I am an inter-disciplinary choreographer working in sustained collaborations with artists and experts from other fields. My research-led practice attends to the creative potentials in working between the cracks; between histories, temporalities and disciplines. Nourished by creative collaborations that explore diverse spaces, places and body memories, my choreographies take multiple forms, as dance installations, inter-media events, site specific performance and theatre dance, and have been presented internationally.
My current research, which I will pursue at Rimbun Dahan involves choreographic writing that negotiates the page, the stage and the ‘outside’. This will lead to a book I am developing on how performance remains rather than disappears through the transmission of body archives and the staging of performance cycles connected to the rhythms and ecologies of place.
I visited Rimbun Dahan in 2015 as part of an Asia New Zealand Performing Arts Tour and am very pleased to be returning with my partner Russell Scoones (musician / sound designer) and children, Rafe and Cass. This visit is part of a period of research leave from the University of Auckland, Creative Arts Industries Faculty where I am an Associate Professor in Dance Studies.
Laura Wills is an Adelaide based visual artist. She has a multidisciplinary practice and a strong interest in using found materials, collaboration and basing projects on social/ environmental themes. She is represented by Hill Smith Gallery Adelaide. She will be in residency at Rimbun Dahan for 5 weeks until mid-February.
At Rimbun Dahan I will be developing a new series of works on maps. My research will be drawing and painting based and also involve exploring the local environment to inform the development of new works, particularly the Taman Sari, vegetable and spice garden. I am interested in the social relationship and connection people have to it. I would like to continue in this line of thinking about intimate relationships, memories and habits we have towards culinary plants and nature.
Local Rocks, 2016, Pastel and digital print on archival paper, Unique print special edition of 5, 57×87 cm
Zulkifli Lee’s creative practice explores the relationship of personalised and impersonalised forms as well as the language of materials. His motifs usually involve very systematic and rhythmic geometric patterns, but rather than striving for total control, he embraces change and chances. Playing with the phenomenological aspect of his materials’ natural properties and using various substances, chemical treatments and exposure to natural forces, he submits part of the image making to the law of nature, to the disposition of art elements outside his personal control. The marks created by chance, deforms or transforms the images created by the artist and vice versa. Zulkifli is invested in creating works that juxtapose the beauty of the relationship and paradox between humans and nature.
Improvisation of Chances Repeating Scars, 2016, iron oxide on canvas, 240 x 137cm
Regular, Irregular, 2016, 96 x 153 cm (diptych)
Shapeshifter, 2015, corrosion patina on canvas, 153 x 153 cm
With the residency at Rimbun Dahan, he wishes to focus on experimenting with new processes and materials apart from his trademark iron oxide or corrosion medium. He is keen to introduce more natural media and experiment with new chemical processes for his new series of work and find new ways to play with chances. He is interested to explore natural mediums such as mineral pigments, fungus, heat marks, etc. To work and experiment with these new methods is to further his interest in working directly with the forces of nature. With this experiment he hopes to innovate new potential methods to his creative process and discover new artistic value.
Tales of Lines, 2015, corrosion patina on canvas and steel, 153 x 153cm
Tentang, 2015, corrosion patina on canvas and steel, 153 x 76.2cm (diptych)
The artist Zulkifli Lee
Zulkifli Lee was born in Raub, Pahang & currently works and is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He completed his M.A. in Fine Art & Technology at Universiti Teknologi MARA in 2013 and received the Master Excellent Award. Prior to that he graduated from the same university with a B.A in fine art, majoring in sculpture. A versatile visual artist, he also endeavours as a graphic designer, concept artist and illustrator. Zul Lee’s work can be found online at his website. He is Rimbun Dahan’s Yearlong Resident Artist for 2017, and will be exhibiting his works in our gallery in November 2017.
John Mateer is a poet, writer and curator. He has published books in Australia, the UK, Austria and Portugal, and the prose Semar’s Cave: an Indonesian Journal and The Quiet Slave. His most recent book of poems is Unbelievers, or ‘The Moor’. With the Cocos Malay community, he wrote an account of the settlement of the Cocos-Keeling Islands for a sound installation. During his residency at Hotel Penaga he will research the historical encounters between the Malay peoples and the Asian and European traders; focusing on the peripheral, Asian characters in the 17th century epic The Conquest of Malacca.
