raffles in Southeast Asia exhibition in 2019. Tan is interested in Raffles’ curated representations of the natural world. Raffles amassed a collection of natural history specimens and drawings during his time in Southeast Asia. The collection was intended for activities that would establish a particular understanding of the natural world, namely discussion and study by natural scientists and enthusiasts in Europe; cataloguing, conservation, and display in the United Kingdom. n. 355 – natural progression responds to Raffles’ involvement in natural history by highlighting its ideological purpose, thus drawing attention to the stakes of discovery and knowledge during the colonial era. 

Read n. 355 - natural progression: Engaging with Raffles' involvement in natural history by Grace Tan.