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Soraya Abidin

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Soraya Abidin

Soraya Abidin (b. 1971) is a textile artist based in Sydney, Australia. The subjects and materials she uses to create her works are born of a love for the Primitive and Spiritual practices within her Malay cultural heritage. Soraya embroiders in natural raffia representing matter from the jungle and embellishes with gold leaf, as a mark of status and the prestigious gold culture worn by her aristocratic ancestors. During as recent visit to Malaysia, where her father is from, interpreted inquiries of her family members revealed her art making practice as an inherent genetic trait directly traceable to her Malay culture, which the artist expands on below:

“I am an Embroidress, the only member in the entire family that has inherited the passion for Benang Emas Sulaman from my Opah (grandmother). I have studied my parents wedding photos for many years, loving and attempting to recreate the motifs seen on all the wedding decorations. I had no idea these works even still existed, till I showed copies of the wedding photos to my family and the next thing I knew these incredible items where in front of me, in my hands to touch and marvel at the perfection of each piece. It was then that I learnt all the embroidered pieces in the photographs had been made by my Opah.

I never could have imagined what this information would do for me, so astounding that I am finally able to make this connection. Now I understand my passion for Embroidery has a strong thread directly linked to my inherent bloodline. This may seem simple but to me it provides powerful and auspicious meaning to the medium I have always instinctually gravitated towards as an artist. Now I have found the origins of my practice and that I am the one to carry on the family tradition.

During the residency I would like to study the use of motifs in traditional Malay textiles, Tekat and Songket, and gather motifs and their meanings to create a glossary for reference in my artmaking. I would like to create an artwork representing my cross cultural parentage, by use of the Traditional Quilting practices of my Australian mother, layered and embedded with embroidered Islamic Arts motifs of my Malay father.

The work will be embroidered with natural raffia and pure white silks and embellish with gold leaf, metallic threads and glass beads. My focus will be on the selection and placement of motifs that are layered over a quilt top created by my mother. The base cloth will be embellished with a combination of appliqued silks motifs then layered with interconnecting embroidered Malay motifs, intentionally leaving gaps and spaces to create a cross cultural conversation in both the positive and negative space.

The intention of the work is to portray a new found clarity and definition in my identity. Through the layering of motifs and utilisation of the powerful meanings in their symbolism to bind together the genetic behavioural traits of my two cultural heritages.”

Soraya will be in residency at Rimbun Dahan for the month of August. You can find more of Soraya and her work on Instagram.

Riel Jaramillo Hilario

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Riel Jaramillo Hilario

Riel Jaramillo Hilario (b. 1976) is a Filipino visual artist and curator, and was born in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, Philippines, which like George Town, is declared a UNESCO Heritage Site. He is a sculptor, painter and an art historian and was the curator for the Pinto Art Museum in Antipolo, Rizal.

Hilario’s main body of work are hand-carved wood figures inspired by rebultos, a colonial art form of religious statuary that was introduced from Spain to the Philippines by way of Mexico in the 1600s to the late 1900’s. Hilario uses the rebulto depicting subjects that are “para-psychological” phenomena, such as presences, place memories, popular mythologies and dreams. For the artist this practice fulfills the need “to render visual” that which are unseen. For his residency at Hotel Penaga in the month of August, Hilario will deploy “Place Memory” – a project that attempts to collect and take note of, occluded and manifested presences and psychic histories in and around spaces in George Town.

Hilario is a Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artist Awardee (2012). His work has been shown in several exhibitions in Adelaide, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Basel, Delhi, New York, Paris and Berlin. He has been artist-in-residence in Paris at the Cite Internationale des Arts (2012) and in New York at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (2013) as a fellow of the Asian Cultural Council.

Riel was a Hotel Penaga resident for August 2016. For more information on Riel’s work, please visit his website.

