USA

Gigi Giovanelli

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Gigi Giovanelli

Gigi Giovanelli (USA) was in residence for one month in June 2025 on the Open Residency for International Artists.

About the Artist

Gigi Giovanelli is a sculptor based in New York City. She studied Fine Arts at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and is currently pursuing a BFA in Fine Arts at Parsons School of Design. Her practice centers on sculpture as a form of storytelling, grounded in material sensitivity and emotional resonance.

Rooted in her upbringing in North Carolina, Gigi’s work reflects a lifelong physical and emotional closeness to nature. Her sculptures often take the form of delicate, creature-like beings, suspended in states of balance and transformation. These forms speak to the fragile systems, both ecological and emotional, that hold us in place. Through them, she raises questions about support, purpose, and what it means to live within, or beyond, the boundaries of the present.

By blurring the distinctions between humans, animals, and natural forms, Gigi creates sculptural landscapes that evoke a sense of loss and the inevitability of return.

https://www.instagram.com/giovanelliart/
https://giovk684.myportfolio.com/portfolio

About the Residency

During my one-month residency in Malaysia, I chose to work entirely with materials gathered from the surrounding landscapes: burnt soil, coconut husks, and fallen branches. From these fragments of the environment, I created a series of sculptural creatures that stand and balance on their branch limbs, as though drawing support and life from the very materials they are made of.


This body of work emerged from a sensitivity to place and questions of home, investigating the origins of one’s own body and the land it calls home. The coconut shells and burnt soil: remnants of both growth and destruction, became metaphors for the ongoing cycles of life, death, and regeneration.

The creatures’ delicate balancing acts speak to the fragile interdependence we share with our environments, both physical and emotional. Just as the sculptures rely on their landscape for support, we too depend on external systems – ecological, communal, and psychological – to stay upright. This work becomes a visceral outline of those supports, a reflection on the invisible forces that keep us held. The sculptures reflect how all life depends on a delicate and sometimes unstable balance with nature.

As I worked, I found myself drawn to the idea of being lost in one’s own body, searching for a sense of belonging and grounding in a vessel that never quite feels like home. This internal displacement: of seeking support within the body but never fully arriving, led me back to the land. That’s why I chose to build the creatures from soil, coconut husks, and fallen branches: all materials that had already returned to the earth, and yet, through this process, found a new life within my forms. In this quiet cycle of return and renewal, the sculptures embody a journey where longing meets stillness, and the revelation emerges that perhaps the belonging we seek inside ourselves has always existed in the ground beneath us.

In making this work, I lent the creatures an animistic spirit, imagining the land as alive, intelligent, and expressive – qualities it truly holds, though often overlooked in its stillness. This work is as much about presence as it is about form. Each creature holds the memory of the physical land and the emotional scaffolding we lean on. They remind us that we are shaped by our surroundings, that we come from the earth, and ultimately, we return to it.

Molly Murphy

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Molly Murphy

Molly Murphy is a visual artist from Lawrence Kansas. Her current work deals with cycles of life and death as they exist in the interconnected systems between humans and the natural world. Shared Biology is an ongoing series of abstract landscapes intertwining lush plant life and waterways with lines of human interventions.

This series was born of my own anxieties about adherence to prescribed social systems and anthropogenic existence. With suggestions of artificially drawn boundaries obscured within tangled and overlapping patterns, the line between existence and memory is blurred. Thee works push an uncomfortable beauty and vibrancy, while considering our very short time in this place and what we will leave behind.

Molly will be our Open Residency artist for August 2019. While at Rimbun Dahan, she will be working in the studio with her three year old daughter, and will continue her series titled “Shared Biology.” During her residency, she will be focusing on water media and cut paper rather than oil paintings she is more noted for.

Visit her website for more information about the artist and her works.

