UPDATE: GARDEN TOUR IS CANCELLED, OPEN DAY CONTINUES

We have just had a freak storm at Rimbun Dahan and lost a significant number of trees. The driveway is blocked in several places, and access is challenging.

The Garden Tour tomorrow morning is CANCELLED.

All other Open Day activities will continue on a slightly smaller and hopefully more intimate scale.

If you would like to join us, please drive up Lorong Belimbing and enter through the side gate. From there, you can walk to the heritage houses at the back of the property. Parking along the driveway inside will be limited, however, so Grab or carpooling is encouraged!

A day of art and artists, in the 14-acre tropical greenery of Rimbun Dahan, 45 minutes from Kuala Lumpur.

On Sunday 25 February 2024, Rimbun Dahan will be open to the public to view works in progress by our current resident artists Gardika Gigih (Indonesia), Lucy Zola (Australia), Studio 1914 (Singapore), Hardiwan Prayogo (Indonesia) and Yap Chee Keng (Malaysia).

Free entry. Registration required for garden tour only (see below).

Schedule

9:00am-11:00am: [FULL: REGISTRATION CLOSED] Guided garden tour of our 14-acre native Southeast Asian arboretum and garden at Rimbun Dahan by Angela Hijjas. Meet at the front gate. Slots are limited, and registrations are required for the garden tour. Please register here: https://forms.gle/dQuNBHd7gNeXJffL9 — [Registration for the garden tour is now closed. All other Open Day activities are drop-in and do not require registration. During your visit you may walk about the garden at your leisure.]

11:00am-2:00pm: Visual artists’ studios open to the public. Please visit the studios and have a chat with the artists.

2:00-3:00pm: Lunch break; studios closed. You are welcome to bring your own picnic to enjoy in the garden; please take your rubbish with you.

3:00-6:00pm: Visual artists’ studios open to the public.

4:00pm-5:00pm: Book sharing session: Discussion of Syair Jaran Tamasa, published by Buku Fixi for a Jawi-to-Rumi transcription project produced by Dr Mulaika Hijjas. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.

5:00pm-5:45pm: Workshop by resident composer Gardika Gigih, introducing his method of sound recording and composition in his studio, followed by an outdoor session of crowd-sourced sound making improvisation, in response to the natural soundscape at Rimbun Dahan. Just drop in, no need to register. Bring your own instrument, if you like! Meet at the Dance Studio.

Travelling Directions

Use Waze to drive to Rimbun Dahan: https://waze.com/ul/hw284q6meb

Use Google Maps to drive to Rimbun Dahan: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ft5fV9YpGsvciCtU8

Landmarks: Our front gate is opposite Warung Selera Ria and also next to the start of Lorong Belimbing. Do not enter Lorong Belimbing, please enter the front gate from the main road.

Tips for Visitors

• We have parking inside the compound, along the driveway. Just drive in the front gate and park as indicated along the drive.
• Bring your own mosquito repellent!
• We are sorry, Rimbun Dahan is not a wheelchair accessible venue.
• Wear practical shoes if you are planning to walk around the garden.
• Bring an umbrella in case of rain.
• No refreshments or water provided. Feel free to bring your own picnic, and enjoy it in the gardens; please clean up all your trash.
• No pets, no swimming — thank you for your cooperation.

If you have any questions, please email arts@rimbundahan.org or WhatsApp Bilqis at +6017-3103769.

About the Artists

Gardika Gigih Pradipta is an Indonesian composer, pianist, and soundscape researcher. After studying composition at the Indonesian Institute of Arts, Gardika’s interest in the intersection of music, society, and culture led him to pursue a Masters Degree in Cultural Anthropology. His works span numerous genres, from concerts to contemporary improvisation, film scoring, and sound ethnography. His debut album Nyala (2017) received widespread acclaim and was named a top album of the year by The Jakarta Post. In 2019 he conducted soundscape research as a fellow of The Japan Foundation Asia Center, and in 2023 he lived in New York for 6 months as an Asian Cultural Council Fellow. Gardika is continuing to develop new compositions and electroacoustic works inspired by his global research.

