Indonesia film enthusiast and archivist Hardiwan Prayogo is a resident artist at Rimbun Dahan in February 2024.
About the Artist
Hi everyone, I’m Hardiwan Prayogo; you can call me Yoga. I am a film enthusiast from Yogyakarta and a member of the Cinemartani film community. From 2014 to 2018, I served as one of the programmers for Bioskop FKY (Yogyakarta Arts Festival). I also worked as a programmer for the Festival Film Dokumenter (FFD) in 2019 and 2022. In 2019, I became one of the grantees of the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) to visit Manila, Philippines, for research titled “Re-definition from the Bottom.” From 2018 to 2021, I worked as an archivist at the Indonesian Visual Art Archive (IVAA). At the end of 2023, I was selected as one of the participants for the 17th Crack International Art Camp in Kushtia, Bangladesh.
My project at Rimbun Dahan is titled Ceritakan Kisah Tentang Taman Seperti Tak Ada Hari Esok – Tell Me the Tale of Gardens Like There’s No Tomorrow.
The tale about gardens in Southeast Asia is not a recent phenomenon, it has roots that go back before the waves of European colonial expansion. Traces of this narrative can be found in ancient texts, ranging from legends and poetry to reliefs on temples. In some ancient texts, we can find meanings attributed to gardens, primarily their role as resistance against graves (Setra). Graves are often associated with death and destruction, while gardens symbolize rebirth and renewal. Secondly, gardens often represent mountains (Ardi, Arga) and seas (Tasik, Segara), symbolizing land and water as the essence of life. Thirdly, gardens are seen as heavenly oases, places of retreat, meditation, asceticism, and taboo. In addition, Southeast Asian cultural scholar Dennys Lombard also touches on gardens as spaces of aesthetic and symbolic appreciation in post-colonial societies. There is an attempt to harmonize the syncretic life of the East with the European style.
During one month of residency at Rimbun Dahan, I sought a closer context on how gardens and neighboring lives are constructed in Selangor, particularly in Kampung Cempedak, Kuang. Here, I found many houses with spacious gardens. However, on the other side, some residents I met felt burdened by the upkeep of large gardens. One of the biggest challenges is to protect the gardens from wild animals such as monkeys and wild boars. This, of course, became the consequence that the cost of garden maintenance will be quite high. The larger the garden, the higher the price. This presents a dilemma in itself. We can see this as one form of the lifestyle change of contemporary society today. When gardens and fields are no longer seen as economic commodities, let alone the concept of sustainable farming, then the affordable solution for them is only two things: to clear the garden for building or to sell it.
Therefore, this project is titled Tell Me the Tale of Gardens Like There’s No Tomorrow. I want to invite people to collaboratively narrate their stories about gardens through the archives of texts and photographic works that I show. So, if someday these gardens are no longer in our sight today, at least the stories about them remain in the corners of our memory.
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.
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.
Indonesian composer Gardika Gigih is at Rimbun Dahan for a two-month residency in 2024.
About the Artist
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), released by Indonesian independent label Sorge Records, received widespread acclaim and was named a top album of the year by The Jakarta Post.
In 2019, Gardika received a fellowship from The Japan Foundation Asia Center to conduct soundscape research as cultural narratives in Southeast Asia and Japan. Published in www.lostinsound.art From January to June 2023, he lived in New York as an Asian Cultural Council Fellow, to study cultural diversity and multicultural collaboration in the New York music scene. Last May at the British Library, his composition “Mimpi Owa: A Duet with Javanese Gibbons” won the “Sound of the Year Awards” for the Composed with Sound category, initiated by the BBC Radiophonic Institute and the Museum of Sounds.
Gardika is continuing to develop new compositions and electroacoustic works inspired by his global research.
Every day at Rimbun Dahan, from the very morning until late at night, I listen to so many sounds from the tropical nature surrounding us. It’s a wonderful experience to feel so many creatures living together in this place, and it makes me listen deeper to the various birds, insects, dogs, winds, etc. to know that they have their own characteristics, timbral, rhythm, texture, and even daily hours. For example, some insects only create sounds between 7pm and 8pm, and some birds mostly sing in the early morning during sunrise. It’s nurturing my ear sensibility.
