On Sunday 23 July 2023, current resident artists Rosemainy Buang (Singapore) and Joel Donato Ching Jacob (Philippines) will participate in an Open Day at Rimbun Dahan. See schedule and further info below.

The Rimbun Dahan Underground Gallery will also be open from 9am to 6pm, showing ‘Menagerie’, a selection of works from our Permanent Collection, as well as ekphrastic poetry works by recent resident poet Yee Heng Yeh.

There will be a morning guided tour of our 14-acre site, including a general introduction to the contemporary architecture and our Southeast Asian indigenous garden and arboretum at Rimbun Dahan, as well as the Rumah Uda Manap heritage house.

Free entry, no registration required.

Schedule

9am-11am: Guided tour of Rimbun Dahan, meet in the central plaza.
11am-4:30pm: Rosemainy’s studio open
1.30-2.30pm: Lunch, studios closed, visitors can picnic and walk around gardens
3-4:30pm: Workshop by Joel Donato Ching Jacob in the Underground Gallery
5-6pm: Rosemainy’s closing ritual performance in the Dance Studio

About the Workshop

Joel Donato Ching Jacob, author of the popular young adult novels Wing of the Locust and Orphan Price (published by Scholastic Asia), will explore AI tools that support a writer’s process, from grammar checking to sentence rephrasing, and more.

Joel will also share a work-in-progress amendment to contracts that protects publishers and authors from having their manuscripts fed to an AI Language Model in order to recreate, emulate, or mimic a copyrighted text. This could also be used to protect other forms of art like visual arts, choreography and composition, and even other creations like code.

The workshop is for writers and the general public interested in the application of AI in creative practice. Entry is free.

About the Closing Ritual Performance

Rosemainy Buang, a gamelan musician, educator, composer, and sound artist from Singapore, will weave together a short performance of sound samples she has collected from the gamelan at Rimbun Dahan, around our 14-acre site, as well as in the city of Kuala Lumpur. The performance will take place in the Dance Studio from 5pm, and may be followed by an informal short discussion. Entry is free.

Travelling Directions

Use Waze to drive to Rimbun Dahan: https://waze.com/ul/hw284q6meb
Use Google Maps to drive t Rimbun Dahan: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ft5fV9YpGsvciCtU8
Landmarks: Our front gate is opposite Warung Selera Ria and also next to the start of Lorong Belimbing. Do not enter Lorong Belimbing, please enter the front gate from the main road.

Tips for Visitors

• We have parking inside the compound, along the driveway. Just drive in the front gate and park as indicated along the drive.
• Bring your own mosquito repellent!
• We are sorry, Rimbun Dahan is not a wheelchair accessible venue.
• Wear practical shoes if you are planning to walk around the garden. Bring an umbrella in case of rain.
• Bring your picnic, and enjoy it in the gardens; please clean up all your trash.
• No pets, no swimming — thank you for your cooperation.

For any questions, please email arts@rimbundahan.org or WhatsApp Bilqis at +6017-3103769.

About the Artists

Rosemainy Buang is a gamelan musician, educator, composer, and sound artist from Singapore. With a decade of training in gamelan, she is dedicated to expanding her creative horizons through collaborative projects with other artists from diverse disciplines. Approaching art-making with a multidisciplinary and experimental attitude, she attempts to question, build upon and expand the limits of traditional soundscapes, philosophies and aesthetics.

Joel Donato Ching Jacob is the novelist who wrote the Scholastic Asian Book Award and Madrigal Gonzalez Best First Book Award winning novel Wing of the Locust and its sequel Orphan Price. He was awarded Ani ng Dangal (Harvest of Honors) in 2021. In the same year, he was a cohort for the Clarion West Summer Writers Workshop. He lives in the Philippines, in Bay, Laguna, with more dogs than he can manage, plus a cat.

About Rimbun Dahan

Rimbun Dahan is the home of Malaysian architect Hijjas Kasturi and his wife Angela. Set on fourteen acres outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the compound of Rimbun Dahan is a centre for developing traditional and contemporary art forms. It features buildings designed by Hijjas Kasturi, as well as two early 20th century traditional Malay houses from Perak and Penang, in an indigenous Southeast Asian garden environment which has recently been awarded arboretum status. Rimbun Dahan is private property, and is only open to the public on Open Days.