Jessica Niles DeHoff

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Jessica Niles DeHoff

Jessica Niles DeHoff (born 1978, California) is a visual artist and writer living in Beijing, China.  Drawing from her earlier career in architecture and urban planning, her work dramatizes interactions between individuals and their social, cultural, and spatial environments.  Jessica holds degrees from Harvard University and Yale School of Architecture, and she has taught design at universities in Japan, China, and the USA. Her current project is an illustrated book of poetry.

Jessica is here for the month of July as our Open Residency artist. She’ll be working on abstract interpretations of Chinese, Himalayan and Southeast Asian decorative motifs.

Over the past year and half, I’ve been traveling a lot around the edges of the Chinese world: the Himalayas, the Tibetan plateau, Central Asia and Southeast Asia.  I’m looking forward to my residency period as a chance to digest all the images and information I’ve accumulated on these travels, identifying some elements of a shared visual language and experimenting with the decorative elements that are common to the larger region.

You can view more of Jessia’s works at her Instagram, Website and Minted.

 

Lauren Lee

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Lauren Lee

Lauren Jeyoon Lee was born in Maryland, USA and moved to South Korea when she as four. She spent most of her teenage years in Singapore and returned to USA to receive her education in Fine Arts. Lauren is currently a grad student from Yale University and is spending three weeks in Rimbun Dahan as an Open Residency artist. Lauren’s a sculptor who works with found objects and clay. Her working process heavily involves writing that are often reduced as titles to inform and create narratives for visual elements.

A pair of large plastic breasts labeled “Super Droopers.”
A two feet long rubber chew toy with orange bulbs on both ends.
A red SOLO cup full of half-thawed chicken feet.
A bag full of Joshua Nelson’s beard.
A petri dish with mice fetuses.
A burnt-out glue gun with strands of blonde hair around it.
Aqua beads soaked in black vinegar.
A picture of my five-year-old-self crying with chewing gum glued over my boobs. A plastic bag of flesh toned cosmetic sponges.

A bag of make-up sponges sold for $1.29. I opened it and took a sniff. It smelled like my mother’s pillow. My mother spent every Sunday night with me. She would leave my grandparents’ house the next morning for work. I always believed I could cling on to her. It never worked. My grandfather would wake me up instead in his bright blue sweatpants that smelled like his medicine cabinet. So I would bury my face in my mother’s pillowcase to smell her instead. My grandfather would then carry me to the living room and lay me down on a leather sofa. It felt cold even on summer days. That was my Monday morning until I grew tall enough to realize how childish it is to feel that empty.

I have been reliving my childhood since then. Hiding behind the weight of cultural and religious issues, I laughed at traditional values imposed on me and unresolved resentment the Korean War had left on my grandparents. When I moved to Singapore in sixth grade, I witnessed my mother’s loneliness as a woman away from her lover. When I came to America, I witnessed middle-aged adults, self-proclaimed children of God, be possessed with petty jealousy over the death of a family member. I now maliciously poke fun at the emotional conflicts and complex feelings adults engaged in, with different materials, from a glamorous piece of bronze to a cheap clump of fake hair.

So I started collecting. I collect cheap things that trigger feelings of shame; humiliation; regret; disgust; and sometimes humor. I frequent local dollar stores, beauty supplies, pet shops and sex shops to rummage through things. Some give me immediate answers and others have eldritch noise. I spend time with them. I wrestle with them. Most of them are willing to work with me at first. They would bend, squish, tear and bond themselves, as I demand. Soon they start to rebel. They straighten themselves up, separate from the others and refuse to be put back together. Like a frustrated, demented child, I angrily pierce, nail, shove and tighten them. Some give in, others refuse. They are awkwardly and precariously put together. I see myself in them, insignificant and small, yet screaming to validate my existence to someone.

During her stay in Rimbun Dahan, Lauren plans to create assemblages and drawings specific to this place, informed by the interactions with people, locals and expats that she’ll meet. Lauren will be with us throughout July 2018.