From this pure listening experience, I want to create “Mikrokosmos 2: Saripati Kehidupan”, a series of compositions with this magical natural soundscape recording, and combine it with music instruments from various cultures, including gambus, guzheng, cello, Balinese gamelan, and piano. This work is a reflection on our current environmental crisis. What can we still do for our shared Earth?
A speech published in the catalogue of Beyond Contemporary Art Penang (BCAP), November 2023, in George Town, Penang.
When my husband Hijjas and I started a residency programme for artists in 1994, I had little idea what the creative process for visual artists was like. The first Australian artist who took up the 12-month residency at Rimbun Dahan was John Foubister, from Adelaide. He was thoughtful and wanted to explore his ideas by using others as his sounding board. We talked often about the ‘problems’ he had to ‘solve’ with his paintings, and he often referred to other artists who had used this or that process or solution. Not being an artist myself, I never understood exactly how he resolved the problems presented by his paintings, but certainly discussion was part of the solution. I was happy to learn about artistic practice from him, and I believe he painted some amazing works.
John Foubister’s paintings were challenging for the general public, especially in the context of his joint exhibition alongside Yuande Zheng, the Malaysian artist who was also undertaking the residency, and whose work was figurative, realistic and less unusual. Yuande’s work sold well at the exhibition, but not so John’s; for many viewers, his works struck a discordant note.
John Foubister, “Open Hands and The Night”, 1994, in the Rimbun Dahan Permanent Collection.
John continued to hone his artistic craft, while living on his earnings as a carer for people with disabilities. Now, 30 years later, he can make a living from his artistic practice, even if modestly, and he is recognised in Adelaide as an original thinker and a creator of beautiful paintings inspired by the South Australian landscape.
But John Foubister will never be a brand. His work is never the same; it is always changing. There are always new problems he is interested to solve with paint, and new ways that he discovers of solving them. The entire point of his artistic practice is to work at this continual art of discovery, not to pander to the art market by constantly reproducing easily legible, easily sellable copies.
My experience in the art world is not one from the perspective of commercial galleries, dealers, and auction houses, with their skyrocketing prices, and their view of art as a financial investment or a luxury collectible. Our residency at Rimbun Dahan is devoted to helping artists develop their careers by giving them the time and space to focus on their artistic practices, and then share the products of that creative period with the public.
Initially, we supported one Malaysian and one Australian artist for one year, leading to a joint exhibition. Currently we no longer offer the Australian residency, but invite artists from the ASEAN region and Malaysia instead, for shorter residencies between one and three months, concluding with informal open studio days rather than full-scale exhibitions. [Australia offers many opportunities for artists, but there are very few throughout the ASEAN region, and I feel we have more impact on not just art but also on international goodwill by developing links between our immediate neighbouring countries, through strong personal relationships forged during our residencies by artists staying in the same community and working alongside each other.]
Over three decades of leading this residency, I have learned how much artists need this kind of support: the opportunity to focus on their work alone, with less pressure from the need for, and the demands of, a day job. There is very little support available in Malaysia to give artists a boost early in their careers, and although our program is small it does provide help to some. Exhibitions – having a finished product available for sale – are not the intended result of this creative residency process. The open-ended residency, without a focus on product, allows the artist to engage deeply with the time-consuming and often difficult task of developing new work from new ideas. If artists were to merely rework the same ideas over and over, they would become bored, and viewers and collectors would find their work lacking in vigour and development.
Thus the concept of art and branding together is to me rather an alien combination. I understand branding as something that is wholly commercial, with the intention to sell a product. Branding is fixing a stamp or a style – often visual – that is readily recognised by the general public, and that guarantees a kind of consistency of experience by the consumer. The brand is coveted and protected, perhaps tweaked for different markets, but otherwise carefully and conservatively deployed by marketing teams, until the brand itself becomes desirable, something that people want to buy and be associated with, merely by choosing a product.
