TIME AND TIDE by Foo Tee Jun

Prints from the exhibition ‘Time and Tide’ are available. Please email us at ryan@objectifs.com.sg if you would like a catalogue.

This book is a collection of some 80 black and white and colour images captured by photographer Foo Tee Jun (b.1935). 

One of the nation’s foremost image makers, Foo Tee Jun’s works have shaped the visual lexicon of modern photography in Singapore. This exhibition features his images from the 1960s and 1970s, a time when a newly independent Singapore was just coming into its own.

In Time and Tide, scenes of kampong life and traditional crafts sit alongside vistas of busy shipyards and skyscrapers. They speak of a rapidly industrialising country in the process of shedding the old for the new, when its people were mobilised towards the pursuit of modernity.

Throughout his professional and personal life, Foo has pursued his love for photography with a singular passion, honing a masterful eye that has captured the everyday with a sensitive and elegant vision. As documents, his images serve as reminders of a Singapore that has endured immense generational change; in their artistry, they form an essential part of the country’s cultural legacy.

Foo Tee Jun (b.1935) is one of Singapore’s most acclaimed photographers. His photographic practice spans more than fifty years, and his works are renowned for their technical prowess and versatility. From 1974 to 1995, he was a professional photographer with the then Ministry of Environment and Water Resources. In his spare time, Foo taught photography, helped organise photography exhibitions, and became an advisor to the many photography clubs that formed in the 1970s and 1980s, in addition to continually refining his own practice. His work has earned numerous accolades, and he is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and a member of the Photographic Society of Singapore. In 1989, Foo received the Cultural Medallion for his contributions to photography in Singapore.