Southeast Asian Arts Residency

In August 2024, Filipina visual artist Noelle Varela spent one month in residency at Rimbun Dahan.

About the Artist

Noelle Varela (b. 1993) is a Filipina visual artist who studied and earned her degree in Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines- Diliman. She mainly works with three-dimensional pieces and continuously constructs contemporary images using sawdust through fl­ora and female imagery to depict female and women experiences, sensuality and societal standings.

https://www.instagram.com/varelanoelle

About the Residency

Continuing my exploration around sawdust as textile during my residency, I delved into a more narrative imagery about finding familiarity — similar and the same, within a new environment to cope with the sense of place. There is a challenge for me to expand and allow myself to experience new places, to have myself familiarize and notice similarities between my home back in the Philippines and here in Malaysia has encouraged me to attain a sense of ease.

To establish one as ‘usual’, we ought to progressively obtain familiarity with the environment through routines, finding similarities and by building practical inhabitation around our surroundings. We tend to gravitate towards things and experiences that seem familiar to us, something we had experienced and played into beforehand to which our repetitive encounter with the unknown becomes familiar. There is a hand-in-hand relationship between our personal experiences and daily routines to the place itself. Our cognitive aligns with our intimate perception of reality — to be able to distinguish similar against ‘the same’ happenings. Activities revolving the practical use of the place and landscape afforded a sense of ease and belongingness.

For the Open Day, I will be showing a series of sawdust work and drawings in which both portray places and objects I interact with daily here in Rimbun Dahan. These images range from the path to and from my studio space and home, depictions of the daily routines I continued and imposed during my stay, familiar plants, interactions with the pets and areas in the house I inhabit with my usual doings. Places are experienced, new landscapes develop to “normal experiences” processed by the body and its senses.

From June to August 2024, Sabiq spent three months in residence at Rimbun Dahan.

About the Artist

Sabiq is a visual artist based in Bandung, Indonesia, born in Tasimalaya in 1994. His artistic practice explores the potential of sequential images across diverse mediums, including comic illustration, animation, code-generated art, and installation.

Typically, his main themes arise from the mundane, transforming everyday observations and experiences into visual narratives. His recent work focuses on the interplay between logic and aesthetics, seeking to find tension between these two seemingly disparate concepts.

https://www.instagram.com/sundaymanggo/

About the Residency

At Rimbun Dahan, Sabiq tried to grow plants from the collection at Rimbun Dahan and observed them as they grew day by day. He took pictures of the plants almost every day.

During the residency, Sabiq continued his exploration of drawing with systems and nature as his main references. He sought to understand how nature grows and to imitate its processes using logical lines. He found it interesting because, while logic is often seen as stiff and rigid, nature is fluid and organic.

The main work he focused on during this residency was procedural animation. The animation had no traditional keyframes; instead, its movements were driven by instructions from a function, such as timeframe, randomness, noise, or oscillation. The values and parameters of the animation were based on the photos of the plants he took almost every day.

Malaysian filmmaker Gogularaajan Rajendran undertook a two-month residency at Rimbun Dahan from June to July 2024.

About the Artist

Gogu (Gogularaajan Rajendran) is a filmmaker based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He focuses on telling stories about Malaysian Indians, blending horror and humor through both provocative and poetic approaches. The short film “Walay Balay”, which he co-directed, premiered at the 2024 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. He received the Krishen Jit Fund for his ongoing project “Araro Ariraro”, documenting the stories of Malaysian Indian plantation workers. Gogu is also currently developing his first fiction feature film, “Kaali: Depth of Darkness”, which received the inaugural mylab FINAS Award and was featured at the 2021 Seapitch Bangkok and the 2022 Film Bazaar Co-Production Market in India.

https://www.instagram.com/gogularaajan/
Research project: https://www.instagram.com/plantation.life/
Tumblr: gogu will die one day.