To me, art is much too diverse, too liable to take off in new and unrecognisable directions by leaps and bounds, to be suitable for branding. Yes, you can recruit artists to help create visuals that are incorporated into a product or brand, but this is more strictly the realm of graphic design or industrial design – of commercial art, not fine art. Here, the artist is trained to take a brief from a client, be it a tobacco corporation or a perfume house, and to develop images that favourably portray the product, possibly including a simplified image that is striking and memorable: the logo.
Many artists do work in this commercial environment, as it is an area where their skills are useful – but that can only be their “day job”, which allows an artist to survive and feed his or her family. By contrast, the “night job” for an artist is exploring what he or she can do with certain materials that they find compelling, to make what they have been thinking about in every spare moment. It is not a process that can be hurried, and the final result cannot be predicted. That is why generally it takes artists several years to reach a point where their work is ready for a show.
Some artists, though, have inadvertently embraced branding. The Malaysian painter Ibrahim Hussein enjoyed amazing commercial success over his entire career, from the 1960s to his death in 2009. He had a superb sense of colour and form that resulted in beautiful works, and he pushed his boundaries, until he discovered his distinctive and recognisable lines. These works flew off the easels to collectors, who knew that these works were keepers.
Ib kept doing them through his last years, but it was clear the inquiry stage of his process was over – he had his answer. While he continued to produce wonderful works, the later works had a sameness that is similar to branding. Gone were the experiments like photo montage that he had invented and developed, and the urge to comment on social and political issues that he had pioneered in his younger years. [Few will remember his Palestinian series in the 1970s, for which he asked me to write the catalogue notes to verbalise his outrage, just in case anyone missed the point – which was hardly likely!] I’m not saying that his style was any less wonderful, but, like most of us, Ib lost the urge to explore as he got older. As we know, change is challenging, but it leads to our growth and enrichment.
In contrast to Ibrahim Hussein, I would like to mention another artist here: Penang’s own Latiff Mohidin, who actually got his start in Singapore where he attended Kota Raja Malay School with my husband Hijjas. [As youngsters, both of them sold their paintings on the street to the likes of the late Ungku Aziz – thank God for patrons!] Latiff has explored new ideas all his life; in his painting and sculpture he drew on everything he saw in his travels throughout Southeast Asia, and painted forms that cried out to be sculptures. He honed that delicate boundary for his whole life and continues to do so in his eighties.
But Latiff is not a brand, nor, I suspect, would he want to be. His initial success depended on his Pago Pago series in the 1960s, but he diverged time and again to develop new ideas. I remember the shock of his Mindscape series in the 70s and 80s – what was he doing, people wondered, and why? The answers the public was looking for did not really matter; Latiff had an insatiable desire to explore and renew. To me, that is a mark of a good artist, and Latiff’s practice is something for younger artists to emulate.
I feel all fine artists would devalue their talent and potential by even thinking about branding their work. Here, as another example, I want to discuss a more contemporary artist, this time a woman: Nadiah Bamadhaj. Her practice, too, defies the concept of branding, although she is on the A list of all serious collectors of contemporary Southeast Asian art. While her work now fetches high prices and many galleries would like her as part of their ‘stable’ of artists, she has defied the establishment galleries to forge her own path.
Nadiah studied fine arts in New Zealand where she majored in sculpture. Given the high prices of materials and the scarcity of commissions, becoming a successful sculptor is notoriously tricky. But Nadiah was nothing if not persistent and persuasive. The artworks were all in her head; she just had to make them happen. In 2001, she persuaded Galeri Petronas to give her a solo exhibition called “1965: Rebuilding its Monuments”, but she needed a studio and time to develop the work. Fortunately for us, she asked Rimbun Dahan for help.
