'ILHAM Contemporary Forum' exhibition at ILHAM Gallery

‘The works here create a conversation with each other,’ says Azzad Diah, one of the seven curators for this exhibition. He explains this can be seen particularly in the placement of Samsudin Wahab’s Mud Painting next to Rizman Ruzaini’s KL Twin Towers Costume he made for Miss Malaysia during the 65th Miss Universe competition in 2016.

Azzad explains that the artists both come from the same art school but have different leanings in their work. While Rizman’s costume is a celebration of our nation’s modernity, Samsudin’s work invites the audience to reflect on the self and their own roots. Made completely from mud, which would crack and eventually fall off, the painting brings about questions surrounding identity and development, especially when contrasted with Rizman’s work.

Back in 2009 Fahmi Reza started doing public lectures about the University of Malaya student movement of the late ’60s to the late ’70s. While many of the lectures were done in private spaces, Fahmi’s main goal was to carry out the lectures in public universities, especially in University of Malaya – the birthplace of said student movement.

This installation features a timeline of his numerous (failed) attempts at carrying out the lectures in public universities and newspaper clippings of student actions back in the day. Apart from that, the installation also features a replica of the iconic speaker’s corner steps – a platform where students were free to exercise their freedom of speech.

Part of the ‘archive, narrative, the world’ category, Chang Yoong Chia delves into our collective memory surrounding the incidents that happened on May 13 1969. Using stamps that were in circulation between 1965 and 1971 with postmarks of ‘Don’t spread rumours’ and ‘Don’t listen to rumours’ in four languages, Yoong Chia’s work depicts the incident where moviegoers were gunned downed as they left Majestic Cinema in KL on that infamous day.

The piece confronts us with some uncomfortable truths about our nation’s history, raising the question of whether we’re still nursing the hangover from that fateful day. While the artist’s use of red, pink and yellow to depict the incident doesn’t just evoke the fiery emotions stoked at the time, the brightness of the collage indicates how fresh it remains in our collective memory.

Spearheaded by Liew Seng Tat with around 20 other collaborators, Projek Angkat Rumah first got its inspiration from a news story about a man who, with the help from his neighbours, managed to move his kampung house to be closer to his daughter. The project first came to life in 2010 in the form of a flash mob (remember flash mobs?) where people were invited to volunteer to carry a house from Jalan Ipoh to Urbanscapes at klpac, where it would be used as a stage.

‘It was a participatory and collaborative project. It was also so we could slip in some acts who would never be invited to Urbanscapes. Some really crappy, weird and provocative bands,’ recalls Mark Teh – a participant of the project and also one of the curators for the exhibition. The idea behind Projek Angkat Rumah was soon made into a movie – ‘Lelaki Harapan Dunia’ – by Liew Seng Tat.

‘Operasi Cassava’ first started as an online participatory archive where the artist asked Malaysians to send in any story they had surrounding the cassava plant (better known as ubi kayu). Why cassava? This is largely because of how integrated the plant is in our collective consciousness; apart from being an ingredient in many local delicacies, it was also once an important source of nutrients during the Japanese occupation. In this work, the crowdsourced stories are connected to cybernetic cassavas – as the moisture of the plant dissipates the clarity and the opacity of the text will start to decrease.