Manuela Hincapie Vidal

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Manuela Hincapie Vidal

 

Manuela Hincapie Vidal is our Open Residency artist from Kentucky, USA. She is with us from 12 June until 30 August 2018. Below is her artist statement about her residency with us:

As an artist, immigrant, and peace and social justice scholar, I process both my reality and that of others through an array of lenses that continuously inform my artwork.

In the past three years, these gender, race, spiritual, environmental, and feminist perspectives have formed the conceptual basis of most of my work.

During my stay at Rimbun Dahan, I will continue to allow these lenses or perspectives to guide my creative process while at the same time fully submerging myself in my new surroundings in the hope of unexpected turns.

You can follow Manuela on her instagram to know more about her works.

Morganne Mazeika and Zach Khoo

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Morganne Mazeika and Zach Khoo

apparatus dance collective, consisting of dancer-choreographers Morganne Mazeika and Zach Khoo are currently at Rimbun Dahan developing a new work called “discussions with”. The intention with the residency is to explore human interaction through a physical means of communication. Their method of movement invention is extrapolated into a thematic focus of the work: how does one communicate.

As the founders of apparatus they attended The University of Texas at Austin. During their time there they danced in the projects and residencies of established international choreographers. Their research that led to the creation of the company began in the studio that gave way to their current process; incorporating multidisciplinary approaches into dance and the method of dialoguing movement.

At their recent open studio, they spoke about collaborating long distance by sending each other videos of themselves dancing, and how to now translate that exchange through verbal and nonverbal communication when in the same physical space.

 

Anne Austin Pearce

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Anne Austin Pearce

Anne Austin Pearce was born in Lawrence, Kansas and studied art at the Kansas City Art Institute, Brighton Polytechnic and the University of Kansas. In 1993, Pearce received a full scholarship to James Madison University, where she received her MFA in drawing and painting. Her work has been recently acquired by the MDC Museum of Art and Design, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and the Spencer Museum. Exhibitions include Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; Corcoran School of Art and Design, Washington D.C.; and the Drawing Center, New York City. Anne’s first museum show will be at MDC’s Museum of Art + Design in Miami, 2013.

Currently, Anne is a Professor at Rockhurst University and Director of Greenlease Gallery. Her work is supported by the Lighton International Artists Exchange Program and the Rockhurst University Presidential Grant.

She will be at Rimbun Dahan from middle of July to middle of August 2015, working on art for an upcoming exhibition. You can find more of her work on her website.

Dancing in Place 2015

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Dancing in Place 2015

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Dancing up a tree. On a sculpture. Underwater. Underground.
12 contemporary dance works in the tranquil tropical garden at Rimbun Dahan. Family friendly, FREE ENTRY for all!

3-6.30pm
Saturday 31 January
Sunday 1 February [same program on both days]

Rimbun Dahan
Km 27 Jalan Kuang
Selangor 48050. MAP

Photos below by our official photographers, Huneid Tyeb and James Quah. Click here for more photos of Dancing in Place 2015.

Mermaid meets monkey from classical myth, in the duet ‘Same Space’ by Shahrin Johry from Maya Dance Theatre [Singapore] and Phittaya Phaefuang [Thailand].

Colours lead you on a journey of rebirth, in ‘Dust to Dust’ with Rithaudin Abdul Kadir, Foo Chiwei and Pinar Sinka.

Three guys and three beds will always be a work-in-progress, in ‘Asing-Asing’ by Lee Ren Xin

Best friends forever and partners in crime, in ‘Then She Simply Disappears’, performed by Nurulakmal Abdul Wahid’s students from University Pendidikan Sultan Idris.

Joelle Jacinto dances through Jack Kek’s vision of a German city, in this excerpt ‘Strasse, Stadt’ from ‘A Wanderer in Berlin’.

The dancers of Batari Shakti let down their hair in a ritual purification with the sacred number ‘Seven’, with choreographer Alla Azura Abal Abas as their guide.

Mia Cabalfin and Rhosam Prudenciado Jr. from the Philippines welcome you to the Penang heritage house, with ‘Housewarming’.