I cannot say I was overjoyed by someone turning up at my door demanding a residency, but she reminded me of my own daughters, so I agreed to provide a studio and a place to stay for 6 months leading up to the exhibition, and a measly allowance of RM500 a month to live on. Nadiah had decided she had had enough of working for other people; she had to strike out on her own. She worked day and night to realise her vision for the exhibition, which ended up launching her career. I was fortunate enough to acquire some works from the show, so I was royally rewarded. And now with full confidence in her own work, Nadiah can explore her skills and talents as an independent artist without the imposed direction of galleries.
None of Nadiah’s planning, I believe, involved constructing a brand, but she has developed herself as a formidable artist and made an indelible contribution to our contemporary culture. In “1965 – Rebuilding its Monuments”, she tackled the history of this region and its terrifying cost: how politicians manipulate the public to line their own cosy nests. Her themes were based on Indonesia’s experience, but they apply to all of us, and this is the kind of cultural development that Hijjas and I have been striving to support: looking at who we are, where we come from, and what we hope to be. Nadiah presented her ideas in an art form which realised the full power of the graven image. And now, 22 years later, thanks to her newfound financial security from the sale of her celebrated artworks, Nadiah is producing the sculptures that she dreamed of when first starting her career.
From my decades of living in proximity with working artists, who are serious about developing their professions by pursuing their own curiosity, I would say that artists are not particularly interested in branding. But I have also learned that the opinions of artists should not be taken for granted. They should be consulted about matters that relate to them and their practices. Too often arts policy schemes are implemented without any discussion with the people who will be most affected, resulting in valuable resources being channelled in the wrong direction and eventual policy failure. Consultation is critical; the first principle must be to ask artists what they need.
I have witnessed many ill-conceived ideas that purport to help artists, but end up taking advantage of them. For example, artists are invited to contribute work for free to charity exhibitions, in exchange for nebulous ‘exposure’. Or artists are offered personal loans which they are expected to pay back after a sell-out exhibition, encouraging artists to create safe sellable work rather than challenging their own boundaries. Most public arts grants are offered for performing artists or literature, with fine art left on the sidelines. Perhaps this is because some visual artists, like Nadiah Bamadhaj, do indeed succeed in supporting themselves by their artistic work, which is a dream for most performing artists. But the vast majority of arts students in Malaysia never attain a viable career. Our public universities are churning out fine arts graduates in every state, and yet the only sustainable career option for these graduates’ futures is teaching – a circular model that doesn’t lead to a thriving arts community.
A real problem in Malaysia is lumping arts with tourism – basically using the arts as picturesque advertising or colourful entertainment intended for foreigners. Sharing our culture with visitors is of course important, but it misses the point. Malaysian art is intended to enrich the lives of Malaysians, both as consumers and creators. Everyone should have access to creative practice, whether it’s playing in a drumming group or writing poetry. There must be a broader choice of cultural pursuits in schools, universities and communities that can enliven the spirits of people who otherwise spend their lives commuting to and fro, studying, working, trying to sustain their lives. We should try to make a rich cultural life a possibility for everyone.
This is where I would like to see the arts develop: ask artists what kind of support they need. Find out what young people want, because they are our future and they are the ones who need the cultural support to develop their many talents and lead fulfilling lives. Celebrate the marvellous things that Malaysian artists have already achieved, through their own hard work and strategies, often scraping and starving to share what they love with as many people as possible.
Rather than viewing the arts as just another industry designed to generate GDP, government and municipalities should shift their paradigms to view the arts as a social good, which we have a collective responsibility to understand and support.
Asian Australian multidisciplinary artist Alyssa Powell-Ascura is undertaking the first Delima Residency at Rimbun Dahan, sponsored by the Mahmood Martin Foundation in cooperation with The Mill, Adelaide. During the residency, Alyssa has been researching a new multidiscplinary work for her solo exhibition at The Mill in 2024, as well as immersing herself in living in Southeast Asia.
