My Forest Has No Name is a series of photographs of man-made tropical environments all over the world. They are part of Donna Ong’s (b. 1978, Singapore) ongoing investigation into the portrayal of the forest from colonial times into the present day. She explores humankind’s fascination with the tropical forest and attempts to unpack how our perception of the forest is shaped through verbal and pictorial depictions. Often, images and descriptions of the forest, though purportedly empirical, are also selective imaginative constructs. They reveal the various lenses through which we build our understanding and opinion of the forest, and how that affects the way we think and deal with the forest, including the decisions we make about it ecologically, politically, socially and economically. (xxxiv) was photographed at the Singapore Zoo.
Ong is an installation artist, best known for her evocative and thought- provoking environments made from furniture, found objects and original artwork. She has exhibited at numerous biennales including the inaugural Singapore Biennale (2007), Kwandu Biennale (2008), and Moscow Biennale of Young Art (2014), and her installations have appeared in museums and institutions worldwide, such as the Singapore Art Museum, Hara Museum (Japan) and the Djanogly Art Gallery in Nottingham University (United Kingdom). In 2009, she received the Singapore National Arts Council Young Artist Award and won the People’s Choice award for the President’s Young Talents competition. While pursuing her Bachelor’s degrees in Fine Art and Architecture at Goldsmiths University of London and University College London (UCL) respectively, Ong was conferred several awards and prizes including UCL’s Singapore Undergraduate Scholarship, the Shell-NAC Undergraduate Scholarship and the Architectural Theory Prize. She graduated top of her cohort in the Masters in Fine Art degree at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore.