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Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s
Malaysian Art
Sarena Abdullah, Carmen Nge Siew Mun
Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia,
Volume 6, Number 2, October 2022, pp. 47-75 (Article)
Published by NUS Press Pte Ltd
For additional information about this article
[ Access provided at 10 Dec 2022 10:42 GMT with no institutional affiliation ]
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/871491
Spaces of Experimentation and
Collaboration in Early 1990s
Malaysian Art
SARENA ABDULLAH and CARMEN NGE SIEW MUN
Abstract
At the zenith of the Mahathir era, amidst the economic boom and rapid develop-
ment of the early 1990s, Malaysian art exhibitions were charting a novel path in
the arena of installation and performance art. This paper will closely examine three
seminal installation art exhibitions, namely Sook Ching (1990), 2 Installations
(1991), and Warbox Lalang Killing Tools (1994), where some of the artists involved
chose to perform and/or collaborate with dancers and theatre makers, culminating
in some of the earliest experiments with performance art in Malaysia. What sets
them apart from other installation exhibitions of that period is their use of perfor-
mance as a tool to confront, unsettle, and challenge audiences in institutional
spaces, thereby opening up new possibilities for experimentation and risk-taking.
Setting the Stage
The date was 21 October 1994, and the venue was the Creative Centre at the
Balai Seni Lukis Negara (BSLN) or National Art Gallery, along Jalan Sultan
Hishamuddin in Kuala Lumpur. The date marked the opening of a three-man
art exhibition, comprising young Malaysian artists Bayu Utomo Radjikin,
Raja Shahriman, and Wong Hoy Cheong, and was menacingly titled Warbox
Southeast of Now
Vol. 6 No. 2 (October 2022), pp. 47–75
© Sarena Abdullah and Carmen Nge Siew Mun 47
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0
International License
48 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporar y and Modern Art in Asia
Lalang Killing Tools. Even the exhibition catalogue was prickly: rough tex-
tured paper encased in a barbed wire folder that was able to draw blood if
handled carelessly.
Yet as the sun waned in the distant horizon of Malaysia’s capital, it was
not the sharp artworks that jarred audiences but the gradually amassing
clusters of (mostly) Malay and (mostly) male youth traversing the approach
roads to the gallery. This was not your typical gallery opening crowd; they
were a ragtag bunch united in dress by a common hue: black. Decked out in
identifiably punk paraphernalia—well-worn T-shirts emblazoned with DIY
silkscreened punk band monikers, punk symbols and slogans; faded black
leather studded jackets; skinny ripped jeans; bovver boots; and the occasional
Mohawk hairdo—these young Malaysians were not here to view an art exhi-
bition but to witness performance of the opening act: homegrown Malaysian
punk band, Carburetor Dung.
That night, the band literally rocked the grounds of the usually sedate
BSLN, blasting ear-splitting punk music from speakers strategically positioned
at the entrance of the Creative Centre wing of the building, facing outward.
As the loud music reverberated into the Kuala Lumpur nightscape, more and
more black-attired youth were drawn into its audible fold. Carburetor Dung
fans were circumspect at first, unused to their new quasi-outdoorsy sur-
roundings, but by the second set, the energy emanating from audiences was
palpable and here and there, an enraptured few could be seen head-banging.
In between sets, as band members moved freely in and out of the Creative
Centre to take intermittent short breaks, their fans would wander into the
space of the Creative Centre checking out the artworks by the three artists.
Gallery visitors who were there for the artworks met and mingled with these
youthful fans, with local punk music as the backdrop.
In a recent interview with Wong Hoy Cheong, he remarked that he had
wanted to bring together two different groups of young people to the exhibi-
tion: the mainstream “high” art crowd comprising visual artists and gallery
afficionados, and the alternative crowd of musicians and local punk music
fans from the Kuala Lumpur underground music scene.1 Despite inhabiting
the same capital city, these two groups rarely had the opportunity to con-
vene. The former may have heard of Carburetor Dung and listened to punk
music, but the vast majority would not have attended live underground gigs
in the seedier parts of Kuala Lumpur. That fateful opening night marked
the confluence of two disparate groups in the unlikeliest of places: in an art
gallery, and a public one at that.
This confluence of two seemingly different groups onto the grounds of
Malaysia’s National Art Gallery serves as a useful metaphor for what this
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 49
paper aims to argue: that these early 1990s art exhibitions were charting a
novel path in the Malaysian installation art scene by using live performances
as a tool to physically confront and unsettle audiences in gallery spaces
commonly used for quiet viewing or silent contemplation. This paper will
closely examine three seminal exhibitions that took place from 1990 to 1994,
namely Sook Ching (1990), 2 Installations (1991), and Warbox Lalang Killing
Tools (1994). These exhibitions set the scene for what was still only burgeoning
interest in installation art in Malaysia at the time,2 but what made them
trailblazers was how the artists involved chose to incorporate performance
in their work, either as a participant and/or in collaboration with arts prac-
titioners from the non-visual art world, thereby opening up new possibilities
for experimentation and risk-taking.
The 1990s was similar with the 1970s in that both were marked by the
interest of artists in engaging with multi- or interdisciplinary collaborations
among various arts and events.3 The experimentation that happened in the
context of the visual arts during the first half of the 1990s would not have
been possible without the role of Five Arts Centre (FAC), in which the works
of Wong Hoy Cheong (former member of FAC) and Marion D’Cruz (FAC
co-founder and current member) will form part of this discussion.4
Since there are no publicly available video recordings of the performances
linked to the three exhibitions mentioned above, the writers relied solely on
exhibition catalogues and photographs from the artists and Five Arts Centre,
as well as academic and non-academic publications about the exhibitions
and those involved. To supplement the archival documents, interviews were
also conducted with artist Wong Hoy Cheong, who was involved in all three
exhibitions either as artist or curator; and Marion D’Cruz, whose involvement
was as choreographer, performer, and producer, respectively.
Brief Historical Background
The exhibitions discussed in this paper are early Malaysian examples of
the convergence of painting, video, movement, and sound/music in one live
event, but they are not isolated instances. Instead, they can be construed as
part of a trajectory that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s of Malaysian
artists questioning the formalistic aspects of painting (two-dimensional) and
sculpture (three-dimensional).
One of the first exhibitions to chafe against the artistic status quo of its
time was Towards A Mystical Reality (1974), with artists Redza Piyadasa and
Suleiman Esa proposing a new and alternative aesthetic for their generation.