About the Artist
A self titled “slashie”, Alyssa Powell-Ascura is an emerging multi-hyphenated creative. As an Asian Australian, her background has given her an interesting, layered perspective on the world. Alyssa works across a variety of artistic mediums including: writing, visual and conceptual art, immersive installation, traditional and mixed digital media, and moving images, just to name a few. Her personal belief in the interconnected relationship of humans to nature drives her to pursue advocating better care of ourselves and our Earth. A finalist of the inaugural SA Environment Awards 2023, she was nominated for her environmental advocacy and using her platform as an emerging creative to promote sustainability and inspire young people. Her artistic expression delves into her personal narrative as the grandchild of an Igorot woman, weaving a narrative that explores her ties to Indigenous Philippines, Filipino history, diaspora, and the impact of colonisation.
Through her creative practice, Alyssa generously shares her experiences with audiences, offering a platform that balances vulnerability and empowerment. Her work intricately holds space for an open dialogue, inviting viewers to engage with her journey, intertwining personal history with broader societal narratives. Her creative work has been featured in a variety of local and international publications such as: Local Brown Baby (US), Kindling and Sage magazine (AU), Blank Street Press (AU) and The Philippine Times (AU). She has been published in The Entree.Pinays’ anthology “The Calamansi Story: Filipino Migrants in Australia” (2023).
Alyssa’s first participation in the South Australian Living Artist Festival (SALA) in 2023 led to her work, “Those who do not look back to their origins, can not get to their destination,” being a Top 3 Finalist for the Emerging Artist Award amidst over 10,000 participating artists—an immensely humbling recognition.
Lastly, she is the first recipient of the Delima Residency, sponsored by the Mahmood Martin Foundation in collaboration with South Australian Gallery The Mill. Currently in Malaysia, Alyssa embraces this invaluable cross-cultural experience to pursue innovative artistic research and multidisciplinary exploration. She will have a solo exhibition at The Mill in 2024. If she’s not talking to the local Aunties and writing about food and culture, she can be found by the beach patting puppies who stop by to say hello.
In 2023, The Mill is offering one South Australian artist the opportunity to travel to Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia, for a 3-month (residential) residency, October-December 2023, entitled the Delima Residency, in cooperation with Mahmood Martin Foundation. This will be followed by a 3-month (non-residential) studio residency at The Mill, and a solo exhibition outcome presented in The Mill Showcase.
As the recipient of the very first Delima Residency, Alyssa has been using this opportunity to develop new artistic led research, experimentation and no doubt multidisciplinary works that may go on to be exhibited at her solo exhibition at The Mill in 2024. This international residency presents Alyssa with an invaluable chance to immerse herself in Southeast Asia, with the ability to understand and engage with the region on a deeply personal level. This opportunity stands as a pivotal moment in Alyssa’s career as an emerging artist, facilitating her introduction within the South Australian arts community. Moreover, it serves as a catalyst for forging remarkable connections between art, geography and history, marking a significant leap forward in her creative journey.
About the Open Day Screening
On Rimbun Dahan Open Day on 26 November 2023, Alyssa will be screening a presentation of her video work “Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan” | “Those who do not look back at their origins, can not get to their destination”.
First presented as part of the South Australian Living Artists Festival 2023 and a Top 3 Finalist for the City Rural Emerging Artist Award, the work focuses on the artist in an act of choreographed fight, in a traditional Philippine attire, highlighting Filipina resistance throughout history. Using arnis or fighting sticks originating from the Philippines, the artist dances with a spoken word poetry in the background.
“Taga saan ka? Where are you from? Taga dito ako. I’m from here.”
The work prompt viewers to reflect on attitudes that have influenced the Australian society since the 1980s, shortly after White Australia Policy was abolished. During this time frame, the views of women from The Philippines were predominantly negative, with a strong attachment to the “Mail Order Bride” ideas perpetuated by sensationalised media. First generation Filipinas migrating to Australia were subjected to racist acts, some even resulting in violence, or worse, death. The work is a poignant attempt at decolonisation on a personal level, and viewers are invited to engage in a respectful, open manner. Powell-Ascura bravely asks how one might confront and shift their own biases, and how we can acknowledge the histories of Australia to work towards a better, fruitful present.
Cambodian contemporary art duo Ny&Khun has been in residence at Rimbun Dahan for two months in 2023, reflecting upon their future directions, and developing a new contemporary dance work, Pilgrim.