Irwan Sofwan

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Irwan Sofwan

Irwan Sofwan is a poet and writer from Indonesia. His biography is written below in his mother tongue with a rough translation appended after:

Irwan lahir dan tinggal di Serang, Banten – Indonesia. Karya-karyanya terdapat dalam beberapa buku antologi puisi bersama, di antaranya: Dari Batas Waktu ke Perjalanan Kamar sampai Kabar dari Langit (2006), Candu Rindu (2009), Akulah Musi (2011), Narasi Tembuni (2012) dan juga di beberapa media massa.

Sehari-hari ia bekerja sebagai guru Bahasa dan Sastera Indonesia di SMP PGRI 2 Kota Serang dan aktif berkegiatan di Kubah Budaya (Komunitas untuk Perubahan Budaya) – sebuah komunitas sastera dan budaya yang didirikannya bersama Wan Anwar (alm) dan beberapa kawan satu angkatan. Ia kemudian dipercaya menjabat sebagai ketua Kubah Budaya dari tahun 2006 ke 2009. Bergelut dan berdiskusi bersama komunitas membuatnya lebih mencintai dunia sastera dan semakin terjerumus ke dalam belantara puisi. Puisi seolah menjadi magnet yang menarik keinginannya untuk selalu menulis dan berkarya, meski ia juga sesekali menulis esei dan beberapa artikel yang berkaitan dengan sastera  dan dunia pendidikan.

Baginya, menulis puisi adalah mencatat kehidupan. Mengekalkan sekaligus menyatukan pengetahuan, pengalaman batin dan pikiran untuk kemudian dilepaskan mengarungi lautan kehidupan itu sendiri. Dalam lawatannya ke Rimbun Dahan sebagai artist resident, ia berharap dan akan berusaha untuk menemukan pengetahuan dan pengalaman-pengalaman itu – yang seutuhnya baru – untuk diolah kembali menjadi karya-karya yang memiliki corak berbeda dengan karya-karya yang ia tulis sebelumnya.

Sekarang, Irwan sedang menyiapkan puisi-puisinya untuk diterbitkan dalam sebuah buku yang akan menjadi buku kumpulan puisi pertamanya. Menjadi penyair dan guru adalah hal yang tidak pernah ia cita-citakan semenjak kecil, namun ia bersyukur dapat menjalaninya sekarang ini. Ia pun percaya dengan apa yang dituliskan Herwan FR (penyair, guru dan sahabat) dalam sebuah ulasan untuknya, “Penyair yang baik adalah penyair yang santun. Penyair yang santun adalah penyair yang rendah hati. Penyair yang santun dan rendah hati, berkemungkinan besar termasuk penyair yang beriman dan beraamal sholeh, sehingga terhindar dari azab Tuhan, karena penyair, menurut tuhan, adalah orang yang suka mengembara ke lembah-lembah khayalan. Maka sebagai penyair dan guru adalah sebuah kenikmatan yang harus disyukuri, sebagaimana seorang penyair dan sekaligus kyai.”

—

Irwan was born and lives in Serang, Baten in Indonesia. His works have appeared in a few poetry anthologies, such as Dari Batas Waktu ke Perjalanan Kamar sampai Kabar dari Langit (2006), Candu Rindu (2009), Akulah Musi (2011), Narasi Tembuni (2012) and have also appeared in other mass media.

His day job is as a teacher of Indonesian language and literature SMP PGRI 2 Kota Serang, and he is also active in Kubah Budaya (Community to Change Culture) – a cultural and literary community founded by himself, colleague and friend Wan Anwar, and a few other peers. Irwan was entrusted with the heading Kubah Budaya from 2006 to 2009. Engaging and conversing with the community increased and deepened his love for literature and involvement with poetry. Poetry to him became like a magnet for his deep interest in writing every day; he has also written a few essays about the world of literature and education.

To him, writing poetry is to record life, a way to preserve as well as unite knowledge, experience, and thought to then be released into the flow and waves of each person’s life. During his residency at Rimbun Dahan, he hopes to discover new knowledge and experiences to be formed into works that contain different patterns to works he has written before.

