Zhao Renhui is one of the most intriguing new artists to emerge from Singapore. Working through a medium of photography, the artist explores the concepts of truth, falsity, and the suspension of disbelief when encountered through the human gaze. Under the appellation the "Institute of Critical Zoologists", Zhao adopts the persona of a zoologist and anthropologist investigating species in their natural - or unnatural - habitats. At once an artist but with a distinctly curatorial bent, Zhao moderates his works by framing them as ethnographic materials or deceptively realistic wildlife photographs. The interrogation of how much of what we accept as scientific truth (such as social or wildlife documentaries on television) but which are actually works of sparse fact manipulated into visual fiction is a source of constant fascination to the artist.

Tottori Sand Dune (Lot 659) is part of a series known as The Blind Project. A 'blind' is a wildlife photographer's equipment, often a simple wooden screen or small shanty, which conceals the person from the eyes of the animals, allowing them to take close-up shots of wildlife in their natural environment. Of this, Zhao asks: "Blinds, or nature hides, are often helpful in the pursuit of and observation of wild animals. But what blind is right for the contemporary zoologist?" He creates a project of ostensibly offering for a sale a cloak of camouflage, made of light-reflecting "meta-material" which allows the zoologist to sink into the background, chameleon-like. Inevitably there is a sense of surrendering personal identity as the zoologist attempts to integrate into a "natural", yet for him, wholly alien environment while in the pursuit of rare beasts.