Chin Chai!

Here's an invite for you to an event you might enjoy which features art with a literary twist!

Dear Sharon,

Sharon Chin and I are having an art exhibition, "Chin Chai" (after our surnames), at Sek San's from 9 - 23 August 2008.

We'd love for you and your readers to come for the opening event on 8.8.08 at 8pm (Friday).

During the opening event, we'll be launching our accompanying book to the exhibition, also titled "Chin Chai". It features new writing by KL writer Simon Soon, Auckland-based artist Kah Bee Chow, some poetry by Sharon and a short fiction piece by myself. The book will be 'sold' by donation.

We're very excited about this and would appreciate people spreading the word about the exhibition and book launch. Attached below is the full press release with more info about the exhibition and ourselves.

Thanks, Sharon.

Regards,
Lydia

Event: "Chin Chai"

Dates: 9 - 23 August 2008 (opening event 8.8.08, 8pm)

Venue: 67 Jalan Tempinis 1 Gallery, Bangsar, KL (see map)

Opening hours: 1pm - 7pm (Mon - Fri) and 11 - 5 (Sat - Sun)

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:

"Chin Chai" is a joint exhibition by artists Sharon Chin and Lydia Chai. They met in art school and became friends. Now Sharon lives in Kuala Lumpur while Lydia lives in Auckland. In an ambitious series of drawings, installation and video, they explore ideas of distance and friendship in relation to artistic collaboration. "Chin Chai" is the invented landscape of two very different artists living far apart, engaged in conversation with each other and the world around them.

We warmly welcome you to the opening event on Friday 8 August 2008, 8pm, where an artist book will be launched in conjunction with the exhibition.

There will be a screening of Werner Herzog's "Mein liebster Feind" (My Best Fiend), followed by a discussion of the film and the exhibition on Saturday 9 August, 3pm.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Sharon Chin was born in Kuala Lumpur in 1980. Working with text and sculpture especially in site-specific installations, her work looks at how we negotiate geography, history, human relations and language in the contemporary imagination. Recent solo exhibitions include Fourth World at the Australian High Commission (2006) and SENSORS: Banned Books and Other Monsters (2007) at Central Market Annexe. She is the recipient of the Krishen Jit ASTRO Fund grant as well as Australian High Commission Visual Arts Residency. She also writes regularly on art.

Lydia Chai grew up in Petaling Jaya and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland, New Zealand, where she is now based. Her recent work ranges from chinese ink and watercolour paintings to socially interactive projects. These works are based on the form and idea of roots and footnotes, their rhizomic qualities, while extending the metaphor to relations between people. She recently exhibited in the group show Tell Me To My Face (2007) organized by The High Street Project and curated Footnotes: Walking Backwards Toward Meaning (2007) in Off The Edge magazine. She has her writings on art published now and then, while working on fiction privately.

Banned Books Become Most Widely Read!

We long suspected it, didn't we, but it seems that it really is true: nothing promotes a book half as well as much as banning it!

The Iranian government banned Gabriel Garcia Marquez's A Memory of My Melancholy Whores, even after the title was changed to Memories of My Melancholy Sweethearts to get past the censors.

But now, reports Global Voices Online, thousands of Iranians have downloaded the free version of the book from the Internet.

On our own banned books front, one book which was not exactly banned but withdrawn from sale by its publisher Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia at the behest of the Ministry of Information. Photocopies of former communist leader Shamsiah Fakeh's memoir passed hand-to-hand, but now the book is available again, this time published by the Strategic Information and Research Development Centre.

Her son, Jamaludin Ibrahim who helped Shamsiah to set down her memories was there at the launch on November 18th and talked about his mother's experiences to the Star:

She got lost in the jungle for as long as five nights. She was dirty, cold at night, wet, lonely and afraid. She foraged for food, even eating tree roots. There were times she starved. ... But the eight years in the jungle made her a strong woman and she persevered. She had no regrets because she fought for what believed in ...

There's a Malay and Chinese version of the book, which you can buy via Kinibooks, and I really hope there will be an English one soon too as this is a book that should be available to the wider world.