They did not see art as the mere representation and/or evolution of artistic
50 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia
style; instead, they questioned the definition of art itself by appropriating
everyday objects as art objects. The two artists tried to unshackle themselves
from Western art ideas by foregrounding what they considered to be a more
Eastern concept of ephemerality in their work. Ephemerality or the idea of
transience was being discussed as a subject matter for exhibitions by artists
interested in producing artistic objects intended to last for only a short period
of time. Towards A Mystical Reality could be seen as an early exhibition that
highlighted the concept of ephemerality in an attempt to lay the foundation
for time-based artworks; the series of captions for the objects and artifacts
that were discarded or destroyed after the show attest to this. Building on
Taoist/Zen philosophy, the artists wrote in their exhibition manifesto: “The
Western artist’s interest in the ‘physicality’ of things must surely account for
his interest in ‘form-oriented’ approach that generally persists.… The Taoist
or Zen tendency to view the object as an ‘event’ rather than as ‘form’ presup-
poses that objects exist within an interrelated field or continuum. Time in
this case is a ‘mental’ time that cannot be measured for all measurements
can only remain relative.”5 This tendency is reflected as well in some of the
installations discussed in this paper.
Installation art, as understood in today’s terms, was largely absent from
the 1970s Malaysian art scene and only began to slowly emerge in the late
1980s. Some of these early artworks were initially categorised as mixed media
work and assemblages; it was only during the 1990s that the term ‘installation
art’ was used. Some of these early works were site-specific and others were
not. Besides the works of Tan Chin Kuan such as Blue Night 11—Tragic 2
(1989), which consists of several iron structures resembling the human body
at different heights and sizes, other examples of artworks in the form of
structures installed in a gallery space include Zulkifli Yusof’s large-scale Dari
Hitam ke Putih (1989), Power 1 (1991), and Immunity (1993).6 Despite obvious
differences in political leadership, infrastructure development, and economic
growth, in terms of artmaking, however, the 1990s was similar to the 1970s
in one respect: a gradual but marked interest in multi- or interdisciplinary
collaborations amongst visual artists and arts practitioners (see note 3).
The 1990s ushered in a period of greater exploration of and experimen-
tation with new materials, media, and visual art languages, as well as novel
outlooks of historical and cultural identity responses that ran parallel to
socio-political changes at the time: evolving discourse with regards to
national identity since the 1971 National Cultural Congress; the emphasis
on decolonialisation during Mahathir’s tenure as the fourth prime minister;
and exhibitions and artworks that were produced under the premise of Malay
and/or Islamic themes and aesthetics. Some observed that certain artistic
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 51
explorations and experimentation that took place in the 1990s had attempted
to break away from the existing artistic hierarchical order as the Malay-
dominated state proceeded, aggressively, to reconstitute the public cultural
landscape through the amplification of the symbolic presence of Malay
culture and Islam.7 Such developments in the nation resulted in the urgency
of certain artists to provide a counter-narrative to the status quo in their
artmaking.8
In his curatorial text for 2 Installations, Wong Hoy Cheong remarked on
the genesis of this shift during the 1990s:
the late 1980s took a turn when a group of young, locally educated
artists began to speak with a different voice. Probably influenced by
the resurgence of ‘angst’ in western neo-expressionism, as well as
being roused by an embedded frustration with the art establishment
and a progressively forbidding society, these artists made works
impregnated with images of frustration, alienation and violence.9
Wong would later explore this theme of angst in an exhibition he curated and
participated in titled, What About Converging Extremes? (1993). He selected
artists who were “voices from the periphery, seeking to be heard, questioning
the hegemony of the dominant ideology and cultures. These are the voices of
urgency, of contradiction, reluctance and rebellion struggling to understand
and present themselves”.10 Wong was very interested in the voices of such
artists, but he was also mindful and appreciative of the inherent contradic-
tions of their fraught position: “The young artists want to say something
strong and critical. But at the same time, are not willing to break away from
the mainstream. Instead, they are drawn into the power dynamics. They want
to be recognised as equals or as better artists by the institution. They are
challenging the institution and are challenged by it.”11
This conundrum is perhaps the reality facing any artist who wishes to
make incisive artworks that are also accepted for exhibition by the main-
stream art galleries. This dilemma was all the more heightened in early 1990s
urban Kuala Lumpur, which had more than its fair share of aspiring artists
but comparatively fewer gallery spaces willing to exhibit works that were
experimental in form and which contained controversial or edgy subject
matter. In Kathy Rowland’s detailed account of the development of the art
ecosystem in 1990s Malaysia, during the second decade of Mahathir’s reign
as prime minister, she characterizes the capital city of KL as having a “kind
of brash confidence” and “an atmosphere of possibility and opportunity”.12
The artworks for these exhibitions were created in a milieu where the art
52 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia
market was growing rapidly, as exemplified by an increase in the number of
corporate funded and also private commercial art galleries such as Galeri
PETRONAS, Maybank Gallery, TAKSU, GaleriWan, and Valentine Willie Fine
Art. But what if an artist did not want to exhibit at a public gallery like the
BSLN or a private commercial gallery? What could s/he create if there were
few or no socio-political, or even aesthetic, constraints to hinder the creative
process? What spatial configurations or aesthetic considerations would these
two very different spaces necessitate or inspire?
Disrupting and Unsettling Spaces
From 1984 to 1998—during the height of the Mahathir era13—the BSLN was
housed within a former colonial structure, the Hotel Majestic,14 built in 1932
and reputedly one of the great hotels of the city during the heyday of British
colonialism.15 Any art exhibition at this location would be hard pressed
to escape the visible traces of colonial history ensconced in its art deco
architecture. Thus, it is not without irony that the presence of Carburetor
Dung in that same space in 1994 symbolically conjured up a different trace
of Britishness in its wake, not colonial but popular, and decidedly anti-
establishment and anarchic in tone and form, namely: punk music. Joe Kidd,
one of the founders of Carburetor Dung—also a writer and music reviewer—
has made no bones of the fact that his band’s punk music influences started
out being solidly British, with the Sex Pistols being a catalyst for his own
musical compositions.16
Not since poet Salleh Ben Joned publicly pissed on Malaysian visual artists
Redza Piyadasa and Sulaiman Esa’s manifesto for their Towards A Mystical
Reality exhibition in 1974 has a rarefied space of art and culture been so
defied and defiled.17 However, this is certainly not to suggest that Salleh’s
unscripted act of genital exposure is in any way comparable to Carburetor
Dung’s raucous performance at the BSLN. The former was a corporeal critique
of an art exhibition from someone within the same arts community, whereas
the latter was a gesture of inclusion—to invite the urban disenfranchised to
celebrate their creative spirit in a space that had not accepted them before.