About the Artists
Ny&Khun (Ny Lai and Khun Sreynoch) are a Cambodian contemporary art duo. Our main form of expression is dance/theatre, combined with photography and painting. We have operated as a duo for 3 years, emerging from a group called New Cambodian Artists (NCA) that still functions as our umbrella foundation.
Our work SnowWhite/Revisited was selected for the Singapore M1 Fringe Festival 2021. Because of COVID we could only show them a basic video, yet we had great reviews. The video SnowWhite/Revisited also won 2nd prize of the Expert-Jury of the international theater competition from Milan, Italy in 2021.
Early this year, we were invited to be the main artists at the international Angkor Photo Festival 2023, with our photography work series Speaking in Silence. We opened the festival with a short performance, “How do you think it feels”.
We have been on residency in Rimbun Dahan, spending time to reflect on our recent developments and our future directions as a company. We have also been working on our new piece, Pilgrim. We are so excited to share our work in progress with you this Open Day.
Marionne Contreras from the Philippines undertook a 1-month residency at Rimbun Dahan in November 2023, delving into botanical printing of plants foraged from the garden, in an act of remembering her hometown, retracing her lineage, and necessarily failing to replicate the beauty of nature.
About the Artist
Marionne Contreras (b. 1992) is a visual artist based in Manila, Philippines, with a current emphasis on fiber and fabric based works. Her works are diaristic, often with themes of memory, its persistence, its purity, and its vulnerability to tampering, with constant undertones of womanhood, consistently taking the role of the female as narrator; taking visual inspiration from textures and forms found in nature while maintaining an aesthetic that leans towards the synthetic.
Highly aware of the universality of the personal, her works often carry intimate personal narratives despite her conscious decision to highlight their ornamental nature – to always stage them as a tableau of beauty given the parameters in which the very idea of “the beautiful” is meant to work.
She has been actively exhibiting in The Philippines. Her most recent one-person exhibition, Poetry has left me, has just concluded last 10 November 2023 in Vinyl On Vinyl Gallery, Makati City, Philippines.
About the Residency
“I delved into botanical printing as a personal way to reconnect with my hometown. Printing plants from my mother’s garden and the wild flora along the river near my childhood home. Foraging for plants to print has become a personal ritual of reconnection with the sublime that gives all life, negating the self-importance of being human with the power to dominate, and affirming the beauty and sacredness in the futility of our existence among the multitude in the grand order of life. This particular sentiment is characteristic of the concepts that weave through my art practice, where I see nature as the ultimate source of everything that is beautiful, and where my efforts as an artist to capture and replicate that beauty eventually fail, for I am limited – what I produce is an ‘almost’ of the ideal, but that ‘almost’ can be enough.
“During my one-month stay in Rimbun Dahan, I foraged for plants to print in a place both familiar and somehow strange. I sought to trace the family of my reliable “printers” back at home, experimenting with various botanical printing approaches combined with techniques borrowed from traditional fabric dyeing. The act of tracing lineage, coupled with calculated intervention, mirrors my recent struggle with the legal documentation of my identity, which is explored in a number of textile works I created from the printed fabrics I produced, employing patchwork, quilting, and embroidery techniques
“To labor on the fabric I will make a final work from, which in itself, demands more labor, a final work that would be initially seen for its aesthetic value rather than its narrative is a very close parallel to the futility of human endeavor.”
Shirin Rafie and Liz Liu from Wild Dot (Singapore) undertook two months of residency at Rimbun Dahan in 2023 (in May and November) investigating the colour palette of plants and unwanted materials in the space.
About the Artists
Wild Dot is a natural art studio from Singapore started by Shirin Rafie and Liz Liu, who hold backgrounds in illustration and ecology respectively. Through their combined interests, they specialize in artmaking with found pigments and fibers abundant in the spaces they work with, and also sharing their findings through designing playful experiences for other people. Their shared intention is to observe how (art)making can be an accessible way for more people to learn about the plants growing around them, and also deconstructing the material of the everyday object, ultimately working towards reducing their own reliance on mass-commercialized making tools and materials.
