In Safe House: Flora & Fauna III, Chang Yoong Chia and collaborator Teoh Ming Wah transform the gallery’s Project Room into a speculative museum that investigates the intersection of memory, materiality, and domestic space. Part of the Bombay Sapphire Art Projects 2008, this exhibition marks a conceptual evolution in Chang’s Flora & Fauna series, moving his practice from the two-dimensional canvas into a three-dimensional inquiry centered on organic materials and collected objects.

The exhibition frames the “Safe House” as a site for the preservation of fragile narratives and “unknown stories.” Teoh Ming Wah’s contribution as a collaborator provided a critical foil to Chang’s practice, pushing for a more rigorous exploration of how objects and people interact within a specific field. Rather than functioning as mere extensions of his paintings, the small, intricate objects displayed are positioned as independent vessels of potentiality. By elevating organic debris and mundane items to the status of museum artifacts, the project creates a “sensory assembly” that reflects the intimate and often unacknowledged histories embedded in the natural world and everyday life. This collaborative effort effectively re-contextualizes the artist’s signature aesthetic, positioning the act of collecting as a vital form of sensitivity and imaginative engagement.