Following my previous projects related to European colonial encounters in Asia, foremost Southern Barbarians and Unbelievers, or ‘The Moor’, I have become interested in investigating the canonical texts of those encounters to see what understanding the explorers had of the local cultures. Often they disguised their knowledge and their
surprising sympathies. I have mostly looked to Portuguese accounts, the most famous of which are Fernão Mendes Pinto’s prose Peregrinaçam and the earlier epic poem, Os Lusiadas, by Luis vas de Camões. The latter is not only the subject of poems in Southern Barbarians, but also of The Bones of the Epic, my project with the Lisbon puppet-master Delfim Miranda and
art-noise ensemble A Favola da Madusa.
Now, after researching the slave-trade in South-east Asia as it influenced the forebears of the Cocos Malays who lived first in Malacca in the early 19th Century, I would like to write a long poem based on the Asian figures who appear in the periphery of a now largely forgotten Portuguese epic, Francisco de Sá de Meneses’ The Conquest of Malacca. These include the ‘kings’ of Sumatra, Malacca and Korea, and other characters from Cathay and Siam.
Due to my recent engagement with translation and sound production, even though the long poems will be written as in English, I aim to have it translated into both Malay and Portuguese, and produced, ultimately, either as a performance or multi-media work. I have started discussions about this with translators and others in Portugal, Singapore and Malaysia.
John was a resident artist in Hotel Penaga from December 2016 to end January 2017, supported by Asialink.
Awards:
Shortlisted for the Inaugural Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry, and for the Victorian and New South Wales Premier’s prizes for poetry. 2012
Centenary Medal for my “contribution to Australian culture and society”. 2003
Now that I have begun my one-month residency at Rimbun Dahan, the quietness, seclusion and
darkness at night is a complete contrast to living in the hustle and bustle of Singapore. Being a
distance away from the city and its conveniences in getting my photographic work made is a new
challenge for me, in making work and would involve working out of my comfort zone. On a
positive note, Rimbun Dahan’s living environment surrounded by nature is the ideal residency
space for me to work therapeutically without the noise and daily stresses whilst engaging with
the emotional themes of death and loss.
Ever since I adopted my second senior dog, Milo, in August 2013 from an animal shelter, I had
been his caretaker till his sudden and painful passing from Cancer in December 2015. Going
abroad or even for a day out was no longer an option due to his separation anxiety and other
existing medical issues. Looking after Milo was the priority. Making work took second place.
This residency is my first proper trip out of Singapore since I returned from London in 2012. I
am now able to dedicate the time and focus in making this new work – a personal book as a form
of catharsis, documentation and in memory of “man’s best friend” – my best friend – which will
involve confronting my fears and coming to terms with the traumatic experience of Milo’s
passing. Travelling across to Malaysia is symbolic for Milo and myself; it’s like going on a road
trip together.
________
Audrey Tan is an international award-winning Singaporean photographic artist who received
her MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London in 2008. Her work has
been exhibited in the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Switzerland, Israel, Japan and Singapore.
She has a self-published book titled, ‘You see me, I see you’, which is a chronological visual record
of work made in London over a seven-year period showcasing the artist and various muses in
making the ‘Artist and Model’ series using conceptually experimental and technically playful
processes involving sight/intuition in the photographic process, analogue/digital mediums, and
progressing to 2D/3D modes of representation.
A. Cut Out (2009) / C-Type Print mounted on glass / 51 x 61cm / Edition of 3
C. Curve (2012) / Fibre Based Print / 22 x 22cm / Edition of 1
I See You, You See Me #2 (2008) / Platinum Palladium Print from a 4×5 Polaroid negative / Edition of 1
Twelve A. (2011) / Inkjet Print on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl Paper / 20x20cm / Edition of 3
The Unconscious (2007) / Inkjet Print on Somerset Velvet Paper / 61x51cm / Edition of 3
Si Jie Loo is a multi-disciplinary artist who is interested in capturing the spirit of humanity, primarily with Chinese Ink. She graduated from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA with an honors in Studio Art and has since lived and worked in both US and Malaysia. As an artist in the diaspora, she is constantly on the move between places, cultures, music genres and languages. She inks down captivating people, musicians, dancers and nature during her travels, most recently the Tibetan plateau and the Silk Road in Northeast China. She calls this body of work INKounters and further develops larger abstract paintings that convey that essence in another series INKnovations.
Her spontaneous and dynamic strokes are generated from her ever-wandering eyes and ready-to-go ink brush and paper in her pocket. Behind the scenes, she eagerly search for inspirations, whether it is from traveling, reading, calligraphy, visits at the museums and art galleries, music, drum or dance sessions, concerts, and/or art residencies.
Si Jie hopes to use this residency to ask questions such as: What’s the future of Chinese Ink Painting? If it were an important Nanyang (Southeast Asian) heritage and legacy, how can it blossom and grow beyond the Malaysian Chinese art circle? How can she innovate within a tradition that has once inspired the likes of Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin? How can she expand the medium’s limitations by collaborating with other artists of dance, music and theater background?
