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M+, Hong Kong, © Bas Princen
Bas Princen 巴斯．普林森
Hinterland Series—Straits (Oil Cavern) 腹地──海峽（石油洞穴）
2013
This photograph portrays Singapore’s Jurong Rock Caverns one year before they opened. The caverns were Southeast Asia’s first underground commercial storage, constructed 130 metres beneath the seabed to hold large quantities of crude oil. Developed by the Jurong Town Corporation and freeing up sixty hectares of land above ground, the caverns’ success reflects Singapore’s state entrepreneurship to become an energy infrastructural hub. Bas Princen’s view of the caverns alludes to Singapore’s strategies for survival based on a technologically and economically oriented urban model that defies physical limits.
The photograph is part of Princen’s Hinterland series, which depicts landscapes and infrastructure on Singapore’s periphery. Trained as a designer, Princen uses the camera as a tool to investigate spatial phenomena. His work blends elements together in images that collapse objects and contexts or create ambiguity between the natural and the artificial. He focuses primarily on buildings, landscapes, and infrastructure, often depicting humans’ impact on territories, whether through construction, demolition, or appropriation.
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