Storytelling
As Behind the Stories was being put together, Kay Tat asked pioneer staff – Tan Boon Kean, Au Foong Yee, Azam Aris, Dorothy Teoh, Chong Cheng Hai and me – to write something about our days at The Edge or theSun that meant something to us. I chose to write about the
Photography
PERUSING KF Choy’s photos, I get the feeling each has travelled a complicated journey with many thoughtful sojourns undertaken by the artist to invigorate or ameliorate its parts — before we are brought to the grand finale. Every piece is reaching out to us; each marriage of form and content
Photography
KF CHOY’S easy-going demeanour belies the intensity and seriousness with which he practises his art. One only discovers how deeply-committed he is by spending time with him, easing out the intricacies of his approach and method. For one, Choy thinks and works in a holistic manner. Clicking his camera
Art
I CONNECT well with whimsical art. It must have manifested from my “other self”, suppressed by a lifetime of serious work and other pressing commitments. True, an innate form of playfulness had been in me all the time but it took the depressing depths of Covid to push mine to
Art
FOR practical reasons, I have used ink and pencil for many of my earlier pieces on paper. When I was invited by Art Voice to join an online exhibition called “Works on Paper”, I quickly chose this one because it was one of the more memorable. I had posted it
Exhibition
WHEN one of my best friends, Lam Yoong Koy, showed me some photos of his trip to Southern Xinjiang last October-November, I thought they were excellent documentary evidence of a region that has engendered much curiosity. I asked if there were more. And indeed there were – some 10,000 of
Exhibition
EARLY this year, when curator Stephen Menon invited me to take part in ArtVoice’s collaborative project with Universiti Malaya called ART+EDUCATION, I quickly agreed. It would be an opportunity for me to put together and share my ideas on two aspects of my life, art and publishing. The
Art
WALTER BENJAMIN, in his essay The Story Teller, bemoaned the decline of traditional storytelling in the modern era. The ancient art of oral storytelling, rooted in direct experience and communal interaction, he believed, was all but gone. Telling stories in his days (1892-1940) was dominated by written literature, especially mechanically-produced
Design
BOO TEIK’S penchant for dissecting the structures of thought and examining the consequential actions of Malaysian leaders and the people around them have resulted in three main publications: one on Mahathir Mohamad, another on an array of issues during the Mahathir era and their implication for the future, and
Photography
I STARTED to read Teju Cole with great reluctance, knowing he may rekindle a feared tendency in me: Getting bogged down in the convoluted thinking of others. Surprisingly however, the premises of his works are straight forward and appealed to me from the get-go, from the time I read Siri
Art
IN 1989 I completed a series of nine pencil drawings, accompanied by 10 sets of draft verses, and called them The Refugee Child. They are about the aftermath of a battle during the Vietnam war, and the journey of a child after the ravages through to his resettlement in a
Art
WHEN Stephen Menon asked me if I wanted to take part in “The Truth Untold” (read here and here), an exhibition featuring Tamil calligraphy, I jumped at the opportunity. It would be a unique experience to explore Indian culture, exchange thoughts on the subject matter and put together some ideas