The two differ in tenor and intent, but they do share one common charac-
teristic: disruption. Whereas Salleh’s disruption was in an individual capacity
and less visible—privy only to those who saw him in the act or breathed in
its residual odour—Carburetor Dung’s performance was not only visible but
also plainly audible from afar. Additionally, the band not only entertained
the usual gallery audience but also brought their own: fans who dressed and
behaved in a manner that did not meet with public approval.18
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 53
Contemporary audiences may not understand the consternation but for
those well-versed in the zeitgeist, the 1990s was a time when the moral
policing of urban youth, especially rock and punk musicians and their fans,
was widespread thanks to state support for sanctions against targeted musi-
cians.19 Against this backdrop, Wong Hoy Cheong’s idea to invite Carburetor
Dung to play two sets to officiate Warbox Lalang Killing Tools, rather than
to fall back on the customary rounds of formal acknowledgements by
gallery officials and speeches by bigwigs in the art world, is nothing short of
rebellious.20 Even though their performance may not have made its way into
television sets but to everyone who attended the opening, Carburetor Dung’s
raucous performance has its place in the annals of the BSLN.
But it is not just this live mini punk concert—for which the gallery space
had to be re-configured to allow for a type of performance it was never
intended to host—that made Warbox Lalang Killing Tools such a significant
exhibition in the context of 1990s Malaysian art. Various delicate negotiations
had to be carried out with gallery administrators at the former National
Art Gallery space on Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin to enable the transplanting
of weeds (Lalang) into the garden area, and the placement of sharp and
potentially injurious sculptures (Killing Tools) in the vicinity of the public
(especially children) as part of installation artmaking.
The installation that most directly referenced an important event in Malay-
sian history was Wong’s time-based Lalang (Figures 1 and 2), an art installa-
tion and performance art piece that spanned a few weeks, from the planting
of the weed grass in the weeks prior to the exhibition, to the nine days of its
destruction. The word lalang conveys meaning on multiple registers.21 On a
literal level, lalang is a type of rhizomic weed grass with thorny edges, com-
monly found in Malaysia; on a political level, lalang conjures up memories
of Operation Lalang, a 1987 Barisan Nasional government-led crackdown,
which some historians consider to be one of the most egregious instances
of human rights abuse in Malaysia. Using the then Internal Security Act,
the police—under the orders of Mahathir himself—were ordered to arrest
more than 100 Malaysians accused of raising ‘sensitive’ national issues that
exacerbated racial tensions. Many of those detained without trial were social
activists and political opponents of Mahathir, which led many to surmise
that the crackdown was politically motivated. The publishing licences of four
major news publications were also revoked.22
The link between Lalang and Operation Lalang is clear and intended as
Wong timed his art installation and performance to directly coincide with
the seventh anniversary of Operation Lalang; in fact, the day he slashed and
burnt the lalang that he had planted in the front lawn of the BSLN as part of
54 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporar y and Modern Art in Asia
figure 1: Wong Hoy Cheong, Lalang research documentation materials and objects used
during the performance, 1994 (Image courtesy of the artist).
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 55
figure 2: Wong Hoy Cheong, Lalang performance, 1994 (Image courtesy of the artist).
his performance was also the same day the Mahathir-led government began
their arrests, seven years before. We see Wong’s performance as a meta-
phorical re-enactment of the suppression of political dissent, with the lalang
symbolically representing the insidious thorns in the side of the ruling
government that had to be weeded out. The Lalang installation also com-
prised botanical illustrations drawn by the artist, different lalang specimens
displayed in vitrines, and scientific documentation that Wong reproduced
from his research into this coarse and hardy Malaysian weed or Imperata
arundinacea (Figure 2). These forms of documentation are reminiscent of
newspaper coverage of the people arrested by the police during Operation
56 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia
Lalang: their mugshots and little write-ups about their backgrounds and
affiliations, like specimens of political opposition presented to the general
public to be perused and dissected. It is no small matter that Wong chose
such an installation artwork and performance to be presented in a public
institution such as the National Art Gallery, which was located in the nation’s
capital, during the height of Mahathir’s power. It was a reminder to audiences
that their current prime minister was not just the harbinger of profits and
progress for the people; he was also the chief architect of the dismantling of
democratic institutions in the nation, ever willing to orchestrate operations,
such as Operation Lalang, which caused his opponents to be imprisoned
without due process of law.
While Wong’s work is clearly overtly political, the artworks of Raja Shahri-
man and Bayu Utomo in the same exhibition, can be also read as something
that chafed against the status quo, albeit in a more muted manner. For
example, all of Raja Shahriman’s dangerously sharp tools entirely capable
of killing may not be explicitly about politics, but their presence next to
Wong’s work is certainly an oblique and symbolic reference to the tools of
pain and torture wielded by the powerful. Within the gallery space, for his
Warbox (1994) installation, Bayu constructed a large box out of unvarnished
and unpainted plywood which audiences could walk into to view some of
the artworks on display; despite having no locks, the box is an apt metaphor
for containment, even imprisonment. Audiences to the exhibition were con-
fronted with works that could make them feel trapped or claustrophobic,
works that could poke their eyes out if they were not careful, and works that
seemed out of place in an art gallery and that challenged them to reflect on
Malaysia’s recent history and the events that led to them.
The design and configuration of an exhibition space is often not something
visual artists have to consider or even have control over, but for performing
arts practitioners, spatial awareness and configurations can make or break a
show. For Wong, the first time he had to grapple with working synergistically
within a space was during the opening ceremony of the very first Inter-
national Video Art Festival on 3 November 1990, when he premiered his
installation and performance art piece titled Sook Ching as both visual artist
and performer.23 The performance was done in collaboration with Marion
D’Cruz, a dancer-choreographer who championed experimentation and
collaboration in her own work, and a small group of performers, some of
whom were members of Five Arts Centre.
Sook Ching started out as a large oil painting (213 × 366 cm) (Figure 3),
almost mural-like, and was meant to mark an extremely brutal and violent
historical period and event. Wong had conducted extensive historical research
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 57
to create his painting, including interviewing survivors of the Japanese
Occupation. One of the survivors was his father, whom he recorded on video.
Although Wong did not start out intending to make a video documentary, he
eventually did because “the completion of the painting left him dissatisfied
as he felt that the medium was too limiting to represent the rich dimension
of experiences that he had gathered”.24 Footage from his interviews were
then used to create a 27-minute documentary of the same name, which also
incorporated historical documents, stills from his painting, and snippets of a
performance inspired by the painting. It must be noted that the performance
was created much later as a supplement to the painting and video because
despite the use of two different art forms or media to represent the historical
event, Wong still felt the work lacked a sense of the “live and visceral aspect to
the human body”.25 This lack gave him the idea to create a live performance
to accompany the viewing of the painting and documentary (Figure 4).
