A private arboretum & arts centre in Malaysia
Joanna Gambotto, of Sydney, Australia, was in residence at Hotel Penaga in George Town, Penang, from November 2014 to January 2015, and was inspired by all the colours and textures of Georgetown. She gave an informal showing of Oriented, her new body of work, on 30 January 2015 at Hotel Penaga.
The Artists’ Residency at Hotel Penaga is administered by Rimbun Dahan.
Khairani Barokka (b. 1985) is a writer, poet, and interdisciplinary artist. She is also a practitioner of think/do advocacy in the arts, particularly on the ways in which new media can increase inclusion and access for and by disability cultures and feminisms (both of which she is happy to be a part of). Born in Jakarta, Okka works, teaches, and is published internationally, with art, literature, disability culture and transdisciplinary performances and workshops held across India, the US, Australia, Malaysia, the UK, Austria, Singapore, and her native Indonesia. She has a masters from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, as a Tisch Departmental Fellow, and among her awards and honors was Emerging Writers Festival’s (AUS) Inaugural International Writer-In-Residence for 2013. Okka is the writer, performer, and producer of a (hearing-impaired accessible) solo poetry/performance art show, “Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee”, which premiered at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2014.
Okka is delighted to be part of the Rimbun Dahan community for 6 months, where she is working on writing projects as well as using text in mixed media works.
Kriss Wong is a self-taught visual artist from Malaysia. Her artistic expressions are closely related to nature, community and cultural heritage through videography, photography, drawings, poetry and a variety of mediums.
She has worked for non-governmental organizations, written freelance for travel magazines, taught arts to children and worked as visual artist at music festivals such as LUSH Bangkok Music Festival, Culture One International Dance Music Festival, Stone Free Music Festival and so one.
Kriss Wong has participated in numerous artist residency programs such as The Overstay residency program (Bangkok), Penaga Residency at Hotel Penaga (Penang), Yunnan Arts Can Do Residency Program and Shanghai Arts Can Do Residency Program.
Kriss Wong has been involved in community art projects both in Yunnan and Shanghai since 2015, which includes conducting art classes and working on site specific art projects at Longlin Primary School in Yunnan and Jiuqian Centers in Shanghai. Her long-term residency in China is jointly sponsored by Shanghai Jiuqian Volunteer Center and Australia China Art Foundation.
Traveling plays an important part in her artistic expressions because she is very much inspired by new experiences and new encounters through cross-cultural exchanges.
Kriss was a Hotel Penaga resident artist in October 2014. To find out more about her work, visit her website.
Malaysian artist and astrologer Melissa Lin was in residence at Rimbun Dahan in 2014, where her work ventured into new degrees of scale.
Melissa Lin is an artist and astrologer who loves how both disciplines deepen, teach about and reveal the mystery and richness of life and living. Art for her is a process of becoming and of encouraging the intrepid traveler on the way to wholeness and experience, not only for the individual self, but also for the health of the community and collective. Art can be the voice that returns us to our best selves and to the world.
The gift of time and of spaciousness by the Rimbun Dahan residency has opened up new possibilities of exploration for my drawing and painting practice.
The process of exploration for me has been one of allowing and observing visual narratives, characters, expressive impulses that want to emerge from a sea of stories of the world, drawn from experience, the psyche, history, culture, magic, myth and wisdom.
This organic emergence to me is a way to return to feeling, sensing, drawing out pleasure from slowness, from savouring, and creates wholeness while living in a world where it is easy to lose and to drown oneself too much information and stimuli that leads to being dislocated from the self.
My drawings and paintings also reflect my interest in natural yet otherworldly environments that are like an interface or in between dimension where the personal internal world and the external world, the realm of imagination and of reality can come together and are a meditation on my physical travels, as well as traveling through ones own internal landscape and life.
Anniketyni Madian is a Sarawakian artist who is currently creating a stir in the local art scene with her sculptural works. Fresh, energetic and visually arresting, her current works are an embodiment of her love for her native culture. Deriving her inspiration from the exotic Pua Kumbu textiles, her works are given a personal, contemporary touch which makes every sculpture a unique piece. She translates her works from two-dimensional drawing of Pua Kumbu patterns to a painstaking three dimensional sculptures , creating an interesting perspective and depth to her works. One cannot fail to notice the intricacies of her complex work where each slice of wood is minutely detailed and perfectly aligned in order create a smooth, seamless flow.