Currently, Irwan is working on writing poems for his first poetry collection. Being a teacher and a poet was something he never even dreamed of, but he is grateful now for the opportunity to be both. He believes in what Herman FR (poet, teacher, and friend) once wrote, “A good poet is a poet that is a mannered poet. A mannered poet is a humble poet. A mannered and humble poet has a high likelihood of becoming a poet of deep belief and piety, escaping the punishments of God – because poets, according to God, are those who like to explore the wilderness of fantasy and the imagination. Therefore to be both a poet and a teacher is a pleasure to be appreciated.”

Irwan Sofwan 2
Irwan Sofwan

Doni Maulistya

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A Moment After Birth (2015); Installation, object, and sound

Doni Maulistya (b. 1987 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia) is an artist with an educational background in photography. He studied documentary photography through workshops such as Angkor Photography Workshop in Siem Reap, Cambodia (2009) and Foundry Photo Workshop in Istanbul, Turkey (2010). He’s also made works using installation and film.

As I live my life as an artist, I started to question my position in a society that is continuously in a dynamic negotiation between ‘the old’ and ‘the new’. I see the negotiation as an identity formation process that will always happen in human history. Thus, in making artworks, I am always interested in exploring the themes of history, tradition, and other dialectic dimensions that happens within society, an intermingling of culture.

Through my artistic research, I realize that no one medium should be considered a sole artistic language that can convey messages. Therefore, I expand my exploration on photography as well as on other media beyond photography.

Within the past four years, my artistic exploration has mostly been of the elements of performing and motion. My interests in that exploration started when I worked on performing art projects with Papermoon Puppet Theatre and Migrating Troop Theatre. Those events have enriched my experience to develop my body of work. One of the biggest challenges I have gone through is how to make objects that can cover all the different elements in performing art, such as movement, sound, interactivity, storytelling, etc. Afterwards, I decided to explore kinetic, video, sound, installation, and any other medium that I can learn about and apply to my artistic works. Besides learning the intermingled elements of any medium I use, I also always aim to learn how to discuss the local aspects in global context.

During the residency at Rimbun Dahan I hope to work on developing my current project called Still Praying. This project is about exploring the ‘Believing Practice’ that happens in contemporary society. But still, I always keep a vacant room on every project to allow new ideas to further develop.

To find out more about Doni and his work, you can find him on Instagram, Facebook, Issuu, Youtube, or check out his website. He will be in residency in Rimbun Dahan until the end of July 2016.

Thynn Lei Nwe

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Thynn Lei Nwe

Thynn Lei Nwe (b. 1991) is an artist based in Yangon, Myanmar. She studied for a Diploma in Fine Arts specialized in Painting at the Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore from 2012 to 2014. She usually works with different mediums including oil paintings and ceramics. Her recent works deal with the concept of creating an environment that do not exist in real life and existing in a part of her own imaginary world.

Artist Statement

I have been asked over and over why I paint hybrids. And to every questioner, I asked, “Have you ever gotten tired of looking at the same person in the mirror every morning? Or have you felt tired when you see other people too?” Because this has happened to me a lot for years and my recent series shows the progression of this feeling, and it’s a part of the solution for myself.

I started from pretending the people, family, friends, neighbours and those random strangers I pass by on the street are ‘hybrids’ in the way I want to see them. I use painting as a medium to create an imaginary world where the people I know, including me, change every day, may be a plant today and a bird the next day. My imaginary people make me want to deal with ‘real’ people again. And it’s fun to see new people living around me every day. For me at the moment, nothing is more joyful than to create something that will never exist in the real life and to live among them.

Call for Applications: Rimbun Dahan Southeast Asian & Hotel Penaga Residencies 2017 Round 1

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Call for Applications: Rimbun Dahan Southeast Asian & Hotel Penaga Residencies 2017 Round 1

Applications are now open for Rimbun Dahan’s Southeast Asian Residency and the Hotel Penaga Residency for 1 January to 30 June 2017!

