T.H.E. Dance Company from Singapore enjoyed a short residency at Rimbun Dahan in January 2012, rehearsing new works for premieres. During their residency, artistic director Kuik Swee Boon and T.H.E. Dancers conducted a workshop in the Dance Department at ASWARA, and generously included Malaysian dancers in their daily company class. Malaysian tai chee master Tangkok Lee was invited to teach occasional company class during the company’s residency.
Southeast Asian Arts Residency
Zedeck Siew
In 2011, Malaysian writer Zedeck Siew spent three months in residence at Rimbun Dahan.
Bio
Zedeck Siew has been a journalist, editor and critic for art journal Kakiseni, news website The Nut Graph, lifestyle magazine Klue, and community-level information portal Poskod Malaysia. He has written about bad lobby art at the UMNO General Assembly, seen some truly horrendous theatre, and covered a by-election in rural Kelantan. He has also dabbled in performance – most notably in Five Arts Centre’s 2009 experimental shadow-puppet play Wayang Fajar. In 2011, he left gainful employment in media to work on fiction.
Liew Kwai Fei
Liew Kwai Fei, “one of the most exciting new generation of abstract painters in Malaysia”, undertook a 3-month residency at Rimbun Dahan from July to September 2010.
Kwai Fei majored in Ink Painting at the Malaysia Art Institute. Since graduation, he has participated in a number of group exhibitions such as ‘3 Instalasi + 3@RAP’ A Preview of Installation Art and Drawings at Rumah Air Panas, Kuala Lumpur (2003), YOUQING – A Showcase of Ink Painting and Drawing at Rumah Air Panas, Kuala Lumpur (2004), and Al-kesah/Once Upon A Time in Malaysia at Map Art Space (2010). In 2003, Kwai Fei held his first solo exhibition titled ‘Fei’ at Rumah Air Panas, Kuala Lumpur which travelled to Le Bois Creation, Melaka. He also participated in the VASL International Artist Residency in Karachi, Pakistan in 2003.
Zaw Win Pe
Burmese artist Zaw Win Pe undertook a short residency at Rimbun Dahan from April to June 2010.
“I am inspired by landscape themes, not with the thought of painting particular places, but of expressing elemental moods and emotions. But the paintings never lack the geographical and environmental characteristics of the places I paint. Colour is the key element for me. I believe colour can tell everything about human’s feelings and thoughts.”
Born in 1960 in Le Gaing, Mague Division, Central Myanmar
1981 – 1984 State School of Fine Art
Myanmar exhibitions:
1994 Wintry Winter Group Exhibition, Judson Hall, Yangon
1996 Five Fingers Art Exhibition, New Treasure Gallery, Yangon
1998 Page 98 Group Exhibition, Lokanat Gallery, Yangon
1998 Libra Art Exhibition, Lokanat Gallery, Yangon
1998 All Myanmar Art and Sculpture Exhibition, Yangon
1999 Aesthetic Journey Art Exhibition, Yangon
2000 Nudes by Contemporary Myanmar Artists, Yangon
2000 Artistic Touch Exhibition, Lokanat Gallery, Yangon
2000 “Zaw Win Pe’s Palette Knife Paintings”, Yangon
2001 Stroke in Tempo Exhibition, Yangon
2002 5th Annual Group Show, Myanmar Gallery of Contemporary Art, Yangon
2002 “Exotic Eye” – Solo, Myanmar Gallery of Contemporary Art, Yangon
2003 Page 2003 Exhibition, Lokanat Gallery, Yangon
2004 4th Artistic Touch Group Exhibition, Lokanat Gallery, Yangon
2004 Myanmar Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition of Finalists, Yangon
2008 Myanmar Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition of Finalists, Yangon
Overseas exhibitions:
2004 Myanmar Contemporary Art Award Exhibition of finalists, HK
2004 Two man exhibition with Ba Khine, Singapore
2005 “Searching the Colour with Knife Strokes”, Solo exhibition, Chiang Mai, Thailand
2005 Three man exhibition “Burma Stars”, Hong Kong
2006 “Quiet Wind” Exhibition of five Myanmar artists, San Francisco
2007 “Burma Phoenix” Group show of Myanmar artists, New York
2007 Contemporary Art from Myanmar. Group show of Myanmar artists, Washington, USA
2007 Art from Myanmar. Group show of Myanmar artists, Princeton and New York
2008 “Serenity” Solo Exhibition, Ernst & Young Solution LLp, Singapore
2010 “Christies-30 Artfriends Exhibition, Christies International Art Auction House
Awards and collections
2004 Winner of the Myanmar Contemporary Art Awards
2008 Second prize winner in the Myanmar Contemporary Art Awards 2008
2008 Painting acquired by the Singapore National Art Museum
Other Art Experience
2010 Painting was selected as 30 Artfriends Book.
Arco Renz & Amrita Performing Arts
In 2010, Brussels-based choreographer Arco Renz and dancers from Amrita Performing Arts, Cambodia, spent an intensive residency at Rimbun Dahan developing the new work Crack, commissioned by the Singapore Arts Festival 2011.
The development concluded with a work-in-progress showing, “Cracking in Progress” at The Actors Studio Theatre @ Lot 10 Rooftop, on 27 March 2010. During the showing, Arco will presented and explaiedn the movement material created so far and the dance tasks he has set for the Cambodian dancers. Arco and the Amrita dancers also discussed and took questions on their work.