Having progressively paved her way in a scene which is largely dominated by male artists, Anniketyni’s sculptural journey is currently ongoing at Rimbun Dahan. Come interact and watch the artist delve into the intricacies of her complex work that narrates the beauty of her heritage in her very own language. The open studio residency will take place on 6 September 2014 and is open to public from all walks of life.
The gift of time and of spaciousness by the Rimbun Dahan residency has opened up new possibilities of exploration for my drawing and painting practice.
The process of exploration for me has been one of allowing and observing visual narratives, characters, expressive impulses that want to emerge from a sea of stories of the world, drawn from experience, the psyche, history, culture, magic, myth and wisdom.
This organic emergence to me is a way to return to feeling, sensing, drawing out pleasure from slowness, from savouring, and creates wholeness while living in a world where it is easy to lose and to drown oneself too much information and stimuli that leads to being dislocated from the self.
My drawings and paintings also reflect my interest in natural yet otherworldly environments that are like an interface or in between dimension where the personal internal world and the external world, the realm of imagination and of reality can come together and are a meditation on my physical travels, as well as traveling through ones own internal landscape and life.
Melissa Lin is an artist and astrologer who loves how both disciplines deepen, teach about and reveal the mystery and richness of life and living. Art for her is a process of becoming and of encouraging the intrepid traveler on the way to wholeness and experience, not only for the individual self, but also for the health of the community and collective. Art can be the voice that returns us to our best selves and to the world.
My work extends many of the ideas of portraiture and psychological exploration. The power of the portrait image always fascinates me. But rather than create anachronisms for their own sake, I choose to use such imagery and technique as a point of departure for exploring a world that is idiosyncratic, personal, and capable of transcending time and place. The surfaces of the paintings are varied, but they are always alive. The multiple layers of consciousness are explored as I create, construct, reveal and expose areas of the work. I see myself not just as a portrait painter but rather as a commentator of the histories and experiences of people I know and the community in which I live. I see myself as a contemporary history painter.
During recent years my work has focused not just on portraiture but also on nature as a means of documenting a region that I am visiting. In 2011 I was invited to be artist in residence on a field trip to Rwanda. I joined a team of scientists in the Volcanoes National Park a region that straddles the border between Rwanda and the Congo. These scientists examined the impact of environmental changes on gorillas in the region, and on how environments have changed in the recent past. Inspired by this residency my work looked at the experiences of the people I met in Rwanda and the human- environment interactions researched by the scientists. Many of the paintings are based loosely on real environmental scenarios. The day-to-day challenges faced by those living in poverty, the clearing of forests for subsistence farming and its impact on the mountain gorilla, the impact of the population on the land, and how implementing sustainable forms of development can have beneficial impact the local communities. In these human narratives I try to convey at least a small fragment of the complex story of the people I met in Rwanda. For me, these images I am creating function as reflecting pools of our times.
Helen Dalton is an Irish painter. Her portraits were described by Aidan Dunne in the Irish Times as “exceptionally sympathetic”. She has been awarded residencies in USA, Costa Rica Spain, Ireland and Rwanda. Her residency at Rimbun Dahan in July 2014 was funded by the Irish Arts Council.
In March 2014, Basque artists Naiara Mendioroz and Javier Murugarren spent a short residency at Rimbun Dahan. During their stay, they developed a duet work, also using the traditional wooden Basque musical instrument, the txalaparta, and the recently developed metal drum instruments, the hang.
They gave an open studio presentation of the work they created. They also experimented with using materials from the garden at Rimbun Dahan in the creation of costumes.
About Naiara MendiorozGraduated from the Official Ballet School of Pamplona (Spain) in 2000. In 2003, she graduated at the SNDO “School for New Dance Development” in Amsterdam. Following her graduation from SNDO she was awarded the DanceWeb scholarship for Contemporary Dance taking place at the Impulstanz in Vienna, Austria. She has danced for and toured internationally with various choreographers including Eleanor Bauer, Boris Charmatz, Nicole Beutler (piece based on Lucinda Child’s work), Frey Faust, Keren Levi, Peter Greenaway, Pere Faura, Paz Rojo, Mette Ingvartsen, Juan Dominguez, Beth Gill, Kate Mcintosh, Jefta Van Dinther and DD Dorvillier among others. She also works as a movement assistant for Nicole Beutler in the piece “The Garden”. Parallel to this, she has collaborated in a Dance project in N.Y teaching dance to women victims of domestic violence and at the moment she prepares her next project in Spain.