RIMBUN DAHAN SOUTHEAST ASIAN ARTS RESIDENCY

We invite visual artists (of all disciplines), writers, arts managers, and researchers/curators from and based in Southeast Asian countries to submit applications for the period of 1 January to 30 June 2017. Residencies can range from 1 to 6 months. Please check the residency page on our website for details on the residency itself, eligibility criteria, and how to apply. Applicants are advised to read the information carefully to avoid any confusion in their application process. All applications must be received by 30 June 2016. 

Notes

  • Interested artists NOT from and based in Southeast Asia are eligible for our Open Residency Program, which has rolling applications
  • Applications for residencies between 1 July to 31 December 2017 will open at the end of the year in 2016. Keep up with announcements via our Facebook or our mailing list

RD Applications 2017 vs3

HOTEL PENAGA RESIDENCY

Applications are now open for Hotel Penaga’s Residency Program in 2017! We invite Southeast Asian visual artists to submit applications for the period of 1 January – 30 June 2017. Residencies can range from 1 to 3 months. Please check the residency page on our website for details on the residency itself, eligibility criteria, and how to apply. Applicants are advised to read the information carefully to avoid any confusion in their application process. All applications must be received by 30 June 2016!

Notes

  • The Hotel Penaga residency is also open to non-Southeast Asian artists, but these artists are subject to a monthly fee and are not eligible for any financial support from Rimbun Dahan
  • This residency is only open to artists working in the visual field – painting, illustration and drawing, textile art, printmaking, sculpture, etc. Artists in other fields are eligible for Rimbun Dahan’s Southeast Asian Arts Residency and Open Residency
  • Applications for residencies between 1 July to 31 December 2017 will open at the end of the year in 2016. Keep up with announcements via our Facebook or our mailing list

Hotel Penaga 2017 Residency call for applications

Sharon Chin

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Sharon Chin

Sharon Chin (b.1980, Petaling Jaya) is an artist and writer living in Port Dickson, a seaside town two hours drive from Kuala Lumpur.

She makes all kinds of things in all kinds of places, from galleries to city sidewalks. She’s hung sails across an embassy lobby, listened to strangers’ hearts on the streets of Sydney, and gotten teargassed while wearing a costume of yellow flowers. Recently, she bathed in public with a hundred people for “Mandi Bunga/Flower Bath”, a project at Singapore Biennale 2013, and painted weeds on political party flags for the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Queensland, Australia.

During her three month 2016 residency at Hotel Penaga, Sharon will be working on a series of linocut illustrations for writer Zedeck Siew’s short story collection about fantastic animals and plants, tentatively titled ‘Local Flora, Local Fauna.’ An exhibition of the prints will be held from 23 July – 7 August 2016 at Run Amok, which is located at Hin Bus Depot Art Centre on Jalan Gurdwara in Georgetown.

For more of Sharon and her work, you can visit her website.

Photo Credit to Azrul K Abdullah for Esquire Malaysia

Ibed Surgana Yuga

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General repetisi Kapai-Kapai (atawa Gayuh) oleh Kalanari Theatre Movement di Teater Atap/Anjung Salihara, Jakarta. Photo: Eva Tobing

Ibed Surgana Yuga was born in a traditional Balinese farming family, 14 August 1983. He has been living in Yogyakarta, Java since 2003 to complete his theatre direction study in the Theatre Department of the Indonesia Arts Institute of Yogyakarta.

In 2012, Ibed initiated the Kalanari Theatre Movement, an institution which conducts cultural movements through theatre works. The objective of Kalanari is to reaffirm the bond between performance and society, and to inspire people to develop their cultures. In Kalanari, Ibed has framed his works through the concept of engaging intimately with space with ‘space’ understood both in a broader social and cultural context and more narrowly as the physical (natural and architectural) space of performance. His theatre works are site-specific so as to give highest value to improvisation.