As he was not a performer, Wong collaborated with five fellow arts prac-
titioners to realize his idea: dancer-choreographer Marion D’Cruz and two
members of her dance company, Anne James and Ivy Josiah; theatre prac-
titioner Charlene Rajendran; and visual artist John Lai, who had no prior
dance experience but coincidentally was taking dance classes with D’Cruz
at the time. This collaboration was an opportunity for experimentation for
all involved as each party was delving into an unfamiliar artistic medium.
This was the first time Wong—a non-performer—would be performing with
figure 3: Wong Hoy Cheong, Sook Ching (1989), oil on gunny sack, 213.0 × 366.0 cm.
Collection of Fukuoka Asian Art Museum.
58 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia
his own artwork as backdrop; for the others, it would be their first time
devising a performance inspired by a painting and documentary. Together
they rehearsed for two to three months, discussing what kind of performance
they wanted to create, then trying out different movements and gestures of
their own and playing off each other during rehearsals. D’Cruz started the
process of improvisations during rehearsals by having the performers recall
personal stories they had heard about the Japanese Occupation; they also
watched Wong’s video and looked to his painting for ideas for gestures and
even sounds or words they could utter aloud. Wong recorded some of the
rehearsals and short snippets of the footage were later edited into his video.
In this way, painting, video, and movement worked synergistically together
to tell a story about the Sook Ching.26 D’Cruz recalls:
We made performance directly based on the painting and video,
taking sounds, text, movements, poses and emotions from the video
and painting. For every rehearsal we would unroll and put up the
painting and play the video and improvise. I remember I used to
say to the performers, ‘When you don’t know what to do, just copy
a pose from the painting.’ And that’s exactly what they did.27
figure 4: John Lai, Anne James, Ivy Josiah, Wong Hoy Cheong, and Charlene Rajendran in
“Sook Ching” performance during the International Video Art Festival, 1990 (Image courtesy
of the Five Arts Centre and the artist).
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 59
We can argue that this is a moment where the blurring of artistic and
aesthetic boundaries is enacted, even if not done in an entirely conscious
manner. Without the painting and video, there would be no performance,
and without the performance, the historical event would not come alive
for audiences in a visceral manner. There was playful experimentation,
a willingness to fail, a desire to create from instinct, “from the gut” as D’Cruz
loves to say, because for her, the process of creating the performance was
largely improvisational as there was no conscious planning of specific steps
or movements. Performers moved in an organic and fluid fashion, buoyed
by the sights and sounds generated by the painting and video. By watching
each other, the performers also picked up cues from each other’s movements,
gestures, and utterances, and responded to them as they saw fit.28 For Wong,
the performance ended up being rather confrontational, with the performers
gesturing accusatorily at audiences or shouting words at them. This visual,
aural, and performative strategy was designed to mirror the tensions during
the Japanese Occupation.29 As such, Sook Ching can be seen as an interesting
exploration and experimentation by the (visual) artist as the multimedia
installation work converges the language of the visual and performing arts
through the means of video and performance itself when the series of move-
ments were done alongside both the paintings and the video, resulting in a
performance that incorporated the visual.30
What started as an experiment for Sook Ching became a seminal moment
for both Wong and D’Cruz because it was the start of more collaborations
between them. More than that, it also enabled them to consider different
access points and trajectories for their own work in the visual arts and dance,
respectively. For D’Cruz, the Sook Ching collaboration gave her an inkling of
what it would be like to work with non-dancers and even non-performers;
by working with visual artists instead of dancers, she did not feel the need to
slip into her usual role as choreographer because the nature of the improvisa-
tions went beyond conventional dance techniques. There was a randomness
to their improvisations that was exciting and ultimately liberating. For a
choreographer, this meant she could be less rigid about her creative choices
because she was less dictatorial in her approach to the choreography.31 For
Wong, performing in his own exhibition was a means for him to “experiment
with theatrical interventions in the visual arts.”.32 He was not interested in
theatre as an art form per se, but was more invested in the performative
aspect of theatre: its corporeality and the use of the human body to inhabit
physical spaces and by so doing, infuse a static piece of art with dynamic,
live, and unpredictable possibilities. Performance art was a new area of
exploration for Wong, as yet untapped and full of possibilities.
60 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporar y and Modern Art in Asia
Wong’s interest in performativity was ignited when he began teaching
performance art in the Malaysian Institute of Art (MIA) in the early 1990s.
MIA, established in 1967, is one of the oldest art educational institutions in
Malaysia.33 It is located in Taman Melawati, an area within greater Kuala
Lumpur that, in the 1990s, was seen as being exceedingly remote as there
were no shopping malls, very few surrounding buildings, and underdeveloped
roads and public transportation infrastructure. Since MIA was situated close
to the National Zoo, visitors would joke that MIA was in the boondocks.34
In addition to teaching, Wong took on the role of manager of galeriMIA, a
non-profit exhibition space that was developed, operated, and fully funded
by MIA on an annual budget. As the manager, Wong consciously set up the
gallery as an alternative space for young artists to exhibit and experiment
with new mediums and ideas. Wong was not just interested in performance
art for art’s sake but he wanted to infuse its potential for play, improvisation,
and experimentation into art classrooms and to shake up Malaysian education
as a whole.35 Based on his interest in Paolo Freire’s educational philosophy
and pedagogy, which he had studied as part of his master’s in education
degree, Wong’s focus was also to curate shows that could promote cultural
exchanges among Asian artists, thereby expanding the possibilities of art
education for students at MIA beyond their narrow enclave.
In 1991, a very short time after the premiere of Sook Ching at the BSLN,
Wong curated a show at galeriMIA from 1–17 March, aptly titled 2 Installations.
The two artists were MIA alumni Liew Kungyu—who was trained as a
graphic designer but had experimented with a wide range of art forms and
media, and had also collaborated with theatre and dance companies—and
Raja Shahriman, who would later be part of the Warbox Lalang Killing Tools
exhibition. The two created site-specific installations that would transform
the gallery space from a white cube to two very different artistic sites, using
unusual materials, including found objects. As curator, Wong explicitly wanted
to foreground installation art in the exhibition and selected artists whom
he felt were on the periphery of the art establishment. As Wong puts it
in his essay for the exhibition catalogue: “They have something urgent to
say even if not fully articulate as yet—to rebel against the dominant visual
ideology; to exert their multi-disciplinary difference, their contemporary and
changing values.”36
Liew Kungyu’s Who Am I (Figures 5 and 6) is a site-specific installation
that comprises three components: video footage taken before the work was
installed, the physical installation itself, and a performance piece to accom-
pany the installation. Liew wanted to create an artwork about prayer boards
typically displayed in Malaysian Chinese home altars as part of the ritual
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 61
of ancestor worship or in small shrines erected by the side of roads, used
to worship deities and ward off bad spirits in the area. He did not use new
prayer boards but instead collected used and broken boards that had been
abandoned or discarded. As a city dweller who frequently travelled around
KL, Liew had begun noticing how more and more prayer boards were thrown
carelessly along the side of roads or dumped illegally and indiscriminately.