Formerly a sea sciences student in the Canary Islands, Javier arrived to the performance world in 1996. A pivotal encounter with El ojo de la Faraona dance company resulted in a decision to pursue performance and movement research. This brought Javier to Amsterdam, where he received a bachelor degree (2008) in dance and choreography from School for New Dance Development (SNDO). Javier’s work draws on a range of performance practices, including improvisation, choreography, cabaret, music, puppetry, video, and costume design. The distinctively eclectic and cross-cultural style of his costume designs has earned them a description as “post-folkloric punk”. Javier understands the performing body as “a mutant tool for an ongoing process of learning and adaptation.” His work has been presented in numerous countries, including Japan, Korea, Hungary, Turkey, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Spain and the Netherlands. He is a founder member of Instant Collective (2006), an Amsterdam-based performance collective. He also organizes Inkietas, an annual urban performance festival, in his hometown of Estella, in the Basque country of Spain. Other collaborative works have been made with Compaignie faim de siècle / Ibrahim Quraishi (Paris/NY), Trust company (South Korea), Duda Paiva (NL) and Azart-Ship of Fools (NL), Meekers (NL) and Maas (NL)
French-Moroccan dancer and choreographer Soufiane Karim spent a short residency at Rimbun Dahan in October and November 2013, en route to the Melaka Art + Performance Festival. During his residency, he was developing his next full-length work entitled Kaly-Graffyk. He also collaborated with New Caledonian hip hop dancer Ludovic Simane Wénéthem and Indonesian dancer Gita Kinanthi (site-specific performance at Rimbun Dahan pictured below).
During his residency, Soufiane was interviewed on Capital FM and on BFM 89.9: https://www.bfm.my/soufiane-karim.html. He also conducted a dance workshop at ASWARA, the national academy for arts and heritage.
All photos below by Leocampo Yuen Hon Wai.
A young Frenchman of Moroccan origin, aged twenty-eight, Soufiane Karim had been dancing since his early childhood when, at sixteen, he discovered hiphop. The experience was life-changing and, as soon as he had finished studying communication, he launched straight into creating a life of dancing. He learned various dance techniques and styles in Paris and developed a keen interest in hip-hop culture. As he honed his skills, he set up the Boogalizzle group and together they discovered the techniques and magic of show business, winning several battles and contests, including choreography.
He met some good dancers teachers in Paris during his early hip-hop training-the-trainers sessions, and developed a taste for skill transfer and teaching. Pursuing his love of travel, he continued his search, leaving Paris for New Caledonia to attend a three-part training programme organised by French contemporary dancer and pedagogue Mic Guillaumes at the Noumea Centre de Développement Choréographique. Keen to share his travel and new friends, he put together his own solo production, “Sweet Hõm”. In the third unit of the training session, he participated as a trainers’ trainer, while continuing with his plans to develop dancing in New Caledonia and the Pacific. He travelled with several New Caledonian dancers to Vanuatu, Fiji and New Zealand to organise courses and shows. On his return, he decided to set up the Posuë Dance Company. He is now artistic director, dancer, choreographer and teacher of Posuë Dance Company.
Queensland-based dancer-choreographers Caitlin Mackenzie and Gabriel Comerford spent an Asialink residency at Rimbun Dahan in 2013, developing the duet work Uncommon Ground.
Gabriel and Caitlin studied together at Queensland University of Technology, where they were featured as a duo by various choreographers including Csaba Buday, Vanessa Mafe and Alice Hine. Since university they have established a professional partnership and work together on several platforms. They are founding members of emerging dance collective MakeShift, and were selected to perform in Backstage at the Ballet Russes at the National Gallery of Australia, performing an excerpt of an adaptation of The Ballet Russes’ Petrushka. They have choreographed for QL2’s Chaos project and have performed in Toowoomba, in the Ausdance Queensland Bell Tower II Series, the Brisbane Festival, and at the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts.
Uncommon Ground is a cross-cultural, interdisciplinary work that depicts a story of two identities coming together in one place, transitioning through friction, destruction, compromise and progression, concluding with something that extends beyond the sum of its parts. This concept speaks to an internal and external landscape; a personal struggle to discover and understand oneself and the realities of living in a diverse and ever-changing society.
Uncomfortable within your own skin.
Uncertain of the land beneath your feet.
A place to call home.
Indigenous to where.
Uncommon Ground was performed on Wednesday 4 December 2013 at the Fonteyn Studio Theatre in Petaling Jaya. A site-specific version was presented at the Melaka Art + Performance Festival. The performance included live music by Malaysian musician Gideon Alubakhan Chen.
This is an Asialink Arts Residency Project supported by Arts Queensland and the Australia-Malaysia Institute.