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 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.”
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.
A Moment After Birth (2015); Installation, object, and sound
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 (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.
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 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.
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 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.
Goh Sze Ying (b. 1983) is a visual designer and researcher based in Kuala Lumpur. In the past decade, she has had many disparate roles in the areas of art, design, and urbanism. Her work is predominantly concerned with the relationship between design and politics in urban public space.
Between 2011 and 2014, Sze led an initiative advocating participatory urbanism called #BetterCities. While at #BetterCities, she developed various programmes – from public talks, private-public partnerships, workshops, research projects and urban interventions – framed around how art, design, and architecture can introduce tactics and situations capable of transforming the city into a playground of collective or individual actions. Some of these projects had been exhibited in Rio de Janeiro, Berlin, Kuala Lumpur, and George Town. More recently, she completed her MA in urban sociology in London and a research residency at Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (ZK/U) in Berlin. Since then, she is more focussed on research-based projects.
Presently, she is researching and developing an exhibition that will be staged in 2017 as part of a curatorial development programme under the aegis of Japan Foundation Asia Centre. Her exhibition proposal foregrounds the Southeast Asian haze crisis as a framework of inquiry to tease out socio-economic, geo-political, environmental, and technological narratives and issues in Malaysia and the region.
Her residency at Rimbun Dahan is intended to explore and develop a curatorial approach to look at exhibitions as archives and exhibition-making as a research methodology.
Sarah Jane Parton (Omoka, Tongareva, Avaiki-raro) is an artist, writer, filmmaker, and curator who works across performance art, installation, moving image, drawing, photography, creative writing, and ephemera. She creates work that operates as social commentary, and consistently engages with the politics of being, often through collaboration. She is based in Wellington, New Zealand and is a lecturer in the School of Art at Massey University’s College of Creative Arts.
She studied Design and Fine Arts at Massey University’s College of Creative Arts, graduating with an honours degree in Time-based Art in 2003. In 2012 she completed a Master’s degree in Creative Writing at Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters.
Sarah achieved success straight out of art school when her single channel video work, she’s so usual (2003), was included in Telecom Prospect 2004: New Art, New Zealand – an inaugural survey of contemporary art at Wellington’s City Gallery. Since then she has featured in multiple group shows and public screenings both nationally and internationally, and has held six solo exhibitions, including Guidance at The Physics Room, Christchurch, and The Way at The City Gallery Wellington, both in 2007. From 2010 to 2014 she curated the visual arts component of the boutique music and art festival Camp a Low Hum. She is a member of the feminist art-rock collective, Fantasing.
Sarah currently lives in Wellington with her partner, musician Luke Buda (The Phoenix Foundation), and their two sons, who will be joining her for her three month residency at Rimbun Dahan from March to June, via a grant from the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