Such religious objects had to be disposed of properly and Liew was very criti-
cal of those who did not do so, and who disrespected their religious beliefs
by such wilful carelessness.37
But Liew did not want to just collect and display material objects for an
exhibition; he also wanted audiences to imagine the life cycle of a prayer
board: how it is used in a Chinese prayer ritual, where it typically resides in
a Chinese home, and where it eventually ends up when it is no longer of use.
This meant the boards would need to be animated in a space, to come alive
to do its job as a prayer board, and the artist had to enable this liveliness
through the design of the performance space, as well as the objects therein.
As all prayer boards are red in colour—a colour that also dominates most
Chinese altars set up in homes—Liew painted the walls of the exhibition/
performance space bright red and filled them up with hung altar boards.
figure 5: Liew Kungyu’s “Chinese Prayer Altars” performed during Alter Art, 1991 (Image
courtesy of Five Arts Centre and the artist).
62 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporar y and Modern Art in Asia
figure 6: Liew Kungyu’s “Chinese Prayer Altars” during Alter Art, 1991 (Image courtesy of Five Arts
Centre and the artist).
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 63
There were also multiple TV monitors placed around the gallery that
screened footage of Liew’s trips around KL to collect the altar boards. Viewers
got a chance to see the boards in their original (usually damaged or in
disrepair) condition at the various locations where Liew found them. Addi-
tionally, Liew also constructed prayer altars in the gallery, complete with joss
sticks and other ritualistic prayer paraphernalia, lending the space a pseudo-
religious aura.
For Malaysians who were familiar with Chinese prayer altars, the trans-
formation of the gallery space from a white cube to a garish red room in
disrepair was very discomfiting. Those who were there to witness an art
exhibition found themselves confronted with what seemed to be a bizarre
ritual space that also straddled the boundaries of private and public, sacred
and profane. Malaysian audiences familiar with such ritualistic spaces did
not know what to expect: should they behave as if they were in a temple or
in an art gallery? They were uncomfortable and unsettled because the space
provided clues and cues for behaviour that did not fit within a gallery space.
Alternatively, those unfamiliar with Chinese cultural rituals and those who
did not imbue the objects on display with any spiritual or supernatural signi-
ficance, also felt discomfited by the space they were in. They expected an
art gallery, a white cube with discernible artworks for viewing, but were
greeted instead with blood-red walls upon which hung objects that were
clearly not works of art in the usual sense. The floor was dusty and dirty; the
TV monitors were screening what seemed to be live footage of altars sitting
by roadsides, getting picked up, being moved around KL by a truck; there was
a growing heap of what looked like broken discarded altar boards and trash.
Liew’s exhibition is titled Who am I?, but audiences would be remiss to not
also ask, ‘What is this?’
The feeling of foreboding and fear typically associated with ritualistic,
religious objects was intensified during the performance piece that accom-
panied the exhibition. For their live performance event, Liew and two other
non-dancers walked around the installation chanting, lighting joss sticks,
and bowing to pray at the altars on display. They then picked up the altar
boards, showed them to audiences, and yelled and cried out in different
Chinese dialects as they threw the boards or smashed them to the ground.
The loud cracking sounds of the breaking boards penetrated the entire gallery
space, punctuated with piercing screams and blood-curdling yells that could
make one’s skin crawl from shock, fear, and unease. It was easy to imagine
the sounds as coming from angry spirits, incensed at the destruction and
desecration of the boards. Even after the performers stopped smashing and
screaming, the entire gallery space reverberated with the echoes of their
64 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporar y and Modern Art in Asia
actions and vocalizations. Unsurprisingly, more than a few audience members
were unhappy about or upset by the work. As Liew tells it:
Most Chinese were superstitious and angry about it (Who Am I).
(And) when it was on display in MIA (Malaysia Institute of Art) most
people were scared. And I don’t blame them because I had that
feeling as well…. There was a Chinese lady who came up to Hoy
Cheong (the curator) and scolded him because she felt that this was
not right. And there was a Muslim couple who refused to go into
that space…. And my mother asked me whether I was questioning
my father. Scolding him for doing this….38
After a few performances over a few days, a growing heap of broken prayer
altars began to accumulate in a corner of the gallery. The installation began to
resemble the illegal dumping grounds where the discarded altar boards were
first found; the boundaries between art and life began to blur. Even after the
exhibition closed and all remnants of the installation were removed, super-
stitious audience members continued to wonder if the spirits of the boards
were finally appeased or if they would make the space their indefinite home.39
If Liew’s installation-performance unsettled audiences because of its taboo
subject matter— religion and religious rituals—and a discomfiting space, then
Raja Shahriman’s Bamboo and Glass (1991) (Figure 7) installation unnerved
audiences with its potent visceral danger. Using sharpened bamboo poles and
broken shards of glass, the artist constructed an installation that resembled
a menacing 3D maze. The artwork was not originally designed as a perfor-
mance space but instead was created to be an installation so dangerous,
audiences were not allowed to enter. The entire gallery floor was covered
with split and un-sanded bamboo poles, creating an uneven and rough
surface to stand or walk on. Broken pieces of glass were randomly glued
to different parts of this inhospitable bamboo flooring. Sharpened bamboo
poles embedded with long nails were hung from makeshift rafters, some rigid
and solid-looking, others moving ever so slightly when touched. In an inter-
view with the curator, Raja Shahriman explained that his work was inspired
by the raw emotion of aggression, suffocation, anger, frustration, and impo-
tence that he had felt at that time.40
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 65
figure 7: Raja Shahriman’s “Bamboo & Glass” with performance by Marion D’Cruz during Alter Art,
1991 (Image courtesy of Five Arts Centre and the artist).
