Located at The Spine Hall, Level B1, Ah Wah and Ah Kiat: Crossing Borders (2001) captures the daily migration of workers between countries worldwide. Closer to home, this work resonates with the Causeway between Singapore and Malaysia as one of the busiest border crossings in the world.

More than 200 sculptures of motorcyclists are massed together as a crowd whose monotony is only broken by two golden figurines in their midst, emphasising their individuality. Teo’s work symbolically honours the everyday worker, showcasing their inherent value and dignity through their labour and contributions to society on both sides of the Johor Strait.

These monoliths, which resemble giant fingertips, dwarf viewers with their towering forms. Five Nails brings to mind an episode from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, where the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, is attempting to escape the Buddha’s palm as part of a bet. When Sun Wukong encounters five gargantuan pillars, he thought that he had travelled to the ends of the universe.

However, those pillars were later revealed to be Buddha’s fingers, his grasp vast and inescapable despite one’s efforts. The long nail-like structures convey overtones of fear and threats from humanity’s past and unconscious mind, putting viewers in Sun Wukong’s position of being involved in something far larger and greater than they are.

The Net (Most Definitely Singapore River) (1986) is an installation featuring a fishing net entangled with paperdyesculp debris. This work is Teo's wry response to the overuse of the Singapore River as a subject by local artists.

Instead of a romanticised depiction, Teo captures the pollution from the 1970s to the 1980s, emphasising rawness and spontaneity in his re-creation of the river's debris.

Delving further into the intricacies of human consciousness is The Mind (1975), an installation comprising three light bulbs and switches.

You are encouraged to experiment with the switches, with permutations resulting in one of the three bulbs lighting up in a seemingly random manner. The participatory work critiques rational thought by emphasising playfulness and the randomness of everyday life, encouraging you to think independently, rather than follow a prescribed path based on a fixed solution.

Teo combines everyday objects with his unique paperdyesculp technique, transforming a secondhand birdcage into a metaphor for the contradictions of wealth.

Adorned with opulent columns and playful birds made from paper, the cage is a metaphor that cautions against being too comfortable and locked in established norms and conventions rather than constantly creating new ways of thinking about and making art.

Against the backdrop of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, Teo critiques social divides, urging viewers to ponder the complexities of privilege and authentic expression.