Hardiwan Prayogo is a film enthusiast from Yogyakarta and a member of the Cinemartani film community. One of the programmers for Bioskop FKY (Yogyakarta Arts Festival), he also worked as a programmer for the Festival Film Dokumenter (FFD), visited Manila as a grantee of the Asia-Europe Foundation and worked as an archivist at the Indonesian Visual Art Archive (IVAA). He was recently selected as one of the participants for the 17th Crack International Art Camp in Kushtia, Bangladesh. His project at Rimbun Dahan invite people to collaboratively narrate their stories about gardens through the archives of texts and photographic works, as an investigation into lifestyle change in contemporary society.

Studio 1914, a Singapore-based art practice led by filmmakers and visual artists, Adzlynn & Hong Hu, explores the intersections of Southeast Asian folktales, ecology, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) art and experiential exhibitions. With moving images as their primary medium, they hope their works contribute to and encourage progressive conversations around navigating identities as Southeast Asians. During their residency at Rimbun Dahan, they noticed parallels between the layouts of forbidden gardens (which were key to their previous work ‘Madu’) and Rimbun Dahan, and wondered what it would be like if they were to imagine and design the scene of the ‘Forbidden Garden’ inspired by Rimbun Dahan.

Lucy Zola is a multi-disciplinary artist and musician from Adelaide, South Australia, who works in sonic art, installation, sculpture, interactive digital art, and photography. Rooted in the discourse of walking, Zola’s creations reflect on the human condition and our interconnection with the environment. Lucy has been studying and undertaking language training, internships and artist residencies abroad on a New Colombo Plan Scholarship for the past year, her journey taking her to South Korea, Malaysia and soon Nepal. This Sunday during Open Day, Lucy will be sharing her multi-disciplinary works exploring the tranquility and unease evoked by the night.

Amirul Arif is a Diploma student in Landscape Horticulture currently undertaking an internship in Rimbun Dahan. He aspires to be a naturalist specialising on the biogeography of maritime Southeast Asia. Devoting most of his time to studying and exploring upriver, coasts, mountains and jungles of Malay Peninsula, he has planted a plot of land in rural Kelantan with indigenous trees and amassed a collection of anthropological trinkets and scientific specimens to share with the general public. On Open Day, Amirul will be exhibiting butterfly specimens collected in the Malay Peninsula to illustrate the luxuriance of butterfly diversity in this region, their role in the environment and the implications that carries with their dwindling presence.

Dr Mulaika Hijjas is Senior Lecturer in South East Asian Studies at SOAS University of London, where she teaches Malay and Indonesian literature and culture. She is principle investigator of the Leverhulme Trust-funded project ‘Mapping Sumatra’s Manuscript Cultures’ (www.naskahsumatra.org). Syair Jaran Tamasa is a Malay narrative poem telling the story of Jaran Tamasa’s quest to win his beloved, Ken Lamlam Arsa, who is destined to be the concubine of the Majapahit king. Jaran Tamasa kidnaps her using magical powers, but her brother vows revenge. The poem survives in only two manuscripts, both held by the British Library. Unread for over 200 years, it was transcribed from Jawi by volunteers in Malaysia and Singapore, and is now published for the first time. Copies of the book will be available for purchase on Open Day for RM28, or RM60 for 3 (promotional price).

About Rimbun Dahan

Rimbun Dahan is the home of Malaysian architect Hijjas Kasturi and his wife Angela. Set on fourteen acres outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the compound of Rimbun Dahan is a centre for developing traditional and contemporary art forms. It features buildings designed by Hijjas Kasturi, as well as two early 20th century traditional Malay houses from Perak and Penang, in an indigenous Southeast Asian garden environment which has recently been awarded arboretum status. Rimbun Dahan is private property, and is only open to the public on Open Days.