Ikan Besar Skali

Drawing from Singapore’s museological heritage, Ikan Besar Skali¹ by Hu Qiren reimagines the grandeur of historical whale skeleton displays, bridging natural history with contemporary art. The sculpture invites reflection beyond the whale’s sheer scale, revealing layers of climate histories, curatorial narratives and decolonial perspectives. 

The Esplanade Concourse is transformed into a site of contemplation, where the suspended whale becomes a resonant presence between the Concert Hall and Theatre—echoing Esplanade’s sense of musicality and spatial rhythm. Fabricated in electroplated resin with anatomical precision, its materiality straddles the natural and the industrial. Ikan Besar Skali evokes the wonder of museum artefacts while reinterpreting it for the present moment, where history and mythology meet. 

¹ ‘Ikan Besar Skali’, spelt in pre-standardised Malay and translated as “a fish of monstrous size” in English, was the term used to describe the whale in the Straits Times Weekly Issue of 29 June 1892, page 9.