2020 has not been kind to our local arts industries. Most shows, festivals and exhibitions had to either close down completely, or experiment by going digital. For this final show of 2020, we try to take an optimistic tone, and discuss what artsmakers have learnt and how the industry can move forward into the new year. Joining us for the conversation are: Bilqis Hijjas, dance producer, Rimbun Dahan; Tan Cher Kian, producer, Instant Cafe Theatre Company; and, Ruby Subramaniam, visual artist...

If Darth Vader, Superman, or Wonder Woman were wayang kulit characters, how might their costumes and personalities be reimagined? Fusion Wayang Kulit, a Malaysian troupe that is reviving Kelantanese shadow puppetry by merging it with stories from popular film and comics culture, is attempting to answer this question through a YouTube series called “Puppet Explained”. Best known for their “Peperangan Bintang” show, which retells Star Wars through the art of wayang kulit, each video in their...

Project Ranih is an online archive to collect children’s folk songs of the Kelabit community of Sarawak. We speak with one of the project’s founders, Alena Murang, about the place these songs hold in the Kelabit culture and the challenges of preserving them. Image Source: Project Ranih 

The Freedom Film Fest has become a fixture here in the Malaysian cultural calendar, for highlighting documentaries on human rights and social justice that are relevant to this region. Usually the festival is coupled with various live events and talks, but the COVID-19 pandemic this year has limited a lot of that. So we speak to directors of the Freedom Film Network, Anna Har and Brenda Danker, about the Freedom Film Fest 2020 shifting online, and how the pandemic has impacted its filmmakers....

Woodcut carving and printmaking occupies an interesting space within visual arts, as it crosses the lines between the traditional and the modern, between folk art and contemporary art. A current exhibition called “Carving Reality” features works from Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan, and spotlights the emergence of social realist woodcuts in East Asia. We speak with the exhibition’s curator Krystie Ng about the movement’s history, and why woodcut carving is often a...

The notion of a Southeast Asian artistic identity is a complicated one, particularly within the context of contemporary art. With 2020 having dealt a huge blow to the arts worldwide, we look at developments and new directions in Southeast Asia: what the challenges are, the current movements, and what the future might hold. To help answer these questions, we speak with Patrick Flores, professor of art studies at the University of the Philippines, and artistic director of the 2019 Singapore...

The Global Migrant Festival is an online arts and literary festival that foregrounds the stories and experiences of low-wage migrant workers and refugees. The organisers of the festival see the arts a window into the human condition, and seek to use it as a medium to have the voices of these communities heard. We speak to two of the festival’s featured performers: Warsan Weedhsan, co-director of the archipelago writers collective; and, Sugiarti, winner of 2019 Singapore Migrant Worker Poetry...

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many performing arts companies have been turning to their archives or past performances to see how they can be repurposed for viewing today - because of the challenges of staging live shows or even having rehearsals and so on. Which is how we now have an online streaming of the play Nadirah, written by Singaporean playwright Alfian Sa’at back in 2009. The play has been staged here in Malaysia several times by the Instant Cafe Theatre, starting in 2012. So now,...

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed how art is created and performed; Soliloquy - A Dance Film is an example of those possibilities. A collaborative dance video between dancer and choreographer SueKi Yee and musician Rachel Morais, it was made this year, while observing social distancing requirements, and with SueKi in Kuala Lumpur and Rachel in Brisbane. We speak to them both about their collaborative process, and what it was like to make art during a global pandemic. Image...

The WLG Incubator is an initiative by Wei-Ling Galleries to mentor and collaborate with emerging Malaysian artists, and this year, the artists selected were Anas Afandi and Tang Tze Lye. Over a six-month program, the two artists worked with Malaysian artist Ivan Lam as their mentor to discuss, research, and develop new concepts. The results of this are currently being shown at the WLG Incubator Young Artists Show. We speak with Anas and Tze Lye, as well as the director of Wei-Ling...

In these pandemic times, the idea of attending a performance often feels rather remote. But what if that performance took place in the form of a phone call, where you spoke to a stranger for an hour? That is the basic premise of a performance happening as part of the Singapore International Festival of Arts, with a show called “A Thousand Ways - Part 1: A Phone Call”, by American theatre company 600 Highwaymen. To learn more, we speak to the duo behind the show, Abigail Browde and Michael...

On October 29, 2020, Malaysian literary and artistic icon Salleh Ben Joned passed away at the age of 79. Salleh was known for his powerful poetry and essays in both Bahasa Malaysia and English, and is also often referred to as a maverick and non-conformist for his works that challenged taboos about race, religion, sexuality, and so on. In many ways, he is also seen as being relatively underrated or unrecognised for his contributions to the local literary scene. We pay tribute to Salleh and...