Prior to Wild Dot, Shirin is a digital illustrator and designer, having worked with clients in Singapore and the U.S. on designing educational board games. Liz is a nature educator, having worked at forest schools and also in the urban farming scene. She is currently a MA Research student at NTU, looking at how traditional craft practices can inform the present.
They have received the Good Design Research grant by National Design Council Singapore for their work exploring upcycled tree pigments, and are currently working on bringing natural colours into a preschool environment with the support of the SG Eco Fund.
What are the colours and stories that lie within Rimbun Dahan, and how would a natural art studio take shape within the given environment and space? In their two-month residency, Wild Dot seek to investigate the colour palette and making possibilities of the space, following their own curiosities about the plants and the unwanted objects available, and to distill their experience into a compilation of artworks and stories.
Malaysian artist Wong Ming Hao is undertaking a 3-month residency at Rimbun Dahan at the end of 2023, experimenting with the possibilities of his paint-skin collages with inspiration from human relationships with nature.
About the Artist
Wong Ming Hao, born in 1988 in Malaysia, is a talented artist whose passion for art led him to pursue a Diploma in Fine Art from Dasein Academy of Art in 2010. His international presence includes participating in renowned art fairs like “Art For All: Art Gala by Art Expo Malaysia” and “Art Moments Jakarta Online” with G13 Gallery. Wong Ming Hao has also showcased his exceptional skills in solo exhibitions such as “Unreal Reality” at HOM Art Trans in 2020. His artworks have been featured in various group exhibitions, including “Between Spaces” and “S.O.P.” at G13 Gallery and “Pure Painting 2” at Maybank.
His diverse talents have been recognized and awarded multiple times, including the Gold Award at the UOB Painting of the Year 2020 and Jury Choice at Bakat Muda Sezaman 2019. Wong Ming Hao also had the honor of being selected for the A-RES residency program at HOM Art Trans in 2018, further solidifying his position as a rising star in the art world. With an impressive portfolio of achievements and experiences, Wong Ming Hao continues to leave an indelible mark on the contemporary art scene.
Ming Hao is currently extending figurative painting to human relationships with nature. Inspired by colours, textures, insects, and other elements of his surroundings at Rimbun Dahan, he continues to explore the possibilities of the acrylic paint-skin collage. He’s experimenting with form and outcome by overlapping, cutting, weaving, compressing, scrapping, collaging. By constructing and deconstructing, there will be lots of unpredictable results in these works. Some of the works will be exhibited in a coming group exhibition this year. Others are planned to be showcased in a 2024 exhibition, the second solo of his artistic career.
A day of art and artists, in the 14-acre tropical greenery of Rimbun Dahan, 45 minutes from Kuala Lumpur.
On Sunday 26 November 2023, Rimbun Dahan will be open to the public to view works in progress by our current resident artists Wild Dot (Singapore), Marionne Contreras (Philippines), Sigrid Gayangos (Philippines), Wong Ming Hao (Malaysia), Sreynoch Khun & Ny Lai (Cambodia), Annabell Ng (Malaysia) and Alyssa Powell-Ascura (Australia).
Free entry. Registration required for garden tour only (see below).
Schedule
9:00am-11:00am: Guided 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
11:00am-2:00pm: Visual artists’ studios and screening room open to the public. Please visit the studios and have a chat with the artists. Some works are available for sale.
2:00-3:00pm: Studios and screening room closed for lunch break. You are welcome to bring your own picnic to enjoy in the garden; please clean up your own trash.
3:00-6:00pm: Visual artists’ studios and screening room open to the public.
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
Annabell Ng, a Malaysian-born artist, developed a strong bond with her father over their shared interest in plants, sparking her fascination with edible plants from a young age. Despite her passion for creative arts and music, she fell in love with the piano at 5 and dedicated herself to mastering it, earning a bachelor’s degree in classical music. However, her journey took an unexpected turn when she enrolled in the Fine Arts course at the Malaysia Institute of Art. There, she found inspiration leading her to develop a unique symbolic language in her art using natural materials. With an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts from the University of Wales Institute Cardiff, Annabell now focuses her art on addressing pressing environmental issues, raising awareness worldwide about the environment’s preservation.