About the Residency

Gogu developed his feature film project “Kaali” during a two-month residency at Rimbun Dahan. The peaceful and calm natural environment played a crucial role in helping him find the essence of the story and build its structure after conducting intensive research on how folklore, fairy tales, and myths can be translated into the medium of cinema. Below is the logline for the film, “Kaali”:

1966, a plantation bordering a lush forest in Malaysia. Kali (24) is a young wife and plantation worker of the Indian diaspora community who struggles with her mother-in-law Chellammal’s impatience to have an heir. She begins to feel accepted when she eventually gets pregnant, but a wrong decision triggers a miscarriage. Suddenly, Kali faces the wrath of Chellammal, who turns everyone against her. Left alone, Kali discovers her divine connection to the forest and uses it to take revenge.

Scenes from the Residency

Showing on Open Day, 25 August 2024

“Every day when I wake up, I open the window panels that overlook a beautiful pond filled with lotus flowers. This pond has become my best friend. I gaze into it, share my thoughts with it, and it returns some back to me. I observe it daily, noticing how it changes and connects with the people and animals around it. This is a love letter to the Rimbun Dahan lotus pond.”

Thai artist Naraphat Sakarthornsap is undertaking a one-month residency at Rimbun Dahan in August 2024.

About the Artist

Naraphat Sakarthornsap is a Bangkok-based artist whose work explores societal inequalities and gender discrimination through the medium of photography and installation. Flowers serve as central motifs in his practice, imbued with profound symbolic meaning. These floral elements function as keys to unlocking the complexities concealed within his work, often reflecting his personal and emotional depths. Naraphat’s early artistic inquiries focused on the ephemeral nature of flowers, mirroring a broader exploration of challenges imposed by the natural world. Over time, this interest evolved into a critique of societal power structures, as expressed through his floral imagery. His work invites viewers to look beyond the superficial beauty of his compositions and to contemplate the deeper messages embedded within them. In doing so, Naraphat’s work resonates with the experiences of many who grapple with societal norms and inequalities.

www.instagram.com/naraphat_s/
www.naraphatsakarthornsap.com

About the Residency

Passport photo for the outsider

by Naraphat Sakarthornsap

The complex visa application process and stringent document checks faced by many Asian citizens highlight the unequal treatment of people based on one’s country of origin as indicated on their passports. In a similar vein, the garden within Rimbun Dahan can be seen as a microcosm of a nation, where the gardener is the supreme ruler. Cultivated plants represent legal residents, coexisting with ‘outsiders’ such as grasses, weeds, and creepers whose seeds are carried by wind or animals. These uninvited plants strive to establish their presence and claim the right to exist within a space that isn’t their native habitat. Their presence creates conflicts within the garden’s ecosystem, sometimes competing for nutrients with the primary plants selected by the gardener, yet simultaneously demonstrating a desire to secure a place to survive.

The attempt to capture the individuality of these plants through black and white portraits against a white background is akin to passport photos that establish a clear identity, serving as a starting point for seeking residency. This is a way to affirm their existence and claim the right to live, even as unauthorized outsiders. However, the ultimate decision-making power rests with the gardener, leaving these plants vulnerable to expulsion or eradication. This raises questions about the circumstances of these plants’ existence as outsiders. Will they be granted the right to coexist with other living beings when all life seeks a better place to thrive?

Malaysian writer Lim Wan Phing is in residence at Rimbun Dahan for 3 months from July to September 2024.

About the Author

Wan Phing Lim was born to Malaysian parents in 1986 in Butterworth, Penang. She lives in Penang and is the fiction editor of NutMag zine. Her first short story collection ‘Two Figures in a Car’ was published by Penguin SEA in 2021. Her second collection, ‘Adorable’ is forthcoming in 2025. 

About the Residency

Wan Phing is working on her third short story collection. The plong trees found in Rimbun Dahan have inspired her first piece, entitled ‘Spirit of the Plong’. It has been completed, workshopped and submitted to speculative fiction magazines online. Her current work-in-progress is another short story, tentatively titled ‘Paris’, inspired by the moulded and woven sculptures created by Kristi Chen, a recent resident artist, from Canada.

wanphing.com
facebook.com/wanphingwriter

Sensorial Writing Workshop (1 hour) on Open Day

4-5:30pm in the Dance Studio at Rimbun Dahan, Sunday 25 August 2024

Engage with the senses as you participate in short, guided writing exercises, inspired by the nature and architecture of Rimbun Dahan. Describe sights, sounds, smells, touch and taste using clear, vivid and imaginative prose as we find inspiration in our immediate surroundings. Wan Phing will read from her own current works created at Rimbun Dahan.