Crack is a performance about the developing individuality of a new generation of Cambodians after their civil war – their conflicts, hopes, dreams, and desires. Physically exploring the themes of emergence from isolation towards integration in the complexities of the contemporary world, this performance promises to ascribe and describe through contemporary dance, music and performance the zeitgeist of a new country.
About Arco Renz
A protegee of famed Belgian minimalist dance artist Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Arco Renz’s productions reveal an intense physicality and explore the emotional force of abstraction. In his creations he consistently broadens the principles of Abstract Dramaturgy to light, sound and multimedia interfaces. Kobalt Works is the production organization founded by Arco Renz. Since the establishment of Kobalt Works in 2000, Arco Renz has developed a successful artistic track, creating and touring several performances as well as developing transcultural and multidisciplinary research and exchange programs. He presented ‘heroine’, a solo work by Taiwanese dancer Wen-Chi Su, at the Singapore Arts Festival 2010.
About Amrita Performing Arts
Amrita Performing Arts is an international NGO based in Phnom Penh whose mission is to preserve the spectrum of Cambodia’s traditional performing arts, while nurturing contemporary artistic expression. In 2011 they presented ‘Khmeropedies I & II’ at the Esplanade, Singapore, created by former Baryshnikov dancer Emmanuèle Phuon.
Dadi Setiyadi
Indonesian artist Dadi Setiyadi was a resident at Rimbun Dahan in 2009.
Lynyrd Arwyn Paras
Painter Lynyrd Arwyn Paras from the Philippines stayed for a short residency at Rimbun Dahan from January until the end of March 2009.
Lynyrd Arwyn Villanueva Paras (b. 1982), graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Technological University of the Philippines. Since then his work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the Philippines and Malaysia. A finalist of the Philip Morris Philippine Art awards, Lynyrd also took second place in the Metrobank Art & Design Excellence competition in 2007, and received the grand prize in the First GSES Museum National Painting Competition in 2004. This is Lynyrd’s second arts residency, following a six-month stint at the Blanc Compound in Mandaluyong City at the end of 2008.
Lynyrd will return to Kuala Lumpur to take up the TARP (Taksu Artist Residency Program) in preparation for his fourth solo exhibition, at Taksu Gallery in September 2009.
Oceu Apristawijaya
In 2008, Indonesian visual artist Oceu Apristawijaya undertook a three-month residency at Rimbun Dahan, accompanied by his wife Fadilla, who was volunteering at the international development organisation Third World Network.
In February 2012, returned to Malaysia and completed a mural at Hotel Penaga, created during his arts residency in George Town, Penang, under Rimbun Dahan and Hotel Penaga’s cultural program.
Under Protection presents treasures that need to be protected. “Our environment changes, as our culture does,” says the artist, “In this art work, both of them are in one unity that cannot be separated. Our culture gives us knowledge as our environment gives us life. By giving them space and time, we will always have reflection.”
The enormous mural stretches along an outside wall of Hotel Penaga beside a laneway between Lebuh Transfer and Lebuh Clarke, and is freely visible to the general public.
Bio
Oceu Apristawijaya started working in fine arts when he entered the Fine Arts Faculty of the Jakarta Institute, and was a member of Garajas Studio in Jakarta from 1993 to 1995. In 2002 he received a Bachelor degree in Fine Art with a focus on painting from Jakarta National University. He also studied graphic arts at SUDARFAST-Kraan Graphic Studio in Pondok Gede.
Oceu also volunteers for the non-profit organisation Sokola as an alternative education teacher for marginalized communities. He has taught literacy and alternative art methods for indigenous communities in Jambi and Bulukumba and for poor fishing villages in Flores and Makassar.
Oceu’s works centre around the theme of nature, and man’s relationships with it. He is hoping that his stay at Rimbun Dahan will help him develop the natural mood of his work and explore the diversity of nature, whether in Indonesia or in Malaysia.
Nicholas Wong
Wong Yoke Hin Nicholas took up a one-month residency at Rimbun Dahan in August 2008. He read some of his poetry in an informal presentation in the Underground Gallery on 25 August 2008. During his residency, he worked on pieces about Malaysian flora and fauna, as part of his first poetry collection.
Bio
Nicholas Wong was born in Selangor, Malaysia. He was a recipient of the 2008 Academy of American Poets Award while at Columbia University, where he will soon commence his second year in Comparative Literature and Society. He has also received the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2006 and the Singapore Young Dramatists Award for playwriting, among other awards.
His publication credits include The Rialto, Softblow, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Tablet and he has been featured in several local newspapers and magazines. He has read his poetry at Dram Projects, Seksan Gallery, National University of Singapore, MPH Bangsar Village and No Black Tie. He was also one of the judges for “50 Years, 50 Heroes: Young Malaysians You Need to Know” essay writing competition, and was part of the editorial team for Inkyhands, an e-zine to promote new Malaysian writing. He was proud to host Preeta Samarasan for her reading of her debut novel Evening is the Whole Day at Barnes & Noble, Columbia University. Besides writing, he loves playing the piano and harpsichord, and is currently learning how to cook.
Khin Zaw Latt
Burmese visual artist Khin Zaw Latt was resident at Rimbun Dahan in May 2008. Following his residency, he returned home where he was awarded the first prize at the Myanmar Contemporary Art Award 2008 competition, a prestigious achievement which has greatly increased the selling price of his work in Myanmar.
Khin Zaw Latt then travelled to Laputta, in the Burmese south, an area devastated by Cyclone Nargis at the beginning of May. Armed with a donation from Rimbun Dahan, he provided the inhabitants of Laputta with aid in the form of clothes, food and help building houses, as well as books and school materials for children.
