The Bizarre Honour is a key work in the artist’s practice that adopts the format of a museological setting and in many ways, consolidates Zhao’s exploration into modes of knowledge dissemination over more than a decade. Installed as a museum of curiosities, it is presented as a fictional institution showcasing their eclectic collection, consisting hundreds of natural objects and artefacts dating from the colonial period to contemporary times: from rare colonial photos, taxidermy and animal traps to tropical field equipment. Collected by the artists over a period of 15 years, this natural history museum surveys the history of Singapore and its contentious relationship with animals, insects and pests. The work exemplifies Zhao’s interest in the history and development of the zoological gaze alongside keen observation of and research into nature and their inhabitants, driven by curiosity and zest for discovering uncharted worlds, finding new relations between things, even if they seem mundane. Also significant is how, these seemingly ordinary photographs or object, put together, forms an obsessive, fractured portrait of Singapore one would not expect.
