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Lasalle's Annual Art Journal & the artificial trees at Gardens by the Bay

Last month, Huy Nguyen went to LaSalle University to teach and give a few talks about climate change. We met up, and he gave me the school's Annual Art Journal with the theme of Weather. The book includes contributions from Huy and my brother Tran Luong, and it's exactly what we often talk about. Nowadays, even the sanctuaries of art are incorporating Climate Change, Environment, and Sustainable Development into their teaching and research.


This morning, I pulled out the Journal to read and discovered that page 3 was left black & blank. I suddenly had the idea to draw the artificial trees at Gardens by the Bay from a photo my brother took yesterday afternoon on this blank page. The artificial trees are very large, and beneath them are real trees, small and faint. The world still sparkles with colors, brilliantly lit by man-made structures that people excitedly check-in at and show off to each other the places they've been. The opulence and splendor of modern life are directly proportional to the disasters by Climate Change. The more steel, concrete, and energy needed to light up and cool down the air, the hotter this earth becomes, and the more the lives of the poor are affected.


No wonder that after over ten years of running a company in Singapore, I never want to take pictures with those artificial trees. Every night, these structures still glitter, and countless tourists from around the world continue to flock to admire and photograph these "masterpieces" of technology and luxury. Suddenly, I remember the baobab trees in Madagascar that have provided and brought fresh air and various food sources to local people. And just like that, I know where my next trip will be, what trees I will visit. And I can imagine the painting of the baobab trees.


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