The Unwild

Heather Teo, Singapore

‘The splendour of the fields, the glory of the flowers.'  The irony of the houseplant?

The houseplant presents a bit of a dilemma. A microcosm of nature, you do wonder if a wild thing can still be beautiful if its wildness is so reigned in, manicured, pruned. And yet, it is. The bougainvillea is still as purple, the ficcus still as verdant. The butterflies still come – tiny little ones, but butterflies nonetheless – and so do the bees. You can uproot something entirely, place it in new, unfamiliar soil, and it can still thrive. A supermarket seedling will never unfurl violently over rolling fields, or creep persistently across the forest floor. It isn’t free. But here in this flowerpot it can still lean towards the sun, and eventually its flowers will do a slow and gentle dance as they open and shut with the passing of the day. 

And then there are the things that grow unbidden. Moss on brick, a lone daisy creeping out of a crack in the cement. They invite you to come close, scrutinize. It’s the garden in No Man’s Land.

This series pays homage to the unexpected, the unfree, the unnoticed. The magic of life tiny, and the wonder of life tall. The precious, majestic, and irreplaceable unwild.

Photographs shot on film on a Nikon FM2 between Singapore and London from 2012 to 2016.

The Unwild 

© Heather Teo

The Unwild 

© Heather Teo

The Unwild 

© Heather Teo

The Unwild 

© Heather Teo

The Unwild 

© Heather Teo

Heather Teo is a Fine Art and History of Art graduate from Goldsmiths College, London. Her film photography practice pursues beauty in unexpected places and serendipitous encounters. She also writes both fiction prose and poetry.