20 June 2022

Rimbun Dahan is a private arts centre outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which focuses on developing traditional and contemporary art forms. We also aim to support Southeast Asian artists to strengthen their regional professional artistic networks. Since 1994, we have hosted over hundreds of artists in various disciplines, as well as community-building meetings, conferences and events. For more information about Rimbun Dahan, please see http://www.rimbundahan.org.

Filipina choreographer Donna Miranda was our first resident choreographer at Rimbun Dahan in 2007. At the time, we were delighted to have attracted such an intelligent, accomplished and brave artist, who jumped with both feet into this unknown challenge. During her time with us, Donna made incredible and lasting connections with the local arts community, including musicians and visual artists as well as other dancers. By far one of the most creative and hard working of our choreographic residents, she produced a full-length dance work Extended Period of Waiting, with 7 performers, as well as a performance work in connection with our fundraising exhibition Art for Nature, and also taught a workshop for dancers during her stay.

We retained our connection with Donna, and she subsequently visited Rimbun Dahan again with her partner, poet Angelo Suarez, in 2010 to take part in the one of our first editions of Dancing in Place, our regular program of site-specific dance works. She presented “Anything less is less than a reckless act” which asked the audience to choose whether to watch a video of a dancing duet in one room, or to listen to Donna talking about the dance work in another room. For us, it was a bracing introduction to Donna’s constant questioning of the capacity of art to engage its audience democratically – it both allowed audience participation as well as exposed its futility.

We invited Donna once again to Rimbun Dahan in 2012 to participate in Work It!, a project supported by Asia-Europe Foundation bringing together female performing artists from Asia and Europe whose work revolved around the gendered depiction of the body on stage. As one of only twelve participating artists, Donna was selected on the basis of her portfolio of work, keen intellectual engagement, and understanding of the artistic and socio-political relations between Asia and Europe. She was one of the most active and engaged participants in this project, fearless about calling out the more privileged and about exposing her own vulnerabilities as an artist, as a working mother, and as a citizen engaged with wider concerns of democracy and equity.

In the years that I have known Donna, she has shown the highest standards of integrity in the creation of own art and her engagement with communities in land justice and social empowerment. She is not a terrorist or a vigilante; she is a serious artist with an international presence who is deeply concerned about the future of her country. Rimbun Dahan stands by her and echoes the call to drop all charges against the Tinang 83.

Sincerely,

Bilqis Hijjas
Director
Rimbun Dahan

Background Information

In June 2022, 83 farmers, agrarian reform activists, journalists and artists were arrested at a cultivation exercise in Hacienda Tinang, Tarlac Province, Philippines. The land they were on had been awarded to the farmers in 1995 by the Department for Agrarian Reform. The previous occupier of the land, currently the local mayor, disputes the ownership. The 83 were released on bail, but now face charges of malicious mischief and illegal assembly, as well as disobedience, obstruction of justice, and usurpation of real rights. In addition, Donna Miranda and some others have been charged with child exploitation and trafficking, for bringing their children to participate in the activity.

More info:

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1614945/child-abuse-trafficking-raps-filed-vs-tinang-83-leaders

https://www.rappler.com/nation/department-agrarian-reform-reaffirms-farmers-owners-hectares-hacienda-tinang-tarlac/

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/06/16/forty-five-artists-arrested-following-land-protests-in-philippines

Above: Shorea hemsleyana flowering magnificently at Rimbun Dahan.

Over the MCO, we have cleared some of the trees at the front of the garden in Rimbun Dahan where we had too many duplicate species, to provide more space and light for planting new species that we have acquired from a nursery in Johor that carries many Malaysian indigenous trees. We now have over 100 species of forest Dipterocarps, the slow-growing hardwood forest giants that make up the bulk of tree species in Malaysia’s tropical rainforests.