66 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporar y and Modern Art in Asia
It is hard to imagine a space as forbidding as Raja Shahriman’s installation
being performed in, and in truth, the artist created the installation with no
initial plan to have it be performed in. Marion D’Cruz, who happened to be
the choreographer for Liew’s Who Am I? in the same building, had seen the
installation of the menacing space and playfully floated the idea of performing
in it. The artist liked the idea so much, he promptly invited her to do so, and
being no stranger to provocation in her own work, D’Cruz agreed.41 Unlike a
typical installation that requires the audience to navigate the installed space,
Bamboo and Glass was so hazardous that hardly anyone dared to venture
in. Warning signs also made it clear that there were invisible shards of glass
ever ready to draw blood. As such, D’Cruz’s performance within the space
served as a vicarious vehicle for audiences; she would be the conduit for their
immersion into the work. As the artwork was not custom installed to serve
as a space for her to perform in, D’Cruz admits that she dared not improvise
too much during the actual performance, for fear of injuring herself. In fact,
during a dress rehearsal, she had cut one of her toes on a sharp glass frag-
ment and as a result, she focused on using small movements in her perfor-
mance instead of large ones. Her carefully calibrated and precise movements
in the installation were beautiful to behold as D’Cruz managed to look serene
and at ease even though danger was omnipresent; audiences, in turn, were
simultaneously afraid for her well-being and adrenalin-charged from
watching her navigate such a treacherous space. According to the exhibition
catalogue text, D’Cruz’s performance of carefully choreographed movements
reflects and reveals “how society behaves—everyone is constantly nudging
their way through danger in search of something that is more attractive”.42
Despite galeriMIA being located in what was deemed a remote part of KL
at the time, 2 Installations managed to garner a sizeable audience, mostly
made up of art students and artists in the vicinity, as well as those curious
to experience something that challenged their artistic sensibilities, caused
them a degree of unease, and blurred the boundaries between art, life, and
reality. The collaborations between the artists and performers proved fruitful
as they engendered a convivial spirit of trust and openness that helped to
nurture a willingness for further risk-taking and experimentation. In her
essay about her impetus to work with non-dancers in contemporary dance,
Marion D’Cruz cites her collaboration with Wong, Liew, and Raja Shahriman
as being the catalyst for her own praxis in the decades to come:
What was energizing for me as a choreographer was the artistic
collaboration where I was working with the concept and ideas of
someone else. What was empowering was creating performance
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 67
with and for the artist and others who have never performed
before.… The coming together of various artists with strong con-
cepts with which to collaborate and experiment led to a sharing
of ideas, greater challenges, and the pushing of boundaries. This
process, I believe, resulted in work that was distinctly exciting
in form and content and profoundly meaningful for participant
and viewer …. new spaces—physical spaces, intellectual spaces,
spiritual spaces and sensory spaces—were opened up.43
Conclusion
Whilst collaborations between visual artists and dancers or theatre practi-
tioners are nothing new, the reality is that visual artists often take direction
from the director of the performance, creating to specifications the sets or
backdrops against which performers dance or act. In short, visual artists
support a production rather than participate in it. They are not entirely free
to improvise or to evolve their creations without first consulting with the
director because to do so would be to interrupt the flow of the rest of the
production or to disrupt what has already been planned or rehearsed. From
our discussion of the three exhibitions thus far, Sook Ching, 2 Installations,
and Warbox Lalang Killing Tools clearly do not fit this mould of collaboration.
Both visual artists and performers work together in a more fluid and organic
manner and artists even take on the role of performer in some instances.
Whenever possible, a non-hierarchical and more horizontal and dialogic
relationship between the artists and performers is allowed to develop. Even
if visual artists and musicians do not directly collaborate—as in the case of
Carburetor Dung being invited to perform but not asked to integrate reference
to the artworks in their set—both groups of creatives are given the space and
room to make art the way they see fit. There is an implicit respect for each
other’s work and the level of involvement expected is less explicitly demar-
cated. As D’Cruz so aptly puts it, “No collaborations are ‘equal’. Nothing in
life is. What matters is that participants were involved in a profound expe-
rience of sharing, learning, negotiating and expanding their creativity.”44
During a time when the economy was booming and artists were en-
couraged to make art for a rapidly expanding art market driven by largely
commercial interests, the artists discussed in this paper were not really moti-
vated to tap into these new channels of profit-making. Instead, they made
installation-cum-performance artworks which did not sell well or at all.
Some of the physical works may have been collected by museums but only in
so far as they have historical value, and not necessarily commercial worth.
68 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporar y and Modern Art in Asia
The performances that were part of the exhibitions live on in the memories
of those who witnessed their display, as their recordings are not available
for viewing or sale, and some performances were likely never recorded. At a
time when art was being valued, packaged, and sold, the artworks discussed
in this paper resisted being turned into marketable goods. What were valued
were the friendships that were forged during the collaborative process and
the experiments that were undertaken without a clear sense of the outcomes.
The extent of the impact of Sook Ching (1990), 2 Installations (1991), and
Warbox Lalang Killing Tools (1994) may be hard to ascertain but those who
witnessed, wrote, and talked about these shows will remember how the
gallery spaces they inhabited were transformed, disturbed, and unsettled.
Only those who were present to witness their staging would be able to attest
to their visual, aural, and spatial potency.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Sarena Abdullah would like to thank Malaysia’s Ministry of Higher Education
Malaysia for Fundamental Research Grant Scheme with Project Code: FRGS/1/2017/
SSI07/USM/02/1 and Universiti Sains Malaysia’s (USM) Tabung Persidangan
Luar Negara (TPLN), that enabled the researcher to present this paper at the 11th
International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS), Leiden, The Netherlands, 15–19
July 2019 with the title “The Early 1990s Experiment and Exploration of Space and
Ephemerality in Malaysian Art Exhibitions”.
BIOGRAPHIES
Sarena Abdullah is an Associate Professor of art history and the current Dean at
School of the Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). She is the current editor of Berita,
Malaysian Singapore Studies Group, a committee of the Association for Asian Studies
(AAS)and the co-chair of the International Committee of College Arts Association
(CAA). She is the author ofMalaysian Art since the 1990s: Postmodern Situation(2018)
and co-editor of a publication of Southeast Asian art entitledAmbitious Alignments:
New Histories of Southeast Asian Art 1945–1990(2018). She has written extensively on
Malaysian art in various academic journals and platforms.
Carmen Nge Siew Mun is currently an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Creative
Industries, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Malaysia. She has been writing
about Malaysian arts and culture for a variety of publications for more than 20 years.
She is the co-editor of two books: Ismail Hashim: Essays, Interviews and Archives (2015)
and Excavations, Interrogations, Krishen Jit and Contemporary Malaysian Theatre (2018).