He’s applied this concept by working with groups such as villagers, labourers, traditional art communities, domestic workers, interdisciplinary artists, etc. Ibed has worked in and around Indonesia, in historical, natural and architectural sites. He has also worked internationally, in Japan, Singapore and Ireland. He’s given meaning to his works as not just a collaborative artistic work, but a cultural dialogue. According to Ibed, theatre is neither for the creation of only performances or artistic works; it has a noble vision and mission to develop society’s cultures by emphasizing values of humanity.

During his short residency at Rimbun Dahan, Ibed wants to create a theatrical work based on ideas of engaging intimately with the natural, architectural and textual (story, history, myth, etc.) aspect of the site. He aims to choose a site in Rimbun Dahan by digging into the many textual aspects of the site, which will then be interpreted to create a site specific performance which is blended with his cultural background. He hopes to collaborate in this endeavour with local artists in any disciplines.

Find out more about Kalanari Theatre Movement, and see photos and videos of Ibed’s work on Flickr and Youtube.

Lucy Marinkovich

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Lucy Marinkovich

Lucy Marinkovich is a Wellington (NZ) based professional contemporary dancer, choreographer, and the founder of multi-disciplinary performance collective the Borderline Arts Ensemble. Lucy choreographs regularly for Footnote New Zealand Dance Company and is a guest tutor at the New Zealand School of Dance and Toi Whakaari. She trained at the New Zealand School of Dance before joining Footnote Dance Company, touring New Zealand extensively and internationally. Lucy was awarded “Best Emerging Female Artist” by Tempo Dance Festival in 2010, “Best Female Dancer” in 2011, and has been awarded the Eileen May Norris Dance Trust Scholarship and the Creative New Zealand Tup Lang Choreographic Award.

In 2013 Lucy studied Gaga technique with Batsheva Dance Company and in 2014 undertook performance and research projects in Germany, Spain and Austria and was also was invited to dance in the World Dance Alliance’s International Choreolab in France. She returned to New Zealand to choreograph works for Short+Sweet Dance Festival, Tempo Dance Festival, and the Wellington Dance Festival. In 2015 Lucy created a durational five-day performance art piece, The Bosch Box, for The Performance Arcade ‘Container Series’.

In early 2016 Lucy created Centerfolds, her third dance work on Footnote Dance Company, and Good Good Fortune, a performance installation for INSTINC Art Gallery in Singapore. Lucy is now undertaking a Choreographic Residency at Rimbun Dahan in Malaysia thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand and the Asia New Zealand Foundation. While in residence she will collaborate with local dancers to make a new work for Penang Dance Day Festival. In late 2016, the Borderline Arts Ensemble has been invited for a Choreographic Residency at the Mediterranean Dance Center in Croatia.

 

Pitchaya Ngamcharoen

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Sugar balls from Calling Lost Brother by Pitchaya Ngamcharoen 2015

Pitchaya Ngamcharoen is Thai artist based in Chiang Mai and Bangkok. As an animal spirit, Pitchaya has always been drawn to her own species — non-human. Her artistic process usually involves animals and human participants to create a form of transparent overlap which is then transformed into an art event or object. The outcomes are often shown in interactive installation, sculpture and online sites.

Her last experimental project, “Calling Lost Brothers”, is a project which aims to visualize an animal as an unnoticed and unperceived territory. Conversations between the artist and other species are easily made when we share one thing in common — energy resources.

Pitchaya is interested in the overlapping layers of human living space and that of animals. In the city, a small amount of people realize or care about animate creatures living underneath or above us unless they bother them. In this project, sugar is used to track ants which live in the same building with the artist. The ants’ trails are marked and preserved. The audience is presented with a map showing these ants’ trails and invited to explore the building through the ants’ eyes.

Pitchaya will be in residency at Rimbun Dahan for the months of April and May 2016.

For more information, you can visit her blog and Facebook page.