Tears of the Forest is a projection-mapping artwork inspired by the symbolic role of the tiger in parts of Southeast Asian folklore, where it has been associated with ancestral power, protection, and the supernatural.

Across the façade of The Cathay, a generative particle landscape transforms the architecture into a living forest. Roots flow across its surface, organic forms emerge and dissolve, and the environment appears to breathe as the tiger gradually materialises from within it.

The tiger and forest exist as interconnected forms, neither entirely separate from the other. As the guardian emerges, the landscape responds to its presence. As it dissolves, the forest fragments into particles, traces, and memory, before transforming into a new and unfamiliar ecology.

Blending generative visuals, projection mapping, and environmental storytelling, Tears of the Forest explores guardianship, interdependence, loss, and transformation, asking what happens to an ecosystem when the presence that once sustained it begins to disappear.

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Presented at MALAM Projection Mapping Competition, Singapore NIght Festival 2026