Ikan Mati 1

Ikan Mati 1 2008

For nearly seven years I was living in rural Malaysia, two hours away from the capital Kuala Lumpur, in a land of lakes - remnants of Tin Mining. During this time I was concerned with capturing the essence of the area in which I was living, the environment and the people.

While much of my work was concerned with the abundance of flowers all year long, and the close proximity of what remains of the jungle, indigenous tribes people, I had become fascinated with trying to depict both the eating habits, and also the leisure activities of many of the local people - Malays and Chinese especially, as there were few Indians close by. The chief leisure activity seemed to be fishing - in the Mining Pool lakes opposite my bungalow house.

Men, and it was mostly men, would arrive at the series of lakes opposite my house early morning, or early evening. It was too hot amidst the sand, to fish during the punishing heat of the day. They would mostly fish for Talipia, which occurred mostly in black, though there were some red ones too. Flowerhorn fish survived there too, though to catch one was a rarity. One enterprising Chinese man would come with a large net, cast it out, then wait and wade into the lake to pull the struggling fish to himself. Another hoisted a flat bottomed boat into the lake and net cast from that.

Ikan means fish in Malay, and Mati death. The image is literally Dead Fish. I had visited the morning market in the nearest town (Kampar) many times, and was intrigued by the different types of dried fish available. Over time I bought various types of dried fish, photographed them and set about making those images my own to represent the people and place in which I was living, using Photoshop layers. Each image would have multiple layers of photographs and therefore a composite.

Ikan Mati 1, is one of three fish images created between 2005 and 2012.