Sigrid Marianne Gayangos was born and raised in Zamboanga City, Philippines. She is the author of Laut: Stories (UP Press), a National Book Award finalist, and Lola Maria’s Candles (Aklat Alamid), a forthcoming bilingual children’s book. In 2021, she was the recipient of the NCCA’s Writers Prize for Fiction, which enabled her to complete a second collection of short stories in Chavacano. She is currently working on self-translating her Chavacano collection, El Vida Encantao (The Enchanted Life), to English. In 2023, she was awarded first prize in the Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera National Literary Contest for her poetry collection in Chavacano, Descarga. She teaches at the Department of Humanities in the University of the Philippines Mindanao.
Wong Ming Hao, born in 1988 in Malaysia, pursued a Diploma in Fine Art from Dasein Academy of Art in 2010. His international presence includes “Art For All: Art Gala by Art Expo Malaysia” and “Art Moments Jakarta Online” with G13 Gallery. His solo exhibitions “Unreal Reality” appeared at HOM Art Trans in 2020, and his artworks have been featured in group exhibitions including “Between Spaces” and “S.O.P.” at G13 Gallery and “Pure Painting 2” at Maybank. He won the Gold Award at the UOB Painting of the Year 2020 and Jury Choice at Bakat Muda Sezaman 2019, and was selected for the A-RES residency program at HOM Art Trans in 2018, further solidifying his position as a rising star in the art world.
Wild Dot is a natural art studio from Singapore started by Shirin Rafie and Liz Liu, who hold backgrounds in illustration and ecology respectively. Through their combined interests, they specialize in artmaking with found pigments and fibers abundant in the spaces they work with, and also sharing their findings through designing playful experiences for other people. Their shared intention is to observe how (art)making can be an accessible way for more people to learn about the plants growing around them, and also deconstructing the material of the everyday object, ultimately working towards reducing their own reliance on mass-commercialized making tools and materials.
Marionne Contreras (b. 1992) is a visual artist based in Manila, Philippines, with a current emphasis on fiber and fabric based works. Her works are diaristic, often with themes of memory, its persistence, its purity, and its vulnerability to tampering, with constant undertones of womanhood, consistently taking the role of the female as narrator; taking visual inspiration from textures and forms found in nature while maintaining an aesthetic that leans towards the synthetic. She has been actively exhibiting in The Philippines. Her most recent one-person exhibition, Poetry has left me, just concluded in Vinyl On Vinyl Gallery, Makati City, Philippines.
Ny&Khun (Ny Lai and Khun Sreynoch) is a Cambodian contemporary art duo whose main form of expression is dance/theatre, combined with photography and painting. They have operated as a duo for 3 years, emerging from a group called New Cambodian Artists (NCA). Their work SnowWhite/Revisited was selected for the Singapore M1 Fringe Festival 2021, and won 2nd prize from the expert jury of the international theater competition from Milan, Italy, in 2021. Early this year, Ny&Khun were invited to be the main artists at the international Angkor Photo Festival 2023, with their photography work series Speaking in Silence. The duo recently won the 1st ZKB Acknowledgment prize at the Zurcher Theater Spectacle Switzerland 2023, with their work Sronoh/SnowWhite.
Alyssa Powell-Ascura is an emerging multi-hyphenated creative. An Asian Australian, Alyssa works across a variety of artistic mediums including writing, visual and conceptual art, immersive installation, traditional and mixed digital media, and moving images. A finalist of the inaugural SA Environment Awards 2023, she was nominated for her environmental advocacy and using her platform as an emerging creative to promote sustainability and inspire young people. Her artistic expression delves into her personal narrative as the grandchild of an Igorot woman, weaving a narrative that explores her ties to Indigenous Philippines, Filipino history, diaspora, and the impact of colonisation.
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.