Bring your own pen, notebook, or write on your phone or tablet. Pen and paper will be provided just in case. Free entry, just show up, no need to register.

Faye Abantao, a visual artist from Bacolod, Philippines, joined us for a two-month residency at Rimbun Dahan from May to June 2024.

About the Residency

During her time with us, Faye explored various printmaking techniques and advanced her project, Withering Memories. This ongoing series, which she began in 2020, evolves into its third installation titled What Becomes of Memories if There’s No One Around to Remember Them? This collage-based, wall-bound mural talks about the ephemeral nature of memory and the existential query surrounding its legacy in the absence of witness.

A combination of various medium—photographs, tearing and the use of paper as a material—each representing a different aspect of memory. The photographs depict fleeting moments of joy and mundane routine, now suspended in time. Tearing conveys intimate thoughts and unspoken words, slowly blurring into oblivion. These layers peel off eventually, leading us to reveal different memories, the vulnerabilities and our intricacies. Paper, with its worn texture, symbolizes the decay and erosion of physical remnants over time.

It raises a question: Do memories have any meaning beyond the minds that contain them? And if a recollection is an individual’s own story or narrative, a subjective perception of reality, what becomes of it when the person who told the story is no longer there to tell it? Memory in the real sense refers to human collective memory and experiences—our histories, cultures, and societies. Without preservation and transmission these too would be lost into nothingness.

It is a challenge to consider how we choose to preserve our memories and the stories we leave behind. In an age where digital archives are vast yet volatile, the permanence of memory becomes even more uncertain. The interplay of traditional and modern underscores this tension, prompting reflections on how future generations will access and interpret the past.  

About The Artist

Faye Abantao (b. 1994) is a visual artist from Bacolod City, Philippines. She captures an essence of culmination in her multifaceted art practice. She makes homogenous the panache of creative impulses such as origami, print, digital art, photography, collage and painting.

The focus of her artistry is weaving in stories from the used books and archive of photographs that she uses into the diorama presented through her work. It visually represents herself with profiles and portraits of the human condition. It imitates life through the impact of culture and experiences to individuals. Her art establishes a link between the collection and deconstruction of altered digital images that presents a realm of memory and experience. These images have been noted for their distinct aesthetics and use of monochrome, which are common threads throughout her work. Whether depicting a personal experience, a portrait, or solitude in a peculiar context, they stand apart.

IG: @fayeperproject

Malaysian visual artist Syahnan Anuar is undertaking a 2-month residency at Rimbun Dahan in 2024, preparing for his upcoming solo exhibition.

Syahnan Anuar (b. 1992, Kelantan) is a visual artist and founder of Bogus Merchandise. He works primarily in the medium of silkscreen across different surfaces. His works explore the personal and political tensions in his lived experience as a Malay-Muslim male living in 21st- century Malaysia.

He is currently working on his upcoming solo exhibition. You can check his work on Instagram @kerjasanan.

Malaysian contemporary artist Yap Chee Keng has joined us for a 3-month residency from February to April 2024.

About the Artist

Yap Chee Keng was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In 2010 and 2013, he obtained an Associate Degree in Interior Architecture and Diploma in Visual Arts from New Era College, Malaysia. He went to Taiwan to study in 2016, where he obtained a Bachelor Degree from Tunghai University, and in 2020, he received a Master Degree from the Fine Arts Department of National Taipei University of the Arts, Taiwan.

Chee Keng’s artworks have won the 2022 Malaysia Young Contemporaries / Bakat Muda Sezaman (Jury Award), 2021 Next Art Tainan Award, 2020 Nanying Award (Western Media: Excellent award), the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (National Art Exhibition) Oil Painting (Category: Silver Medal), and also the National Taipei University of the Arts’ important creation award “Outstanding Art Prize of School of Fine Arts 2020” and many other affirmations.