Southeast Asia is an exciting hub of trades and inter-cultural exchange. Its tropical colors and wide array of craft and folk arts were subjects of studies for many foreign scholars and local artists. Si Jie wishes to immerse herself at her residency at Rimbun Dahan, to share her understanding of the new and the old based on her own cultural roots that she re-discovered upon returning from abroad, thereby expanding her repertoire to a contemporary Malaysia that she and many other artists aspire to shape.
Si Jie’s work can be found online at her website. Footage of her painting processes and interviews can be found on her YouTube channel. She has also posted her residency statement of purpose in full here. Si Jie will be a resident artist at Rimbun Dahan from October to December.
Si Jie Loo with her mentor Malaysia’s Chinese Ink Painting Master Dr. Cheah Thien Soong
Le Hoang Bich Phuong (b. 1984) is a visual artist based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Her art is an outlet for expression and a means to deliver her concerns regarding sexuality and eccentricity. Recently, Phuong’s focus has shifted more toward nature, time, space and social awareness in her country, Vietnam.
Even though Vietnamese culture doesn’t emphasize on individuality, I often wonder about the state of individuality in the other countries. My works are usually a blend of imagery of human sexual organs twisted into seemingly familiar distortions and contrast elements that do not seem to belong together. For me, these unlikely combinations often create the perfect piece. I have been using Vietnamese traditional silk paintings as my primary medium, but I always experiment with new mediums as it could be the new language in my art. I enjoy reflecting my thoughts on contemporary issues through art, using traditional medium and materials as a way to challenge to the dogmas of society.
To view more of Phuong’s work, visit her website. You can also view the process of making one of her works (pictures below), here on YouTube.
Paeonia Dream (2013) by Le Hoang Bich Phuong
The Milky Way (White, Black, Gold, 2015) by Le Hoang Bich Phuong
ERYN uses a combination of pen and marker drawing, watercolour, acrylic painting and papercutting techniques to create meticulously detailed compositions filled with strange creatures in an otherworldly setting. Her use of fine lines to create form is largely inspired by book illustrations and the comic and animation industry. She focuses on themes of introversion and looking inwards to reflect on the interactions she experiences in her daily life.
These themes of introversion plays out in imaginary landscapes inspired by lush tropical rainforests, the frozen arctic plains, and even the dry unforgiving desert. Each landscape is shaped by thoughts and emotions in her mind and the process is at once aware yet unconscious. These landscapes are also removed from the mundane laws of physics, gravity, and proportion. Through this the artist creates a dreamlike quality in order to bring the viewer into an inner space to experience both the mysterious and the extraordinary.
ERYN was in residency at Hotel Penaga from September to November 2016. Her residency culminated in a one day exhibition, Strange Botanicals, in the hotel’s Reading Room. You can view photos here on Facebook.
Grace Blake is a visual artist working between Canberra and Sydney. She is currently completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts in printmaking and drawing with a Bachelor of Arts art history from ANU.
Her fascination with the virtual landscape manifests in works that map the line between real and simulated. Blake acts as a cartographer of boundless digital space where the tension between the natural dimensions has been compressed into binary logic.
Currently Blake’s studio practice is working to examine ecologies, resulting in attempts to parallel dense natural ecologies with those that exist in data centers and online. Trans-humanism and future predictions of dense mega-city infrastructure lead toward an interest in arcologies. Various Archo-structures will be examined across animation, installation and interactive web platforms with using both recorded-footage and 3D generated material.
Blake was recently included in group show ‘My Feet Would Hurt If They Still Existed’ at Alaska Projects, ‘Personal Geographies’ at the ANU School of Art Foyer gallery and ‘SafARI 2016’.
She is currently on the Australian New Colombo Plan Scholarship studying and interning in Thailand and Singapore and will undergo a three month residency at Rimbun Dahan from August to October.
Java-topia, still from interactive web platform, 2016
Section from Broken channel, 80cm x 7m metallic foil print, 2016
Stills from Untitled video, 3 channel colour video, 9:16, 2016
Truss/Trust, metallic photo print, A0, 2014
Untitled, metallic foil print, A1, 2015
I fear how similar we are and You found me, 80cm by 5m, Metallic foil print, 2015
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.
Flower for Peace by Soraya Abidin
Messenger by Soraya Abidin
Peace Leaf by Soraya Abidin
Gunung Sari by Soraya Abidin
Work by Soraya Abidin, as part of the Seed Stitch Contemporary Textile (SSCT) exhibition
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.