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 69
NOTES
1 Interview with Wong Hoy Cheong on 14 December 2021.
2 For a more comprehensive historical study of installation art in Malaysia, refer to
Sarena Abdullah, “Changing Approaches: Installations Produced in the Malaysian
Art World”, Wacana Seni Journal of Arts Discourse 16 (2017): 1–33, https://doi.
org/10.21315/ws2017.16.1.
3 The multi- or interdisciplinary collaborations among various artists in the fine
arts and literary fields during the 1970s could be seen in Manifestasi Dua Seni
and the establishment of Anak Alam itself. Anak Alam, for example, was
already active in producing events and activities that engage with many artists
from various fields of the arts. In the period of 1974–78, Anak Alam started to
stage happenings and improvisations that took place in shopping complexes,
universities and colleges, streets, and even parking lots. See Nur Hanim
Khairuddin, “Yusof Osman Dan Sumbangannya”, in Alamiah II: Homage to
Nature—A Solo by Yusoff Osman (Kuala Lumpur: Institut Terjemahan & Buku
Malaysia, 2016), pp. 3–5; Krishen Jit, “No More Child Play: Anak Alam Has Gone
Formal”, in Krishen Jit: An Uncommon Position (Singapore: CAAC, 2003),
pp. 139–42.
4 Although the works that are being discussed are based on personal artistic
collaboration, it could still be argued that Five Arts Centre (FAC) enabled these
early explorations to happen. FAC was founded in 1984 by theatre directors Chin
San Sooi, Krishen Jit, and dancer-choreographer Marion D’Cruz, alongside the
late artist and art historian Redza Piyadasa and writer KS Maniam. Although the
extent of the influence from FAC founders can be argued, the name ‘Five Arts’
itself is based on the interests of the founders who wanted to generate alternative
intersecting art forms in the contemporary scene—dance, drama, the visual arts,
creative writing, and an open-ended fifth element—which any member could
pursue. For a personal account of this early establishment, read Marion D’Cruz
and Janet Pillai, “Unusual Business in Five Arts Centre: Let’s Conference!”, in
Excavations, Interrogations, Krishen Jit & Contemporary Malaysian Theatre, ed.
Charlene Rajendran, Ken Takiguchi, and Carmen Nge (Kuala Lumpur & Singapore:
Arts Centre & Epigram Books, 2018), and Kathy Rowland, “Introduction”, in
Staging History: Selected Plays from Five Arts Centre Malaysia 1984–2014 (Kuala
Lumpur: Five Arts Centre, 2014). For more current information about Five Arts
Centre, visit http://www.fiveartscentre.org/.
5 Suleiman Esa and Redza Piyadasa, Towards a Mystical Reality: A Documentation of
Jointly Initiated Experiences by Redza Piyadasa and Suleiman Esa (Kuala Lumpur,
1974) and Krishen Jit, “Introduction” in the same publication. Sarena Abdullah
and Chung Ah Kow, “Re-Examining the Objects of Mystical Reality”, JATI: Journal
of Southeast Asia Studies 19 (2014).
70 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Ar t in Asia
6 See Sarena Abdullah, “Changing Approaches: Installations Produced in the
Malaysian Art World”, pp. 1–33.
7 This has its origins in Krishen Jit’s “Introduction”, in Vision and Idea: Relooking
Modern Malaysian Art (Kuala Lumpur: National Art Gallery, 1994), pp. 7–8,
where he drew special attention to the works of Zulkifli Yusoff, Wong Hoy
Cheong, Tan Chin Kuan, Bayu Utomo Radjikan, and Raja Shahriman as
“challeng(ing) the paramountcy of Abstract Expressionism”. Also read Simon
Soon, “Converging Extremes: Exhibitions and Historical Sightlines in 1990s
Malaysia”, in Perspectives: Narratives in Malaysian Art (Kuala Lumpur: Rogue Art,
2019). For general shifts in the context of Malaysian art and culture, read Lee
Hock Guan, “Ethnic Relations in Peninsular Malaysia: The Cultural and Economic
Dimensions”, ISEAS Working Papers—Social and Cultural Issues, Vol. 1 (Singapore,
2000), p. 4.
8 For a postmodern take on artistic developments in the 1990s, see Sarena Abdullah,
“Thematic Approaches in Malaysian Art since the 1990s”, Jati 16 (December 2011):
97–112, and Sarena Abdullah, Malaysian Art since the 1990s: Postmodern Situation
(Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2018).
9 Wong, “Introduction”, 2 Installations, galeriMIA, 1991, p. 3.
10 Wong, “Introduction”, What About Converging Extremes?, Kuala Lumpur:
GaleriWan, 1993.
11 Wong, “Introduction”, 2 Installations, pp. 4–5.
12 Kathy Rowland, “Art’s Coming of Age”, in Era Mahathir (Kuala Lumpur: IB Tower
Gallery Sdn Bhd, September 2016), pp. 8–14.
13 Mahathir bin Mohamad was the prime minister of Malaysia twice: his first tenure
lasted from 1981–2003 and his second from 2018–2020. https://www.britannica.
com/biography/Mahathir-bin-Mohamad.
14 The BSLN was later relocated to a larger space along Jalan Tun Abdul Razak, a
stone’s throw from the globally recognizable edifice of the Mahathir era: the
Petronas Twin Towers.
15 Visit https://www.majestickl.com/majestic_story.html.
16 Joe Kidd is interviewed and quoted in this very detailed, first-hand historical
account of the punk music scene and its origins and evolution in Malaysia: http://
kezamx.blogspot.com/2012/06/history-background-of-punk-in-malaysia.html.
17 See Salleh Ben Joned, “Kencing Dan Kesenian”, in Dewan Sastra 5, no. 7 (1975):
56–9. Republished in As I Please: Selected Writings 1975–1994 (Kuala Lumpur:
Skoob Books Pub., 1994). For a wonderfully detailed explication of the incident
and its intellectual aftermath, see Simon Soon’s “An Empty Canvas on which
Many Shadows Have Already Fallen”, in Reactions—New Critical Strategies:
Narratives in Malaysian Art Volume 2, ed. Nur Hanim Khairuddin and Beverly
Yong, with T.K. Sabapathy (Kuala Lumpur: Rogue Art, 2013).
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 71
18 For a review of the exhibition, as well as a faithful account of what happened
during the opening, see Malaysian art critic Ooi Kok Chuen’s “Provocative
Show by three artists”, New Straits Times, 1994, which is archived here: http://
carburetordung.kerbau.com/wp-content/uploads/1994/10/1994-10-21-warbox_
press_clipping.jpg.
