Lecture: Signatures of the Anthropocene

In 2000, scholars Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer proposed the formal recognition of a new ‘Anthropocene’ epoch, a geological era defined by profound human modification of the global environment. How might we understand this epoch through transformations of the Earth’s surfaces––the erosion of coastlines, the clearing of forests, or the accumulation of plastic along ocean horizons? What are the signatures of the “Anthropocene” and how can they be measured? Through material residues, Artist, Curator and Lecturer Wang Ruobing (Lasalle College) creates physical records of discarded objects that wash ashore along Singapore’s coastlines. Associate Professor Edward Park (National Institute of Education and Asian School of Environment, NTU) examines the impacts of sand mining and natural disasters at a geographical scale, tracing changing riverscapes and landscapes through remote sensing technologies and GIS modelling. Moderated by archaeologist Franca Cole, this lecture explores how surfaces of the earth are being radically altered by climate change and human activity and asks how we document and mediate the processes changing our coastlines forever.

Tuesday Lecture

7 April 2026, 6:30pm – 8:30pm

The Hall, NTU CCA, Blk 6 Lock Road, #01-10 Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108934

Image credit: View of the Mekong Delta as part of Associate Professor Edward Park's field research. Image by Edward Park.

The Climate Transformation: Sustainable Societies Series is organised by members of the Climate Transformation Programme (CTP) Cross-Cutting Theme 1: Sustainable Societies research team, Principal Investigator Professor Ute Meta Bauer, research fellow Joshua Gebert, research associate Ng Mei Jia and research assistant Angela Ricasio Hoten.

Sustainable Societies

Principal Investigator, Professor Ute Meta Bauer (NTU ADM)

Principal Investigator, Associate Professor Laura Miotto (NTU ADM)

Principal Investigator, Professor Dr Thomas Schroepfer (SUTD)

This Lecture Series is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 3 grant [MOE-MOET32022-0006] for the Climate Transformation Programme.

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Speakers

Edward Park is an Associate Professor in Physical Geography at NIE and ASE. He serves as Principal Investigator at the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) where he is developing a river research program entitled ‘Tropical Rivers in the Anthropocene’. He also serves as a PI for Research Cluster 1: Climate Processes and Extremes, on the Climate Transformation Programme led by EOS, NTU. His research investigates the tropical rivers processes along the Mekong Delta and how they interact with human activities, such as sand mining, as well as natural disasters. Edward’s work is strongly based on geospatial technologies, hydrological modeling, in addition to traditional field surveys. He received his PhD from the University of Texas, Austin and BA from the Ohio State University.

Wang Ruobing is an artist, curator and educator at LASALLE, University of the Arts Singapore. Committed to exploring new ways of seeing and methods of knowledge production, Dr Wang’s artistic practice stretches from drawing to photography, sculpture, kinetic art, and installation. Her body of work explores our position with our environment, with works such as “Tide” (2023) addressing the issue of travelling trash and its impacts on marine ecosystems. As an academic, her research concentrates on identity, hybridity and transcultural discourses, particularly on contemporary art in China and Southeast Asia. She received her PhD from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and previously a curator at the National Gallery Singapore.

Moderator

Franca Cole is a British archaeologist and conservator whose research focuses on the way humans create and use material culture to manipulate and influence their social relationships, working on projects including the deliberate fragmentation of handmade ceramics at Niah Caves, Sarawak; trans-Saharan trade of beads and textiles; and diachronic change in Iron Age material culture in the Eastern Mediterranean. Currently she is a Research Fellow on the Climate Transformation Programme and Lecturer in Collections Care and Management at NTU. She is also a consultant in Conservation and Collections to Sarawak Museum Department. Franca was educated at UCL and University of Cambridge. She worked as a freelance archaeological conservator for more than 10 years, working on sites and museums in Turkey, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Peru, Chile, India, Norway, Greece, UAE, Qatar and Malaysia. Since her PhD, she has held academic posts at UCL Qatar and the University of Leicester and a research fellowship at the Sarawak Museum, relocating to Kuching, Sarawak in 2017.

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About the Climate Transformation: Sustainable Societies Lecture Series

The series returns for its second cycle in the Academic Year 2025-26. Each session features researchers from the Climate Transformation Programme, alongside contributors from other academic fields, as well as artists, architects and advocates. In this second iteration, the lecture series is framed with policy relevance in mind, with respondents from various government agencies, non-governmental organisations, and other relevant industries offering immediate commentary.

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Host or Publisher NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore