Alfred Russel Wallace and Ali

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

First placed in Singapore: 2019

outside the Lee Kong Chian Museum of Biodiversity

Wallace is pointing his finger, and Ali his gun, at a bird high up on the column across the mini-plaza. This device is used in two other realistic public sculptures in Singapore, do you know which ones?

Patron: Lee Foundation and others. Barry Clarke, of Taylor & Francis, spearhead the proposal.

When the plan to create a sculpture of Wallace was first being discussed, at least when I first heard about it, the idea was to commission the same UK sculptor who was creating a work for the Natural History Museum, London. Alfred Smith eventually got that commission.

Someone must have given the input that we should "decolonize" the sculpture a bit by including one of Wallace's local collaborators, Ali (who we know only by one name). The gesture is in the right direction I suppose, but so much about the work reinforces colonial tropes - the wise white man as guide to the barefoot Malay. It gives the impression that Wallace is pointing out to Ali a bird that Ali would never have seen on his own, when it is much more likely that Ali would have shown Wallace the bird. And Wallace delegates the violence to Ali who gets to kill the bird (not that I think he would have cared, but still...)

Last updated: Aug-7-2022