 

A group of friends who might just be pretending to be dancers, choreographed by Leng Poh Gee.

What are we apart from names and numbers? Judimar Hernandez, Gan Chih Pei & James Kan explore ‘Existence.’

Indian classical dance stars Rathimalar Govindarajoo and January Low in their intimate duet ‘rehab’.

Selipar Dance Troupe turns every place into a stage, under the leadership of Loke Soh Kim.

Alisya Razman Adam and Chong Hoei Tzin combine youth and skill in the romantic solos from ‘Short Stories’, choreographed by Patrick Suzeau [USA]

Featuring:

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++ Lim Sae Min takes everyone in a circle, hand-to-hand! [Saturday only]

Dancing in Place is a joint project of Rimbun Dahan and MyDance Alliance.

For more information, contact Bilqis Hijjas, Producer, +6017 310 3769 or bilqis@rimbundahan.org

Please note that Dancing in Place is not a wheelchair-accessible event.

Marcia Ong & Hilary Schwartz

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Marcia Ong & Hilary Schwartz

Born and raised in Singapore, Marcia Ong is a filmmaker whose experience covers almost every aspect of the filmmaking process. Her short film, Kristy, has won awards at Kids First! Children’s Film Festival and Pittsburgh International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. It has screened internationally in Amsterdam, Melbourne, Seoul, Paris, Berlin, Brussels and Singapore. In 2010, Marcia completed her latest film, Standing Still, which premiered at the 33rd Mill Valley Film Festival. Marcia Ong recently shot a feature documentary titled Ten Eleven O Two, directed by Mackenzie Mathis and Jellyfish, an independent short film set in Borneo directed by Rosie Haber.

Coded within the domestic spaces, scenes, and objects that I create are traces of intimacy. Susan Stewart identifies narrative in On Longing as a structure of desire that is suspended in impossibility. My own experiences of displacement, nostalgia for intimacy and longing for an imagined home and family, as well as a larger queer narrative of dislocation and isolation, lead me to the subject of domesticity and the making of a “home”. While queerness is not easily read in all of my pieces, it is coded throughout. Coding originates from within a context of marginalization, but moves beyond this in its role as a language of identity and a signifier of shared experience.

Hilary Schwartz is a sculptor engaged with concepts of domesticity, displacement, temporality, and queer desire. She received her MFA in 2009 from San Francisco Art Institute and her BFA from California College of the Arts. She has exhibited internationally. Most recently, her work has been seen in Etiquette at the Substation Gallery in Singapore, Feeding Ghosts at Kitsch Gallery in San Francisco, and Domestic Materials at PLAySPACE Gallery in San Francisco. Hilary’s work has been featured online on KQED, Art Practical, and SFGate. She is currently a fulltime lecturer at Lasalle College of the Arts in Singapore. Hilary recently conducted a workshop entitled Play with Your Food at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

Hilary and Martha collaborated on a series of video pieces reflecting upon living together in Singapore. They undertook a short one-month residency in Hotel Penaga in June 2012.

Mosaic Artists

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As the first artist project at Hotel Penaga in Penang, four mosaic artists from around the world spent almost a month in Penang creating a stunning work entitled ‘The Shyness of the Trees’ for the new boutique hotel.

Helen Bodycomb of Castlemaine, Australia, had had a residency at Rimbun Dahan in 2006 and organized this collaborative exercise with two other Australian mosaic artists, Dominic Johns and Glenn Romanis, and George Fishman from Miami Beach, USA. They stayed in the Lebuh Clarke houses for almost a month to create a piece for the verandah at the back of the four terraces on Jalan Transfer.

The fifteen shophouses of Hotel Penaga, in the buffer zone of the Georgetown heritage district, were developed as a luxury boutique hotel which will help to support ongoing activities at Rimbun Dahan. The images below show the development and final work of ‘The Shyness of Trees’, on the back verandah of the four terrace houses on Jalan Transfer.