Still on the subject of banned books, another seven books:

...whose contents distort the sanctity of Islam and its true teachings (and) could create confusion and anxiety among Muslims and harm public peace if their publications were allowed to continue

were banned by the Internal Security Ministry:

They are Tajul Muluk; Fiqh Perempuan; Tasawuf Perenial Kearifan Kritis Kaum Sufi; Kumpulan Ilmu Ghaib; The Muslim Jesus: Kisah dan Sabda Yesus dalam Literatur Islam; Penyembuhan Cara Sufi and Kitab Kaysf Al-Asrar.

So ... titles about Jesus written from the Islamic perspective, and a book about Sufism.

I have no more information about these titles so would be grateful if any readers could shed some light ...

Found this fascinating little chart in the November issue of Off The Edge. it gives the breakdown of reasons books being banned in Malaysia since 1971. It is taken from the information collected as part of Sharon Chin's exhibition on banned books. (Click to fully enlarge.)

The Complete Ghoul

Here's an exhibition worth checking out this weekend, and the topic is one very close to my heart:

The Annexe Gallery, Central Market
presents

SENSORS
An exhibition of new works by Sharon Chin

Exhibition Opening:
Fri 21 Sep 2007, 8pm
The Annexe Gallery, Central Market
Refreshments are served

Exhibition dates: Fri 21 Sep – Sun 7 Oct, 2007
The Annexe Gallery, 2nd Floor, Central Market Annexe, KL
Opening hours: 11am – 7pm (Mon – Sat), 11am – 5pm (Sun)
Enquiries: 03 2274 6542, 03 2070 1137
Admission is free

'The totalitarian order depends for its very existence on a precarious equilibrium. Without the heretic, the rebel, the writer, the state crumbles: yet by tolerating him, the ruler equally well seals his fate. As least by implication, Big Brother's mighty system disappears because he wanted to eradicate the dissident - but could not do without him'.
-Andre Brink-

‘Sexual organs move independently of will… from this disobedience of the flesh, mark of a fallen state, none are exempt, not even in the guardians of our morals’.
-J.M. Coetzee-

Sensors is an exhibition that takes banned books as a motif. Central to the show is the idea that the process of censorship is essentially arbitrary in nature. A book may be banned in Malaysia according to detailed guidelines, but any attempt to objectively define these guidelines is difficult. The 1500 or so banned titles (since 1971) only suggest, not define, what is deemed forbidden, transgressive or offensive in our society. Thinking about censorship draws for us merely shadowy shapes of our fears, which disappear like wraiths when exposed in the light of knowledge and discourse.

Sensors comprises an installation in two parts, housed in two adjacent gallery spaces. The first consists of a buzz wire game – the sort commonly found at fun fairs, in which the player runs a little hoop along a bent wire, attempting to reach the end of the wire without touching it. If the hoop touches the wire, a buzzer goes off and the player loses. In Sensors, several buzz wires stretch along the length of the gallery. The shape of the wire follows a histogram chart of categories of books that have been banned in Malaysia from 1971 to the present day. The viewer is invited to play with the buzz wire. Each time the hoop touches the wire, a warning light goes off. In this way, information about banned books becomes a spatial entity negotiated physically by the audience.

The second installation is in the adjacent space, which is blacked out. Viewers are provided with handheld torches to navigate the work which consists of several ‘doors’ hanging in space. The viewers open the ‘doors’ to discover monsters and mythical creatures that have been painted on lists of banned books. They may examine these works only by the dim light of the torch. The secret, irrational atmosphere of this installation is in contrast with that of the other space, which is ostensibly characterized by objectivity, empiricism and rationality.

Rather than lament the lack of access to banned materials, this exhibition seeks to explore censorship as a paradoxical and complex process. The completion of this project was made possible with the generous support of a grant from the inaugural Krishen Jit Astro Fund.

Sharon Chin was born in KL in 1980. Returning from studies in New Zealand and Australia (Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, 2001; BFA, Victorian College of the Arts, 2003), this young artist has already made quite an impact on the Malaysian art scene. Working with text and sculpture, especially in site- specific installations, her work looks at how we negotiate geography, history, human relations and language in the contemporary imagination. Her most recent body of work, Fourth World, was shown at the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur in 2006. She also writes regularly on art for various local publications, including The Star, Kakiseni and Off The Edge.