19 Certain musical genres (rock, punk, heavy metal) were deemed too rebellious,
disruptive, and a bad influence on youth. Related to this, conformity to a certain
style of dress and look was not only expected but also enforced. Musicians with
hair past their shoulders were banned from all forms of public media, namely,
television and radio. In 1992, Malaysians witnessed on live public television a
government Cabinet minister giving haircuts to two rock musicians who sported
longer than shoulder-length manes. For a brief historical account of this period,
see Aref Omar’s “NST175: Rock’s Locks: When RTM banned long-haired rockers”,
New Straits Times, 29 Jan. 2020, https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/07/
612492/nst175-rocks-locks-when-rtm-banned-long-haired-rockers [accessed 1
June 2020]. For an academic perspective, see Zawawi Ibrahim, “Disciplining Rock
and Identity Contestations: Hybridization, Islam and New Musical Genres in
Contemporary Malaysian Popular Music”, Situations 9, no. 1 (2016): 21–47.
20 Coincidentally, at the time, Wong had been researching rock kapak and the punk
scene in Malaysia and learnt of Carburetor Dung, a band he thought was ‘cool’
in part because of the content of their music but largely due to their infamous
moshing during gigs. He later met with the band and floated the idea of having
them perform at the bastion of high art in the nation’s capital, an idea that was
met with some measure of interest but also mirth because band members thought
it ironic for them to be performing in a government-sanctioned space when their
usual underground performance venues were constantly being raided by police.
It was also their expressed wish that they could spread word of their gig to fans
and bring a different crowd to the gallery. This was observed and recollected by
Carmen Nge. At that time Nge was the production assistant for Warbox Lalang
Killing Tools and was present during initial discussions with the band, as well as
throughout the duration of the exhibition.
21 For a thorough visual, historical, and socio-political analysis of the exhibition,
see Ray Langenbach’s catalogue text for the show. Ray Langenbach, “War Box,
Lalang, Killing Tools: Bayu Utomo Radjikin, Wong Hoy Cheong, Raja Shahriman”,
in Warbox, Lalang, Killing Tools (Kuala Lumpur: Five Arts Centre, 1994).
22 For a brief account of what happened, refer to: https://m.aliran.com/archives/
hr/js3.html/. See also former Operation Lalang detainee Kua Kia Soong’s recent
letter to the editor of online news portal Free Malaysia Today, which mentions
Mahathir’s involvement: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/
2021/10/27/34-years-after-ops-lalang-still-no-sincere-apology-by-dr-m/.
72 Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Ar t in Asia
23 Wong’s Sook Ching was not without controversy, however, as some members
of the BSLN Board of Directors had raised concerns that the work would
offend the Japanese government. The Japanese embassy did not concur with
the Board’s view, and the work was allowed to be included in the festival.
For more information, refer to the year 1990 entry on the timeline: https://
myartmemoryproject.com/censorship/.
24 Beverly Yong, “Introduction”, in Wong Hoy Cheong (Kuala Lumpur & London:
Valentine Willie & OVA, 2002), p. 8.
25 Goh Beng Lan, “The Contemporary Art of Wong Hoy Cheong: A Look into the
Promise of the Post-Merdeka Artistic Generation”, in SHIFTS: Wong Hoy Cheong
2002–2007 (Singapore & KL: NUS Museum & Galeri Petronas, 2008), p. 94.
26 ‘Sook Ching’ is a Chinese word meaning ‘purification by elimination’ and it
referred to the experiences of Malaysians during the Japanese Occupation that
were buried in the collective memory of post-independence Malaya.
27 Marion D’Cruz, “Sook Ching”, in Staging History: Selected Plays from Five Arts
Centre Malaysia 1984–2014 (Kuala Lumpur: Five Arts Centre, 2014), p. 332.
28 Interview with Marion D’Cruz on 13 December 2021.
29 Taken from Andrew Maerkle’s interview with the artist for ART iT magazine:
https://www.art-it.asia/en/u/admin_ed_feature_e/n1osbctpadvkjrrth6i9.
30 Goh Beng Lan, “The Contemporary Art of Wong Hoy Cheong: A Look into the
Promise of the Post-Merdeka Artistic Generation”, p. 94.
31 Interview with Marion D’Cruz on 13 December 2021.
32 Interview with Wong Hoy Cheong on 14 December 2021.
33 For more information about the founding of MIA as a non-profit organization, see
the interview with Chung Chen Sun, founder and president of MIA from 1967–99,
in the chapter titled, “Teachers and Students Speak”, published in Infrastructures:
Narratives in Malaysian Art Volume 3, ed. Beverly Yong, et al. (Kuala Lumpur:
Rogue Art, 2016), pp. 358–61.
34 In 2022, of course, Taman Melawati is no longer the boondocks but an affluent
town within the KL metropolitan area, with multiple shopping malls, major
highways to connect it to the city centre, and many thriving residential enclaves.
35 For a deeper exploration of Wong’s interest in Freire, refer to Carmen Nge,
“Vestiges of an Artist”, in Latihan: Selected Studies by Wong Hoy Cheong (Kuala
Lumpur: OUR ArtProjects, 2017), pp. 22–31.
36 Wong, “Introduction”, 2 Installations, galeriMIA, 1991, p. 3.
37 Charlene Rajendran, “Liew Kungyu: Reacting to Self and Society”, in Mari Tangkap
Gambar (Kuala Lumpur: National Art Gallery, 1995), unpaginated.
38 Ibid.
39 Recollections of Carmen Nge, who was the production assistant for Warbox Lalang
Killing Tools and was present during initial discussions with the band, as well as
throughout the entire duration of the exhibition.
Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art 73
40 Wong Hoy Cheong and Raja Shahriman, “Raja Shahriman”, in 2 Installations
(Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia Institute of Art, 1991), p. 8.
41 Interview with Marion D’Cruz on 13 December 2021.
42 Ibid.
43 Marion D’Cruz, “Collaborative Efforts, Experimentations and Resolutions:
The Way to Contemporary Dance”, in Diversity in Motion, ed. Mohd Anis Md Nor
(Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya, 2003).
44 Ibid.
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Aref Omar. “NST175: Rock’s Locks: When RTM banned long-haired rockers”. New
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nst175-rocks-locks-when-rtm-banned-long-haired-rockers.
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. “Introduction”. In Vision and Idea: Relooking Modern Malaysian Art. Kuala
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author = {Abdullah, Sarena and Nge Siew Mun, Carmen},
date = {2022-10},
title = {Spaces of Experimentation and Collaboration in Early 1990s Malaysian Art},
language = {en},
pages = {29},
volume = {6, 2},
journal = {Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Asian Art},
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