Carpenter’s ink marker is Chee Keng’s creative inspiration, which connects with his childhood and his experience studying interior architecture. Now the line made by the carpenter’s ink marker presents a continuation of his life story on the canvas; they are repeatedly overlapped, stretching endlessly into eternity. The lines are densely or loosely distributed, or they are piled up. Countless colorful lines are piled together, injecting into the painting a sense of time and labor. Through the color combination that symbolizes culture and life, the author tries to create a diverse color space.

Website: www.yapcheekeng.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yapcheekeng/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yapcheekengARTIST/
Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/@yapcheekeng
Work in progress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbcjbmL385k&t=67s

About the Residency

“Body Machines: Life’s Rhythm and the Dialogue with Technology”

In this series of work, Chee Keng use the human body’s repetitive actions to investigate the challenges posed by mechanization and the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to replace artistic creation. Through bodily performance, he engages in continuous actions and line-making, responding to the relationship between human creativity and mechanized labor in the contemporary technological age.

Chee Keng juxtapose human bodily movements with mechanized repetition, highlighting the similarities and differences between repetitive human labor and AI algorithms. With this comparison, Chee Keng hopes to provoke deep reflection among viewers regarding the impact of technology on traditional artisanal craftsmanship.

Additionally, the exhibition is inspired by elements of nature. Chee Keng has drawn inspiration from the life cycles and changes in the natural world, connecting the falling of leaves to the concept of life’s end. Similar to how leaves grow, wither, and regenerate throughout the year, the exhibition portrays the continuous cycles and resilience of life. This natural phenomenon serves as a reminder of life’s fragility and impermanence, juxtaposed with its enduring qualities.

The fusion of painting and natural elements prompts contemplation on life’s cycles and the passage of time, while also inviting reflection on the significance of human bodies and behaviors in the technological era. Through their artworks, the artists explore the impact of AI on artistic creation and examine the relationship between individual lives and technological advancements in modern society.

[This text was written with the assistance of ChatGPT.]

Nadiyah Suyatna, a comic artist/illustrator from Indonesia, is undertaking a two-month residency at Rimbun Dahan in 2024.

About the Residency

Nadiyah is currently working on Smoldering, a graphic novel about fire governance in Central Kalimantan. The project is co-written with Sofyan Ansori as part of Fire Play research project with funding from KONEKSI (Collaboration for Knowledge, Innovation, and Technology Australia and Indonesia). 

Set in Central Kalimantan during the dry season, Smoldering explores the friendship between Elin and Bunga, two high school girls navigating adolescence. Elin, a Dayak girl, aspires to leave her village and pursue her dreams. Conversely, for Bunga, who has recently moved from Bandung, the village is a new home she is trying to make sense of. As the weather gets dryer, Elin and Bunga experience the heat at the fire frontier where ideas, myths, feelings, and practices pertaining to flaming landscape collide and overlap. 

Based on ethnographic research, Smoldering engages with the multifaceted fire governance at the village level, depicting the everyday realities amid burning forests, declining livelihoods, and devastating fire policies.

Nadiyah Suyatna

Nadiyah is a comic artist/illustrator born and raised in the outskirts of Jakarta who draws inspirations from everyday life. Besides Smoldering, she has been working on another comic project about a fishing community in North Jakarta, in collaboration with Marco del Gallo. Their short comic Blessing of the Sea was featured in the anthology DENCity: Stories of Crowds & Cities as a part of the DenCity research project at Durham University’s Department of Geography. Her works can be seen at nadiyahsuyatna.com or instagram.com/nadiyahsuyatna.

Sofyan Ansori

[creative collaborator, not in residence]

Sofyan is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University whose research project examines relationships between humans and fires in light of the current climate crisis. Since 2015, his ethnographic work engages specifically with how Indigenous communities in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, navigate their thoughts and actions amid the recurring massive fires and the state’s ongoing desire to enforce anti-fire policies. Website: sofyanansori.com.