Below is our list as of the end of the MCO (2021). Please visit our Plant List page to view the most updated collection.

Rimbun Dahan is committed to investing in emerging/developing artistic talents in the region and furthering artistic exchange with our neighbours. We invite visual artists, writers, arts managers, and researchers/curators from Southeast Asian countries to submit applications for residencies in 2020. Rimbun Dahan residencies provide a quiet, green and peaceful space for artists and arts workers to commit themselves deeply to their own artistic practice, within a warm and supportive community.

Residencies can be minimum 1 month and maximum 3 months. Places are limited. Priority will be given to artists who are applying for longer residencies of 3 months duration, but please read details on immigration below.

All applications must be received by Monday, 30 September 2019.

Eligibility criteria

• Artists must be nationals of these listed countries only: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam
• Former Rimbun Dahan and Hotel Penaga resident artists are not eligible to apply

Expectations of the residency

• Resident artists must stay and work on-site full time in the accommodation and workspace provided
• Friendly engagement with the other resident artists is encouraged
• Resident artists should make themselves available (to the best of their ability) for occasional student group visits, general visitors, and other outreach events (artist talks, showcases, etc) organized by Rimbun Dahan throughout the year
• For visual artists: at the end of a residency, one item of visual art work is provided for the Rimbun Dahan Permanent Collection. The selection is made by Rimbun Dahan with guidance from the artist.
• For non-visual artists: acknowledgement of Rimbun Dahan’s support in the final product (publication, presentation, etc) is appreciated.

What’s provided by the residency

• Individual accommodation and workspace, including utilities
• Monthly allowance of RM1000
• Access to washing machine, exercise equipment, swimming pool, and our library and artist lounge (WiFi equipped)
• Weekly transportation for grocery shopping
• Basic administrative support

Please note that the following is not provided: visa and immigration compliance, travel funds (including money for airfare), travel insurance, airport pickup and dropoff, meals, or materials.

About residency duration & immigration

We are aware that it is challenging for ASEAN nationals to be able to stay in Malaysia for 3 months in one trip, as Rimbun Dahan does not provide a special visa for your residency, and ASEAN nationals are usually given only 30 days’ stay per visit (as an automatic short term social visit pass, not a visa) when they arrive in Malaysia.

If you wish to apply for a residency more than 30 days long, you will need to exit the country and return later. We are happy to facilitate multiple visits to Rimbun Dahan during the calendar year of 2020 (for example, a residency of 90 days, with 3 visits x 30 days per visit, and at least 1 week between visits).

The 30 days of the automatic social visit pass does not always equal one month, so be mindful of days and dates when booking flights. In our experience, Malaysian immigration prefers that ASEAN nationals have at least one week between their most recent departure date from Malaysia and their next re-entry date.

You can apply for an additional 30 day extension to your visa while in Malaysia, before your initial visa ends, by visiting an immigration office. Approval of extension is not always guaranteed. Processing can take anywhere from 2 days to a week, and it may require you to change the date of your original return ticket. So if you are planning to extend your stay, do be ready and make arrangements during your residency to go to the immigration office and go through the necessary processes OR to book multiple flights to renew your visa every 30 days during your residency.

How to apply

Please submit an application containing:

• Biodata/CV
• A selection of images/samples of recent work (Please provide a curated selection and context for the works where applicable/necessary)
• A statement of why a stay at Rimbun Dahan would benefit your art practice and/or a project proposal for your time in residency
• Dates for which you are seeking accommodation and the proposed duration of your residency. Please provide multiple options, if possible

Please send in COMPLETE applications only. You can choose to send either an electronic application OR a hard copy application, please do not send both. All applications are due by Monday, 30 September 2019.

Send electronic applications to:

Ms Xeem Noor, Arts Manager
arts@rimbundahan.org

Send hard copy applications to:

Ms Xeem Noor, Arts Manager
Rimbun Dahan
c/ Hijjas Kasturi Associates Sdn.,
23rd floor Menara Promet,
Jalan Sultan Ismail,
50250 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia

Please indicate if you’d like hard copy application material to be returned after selections are made.