For most people 2020 has been a difficult year. You would be forgiven for thinking that all is doom and gloom. It isn’t. In Kajang, a small ex-tin mining and ex-coffee estate town in Malaysia (known for its wide variety of ‘satay’), hope thrives. A fresh multi-ethnic enterprise is taking shape, fostering the eruption of broad smiles beneath the mandatory pandemic facemasks.
One Malay dictionary has defined the word ‘kajang’ as objects made from leaves of nipah, bamboo, mengkuang or palm leaves, used (traditionally) for roofing or for small hut awnings. Local indigenous tribes people (the Temuan) had explored the area now know as Kajang since16th century, and had discovered bamboo and palm leaves that they then folded to make roofing. Hence Kajang.
John OH founded Kajang Art Heritage. He is also founder of the Contemporary Malaysian Water-colourists’ Association, and a pioneer Malaysian artist, active in the early '90s. With friends of ‘Art’ he has provided a venue for creative people to connect and to share ideas globally. This idea has gestated. It is now delivering not just information and memories of the local past, but is also well on the way to engineering a Malaysian arts hub. In collaboration with Satay Putera Kajang, the Malaysian Advanced Photography Group’s April Chin, James Yuen, Irene Wan and Andy Chow with the " I am an Artist, I talk Art " initiative the notion of bringing art and arts to the general population has materialised. It leaps forward with Herculean bounds as the " I am an Artist, I talk Art " series of videos interviews glean attention from YouTubers internationally.
The antique shop-house offered to Malaysian Chinese artist John OH and the Malaysian Advanced Photography Group, has helped to explore ideas for possible creative usage. Gallery owners, writers, artists, artisans and collectors were all invited to participate in the idea of an eventual ‘art hub’ in Kajang, beginning with notions for a first exhibition to meld conceptions of craft and art. Next was to construct how to present this to the general public, and eventually expand to the reality of an ‘Art Street’. Mr OH mentioned “The main objective of this project is to create a platform for young and emerging artists to interact and dialogue with the public. Also to scout new talented artists in Malaysia.”
To develop this notion of art promotion, a coterie of artists were invited to take part and, within three days, eleven artists had confirmed their participation. Next contractors and interior designers were appointed to refurbish the two top floors (spread over two buildings), leaving the wonderful wooded floors and the single ground floor. Care was taken not to modernise the buildings too much but, with patches of exposed brick and plaster, enough of the originals were left to reflect the town’s heritage aspect.
Entrepreneurs worked with art friends to bring art and artists to the general public with the notion of a Kajang Art Heritage. The Malaysian Movement Control Order (MCO) enacted due to the raging pandemic, has prevented many career artists and other creative people from selling their work. Globally, and locally for Malaysians, art galleries have closed, presenting difficulties which online buying as not yet been able to solve. The idea was mooted to turn a two-storey 110-year-old former shop-house into an art gallery/workshop centre for artists and generally interested in culture, to meet, to exhibit, to discuss and to promote art and culture.
Despite the weighty pressure of the Covid 19 pandemic, or maybe because of it, Malaysians across the country rallied together in Kajang to promote heritage and a wide spectrum of the arts. Fine artists; craftspeople; photographers, cartoonists and one delightful cello player came together in the explorative exhibition - Merdeka Art Fest, shown over the period of festivities celebrating the country’s independence from Britain. That spectacular show, housed in the Kajang Heritage Centre (which incidentally serves fine coffee as well as fine art, and local satay as well as pyrography) was a great success, for over 3,000 people attended the displays, proving this enterprise to be a good springboard for the overall arts endeavour.
It is with thanks to the inspired and inspiring artists, the craftspeople and the photographers who not only created marvels to observe but readily gave up time and their creations for the first showing of that exhibition Merdeka Art Fest as well as with thanks to Kajang Art Heritage. Timed superbly for the week Malaysia celebrates independence and unity there was little doubt that such a visually appealing enterprise would be a success.
Countless individuals came together in the spirit of community to make the exhibition the accomplishment it was. As it was a fresh space, much time and energy was needed to prepare it to house creative works ready to interact with audiences. Walls needed preparation, creations needed hanging, and often re-hanging to achieve the desired effect, or fixing in the correct position to be observed. The marvel of exhibition creating is not just in the positioning of the work on show, but also in the coming together of a team capable to doing so. With so many experienced people involved with the enterprise it is not surprising that the exhibition, egged on by Malaysian Advanced Photography Group (which since has become ill named as in its widest of art briefs now caters to a wide range of creative people and not just photographers), has been so remarkable.
As the initial enterprise of a newly minted creation, the show, indeed, was a runaway success. That multitalented, multi-ethnic and multi-religious show brought creative people together with others who may not have had an inkling for ‘art’, but have gone away having an experience they could not forget. Even the playful younger members were able to join in, to interact, draw and paint, and perhaps in doing so absorb some of the creative atmosphere around them.
Now that the pictures have been taken down, the constructions moved and the cellist silenced, we all eagerly await the next outing.
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