The area and community of Tasik Chini was what attracted a group of Asian Public Intellectuals (API) to gather there this year. This group of about 30, with two members each from Indonesia, Japan, Philippines and Thailand with the remaining number from Malaysia, was there as part of their regional project based on the common element — water.

Tasik Chini was their last stop. Since 2008, this group has visited the Kali Code River in Yogyakarta; Biwako Lake, the largest lake in Japan; the Tapee river in the Khiriwong community in south Thailand and the Batanes islands north of the Philippines.

Hezri Adnan was the leader of this site visit. He is an academic at UKM and also a visiting Fellow at The Australian National University. He said, “We are here to develop networking and collaboration within the API fellows in response to regional environmental challenges. The gathering here is to learn, document and promote local community knowledge and how they come to terms with the degradation of their traditional habitat — the water, lakes, forest and their communal life. We hope to learn from the indigenous Jakuns and then later frame an Asian perspective to mitigate these common and urgent environment issues.”

The Orang Asli’s customs and way of doing things may seem “strange” and often given the derogatory label “primitive or uncivilized” by many even today.

However, if we were to take the effort to get to know some Orang Asli, as friends and fellow citizens, we might perhaps see that their way makes perfectly good sense in terms of their own culture and environment.

There are three main tribal groups found in peninsular Malaysia – Negrito, Senoi, and Aboriginal Malay. They are divided into 18 sub-ethnic groups all with their own languages and customs.

Their communities of about 148,000 people make up about five per cent of the total population in Malaysia (compared this to the sizable 17 per cent of the Indigenous population of Sabah and Sarawak).  Most of them prefer to live in the forested areas but many younger ones are making their way into the cities.

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My mother passed away almost three years ago. My mother was diagnosed with congestive heart condition in late 1999.  Seven years later, on 31st October 2006, she was admitted into University Hospital to have a heart by-pass surgery.

My mother never regained consciousness after her surgery.  Sadly, 40 days later on 9th December 2006 at 7.00pm, she passed away at the age of 80 still in the Intensive Care Unit.  I did not get to hold my Mum’s hand or stroke her face one last time as she passed away before I got there.

I remember vividly the day when my brother rang to tell me that my mother was critically ill.  My husband and I were our way to do our weekly groceries shopping.  It was 12.30pm in Auckland where we live and over in Kuala Lumpur it was 7.30am in the morning.  My instincts told me that it was not good news.

I had no empathy about death until I lost my dear mother.  My heart was like a vase smashed by a hammer. Baffled and bereft, I somehow muddled through in the days after her death. Her death taught me that life is fleeting and family counts. Conjuring her voice, her infectious laughter and our frequent long distance calls have become a way for me to keep her close, to gather together the bits and pieces of her that reside within me.

Born in 1926, my mother’s life spanned the Great Depression, World War II, the repressed ‘50s, the stormy ‘60s, disco, Y2K, 9/11, mobile phones, the digital revolution, emails and beyond.
I love the twinkle in Mum’s eyes whenever she talked about Seenum, my brother’s son.  Being a traditionalist, having grandson to carry on the Chin’s family name was her ultimate desire in her life.  My nephew fulfilled my Mum’s joy and pride.

Now when I go back to the house where Mum lived, I can almost see my mother’s face peering out the lounge window as my husband and I arrive even before we get to the door bell. She’s been gone nearly three years and her presence still permeates through out the house, her bedroom, the kitchen, the garden, the verandah, everywhere.
My mother left me with lots of famous sayings and lots of funny stories. This is how I get through the loss of my mother — by telling stories of her exploits, by laughing at her infamous mispronunciations, by remembering her strength, by following her Hakka recipes (“harm gai” which is her secret Hakka recipe of soaking a steamed “kampong” chicken in her concoction of home brewed rice wine and granulated salt).

In a letter she wrote for my brother and to read after her death, which we found in her drawer beneath ancient bank statements, I never really thought about death until I lost my mother. But losing someone close to you gives you clarity. It helps you see what matters most; it allows you to appreciate the precious pieces a person leaves behind.
It’s my mother’s voice I hear whenever I am worried, in response to my worries about money or work or weight.

My mother may be gone, but she is never gone from my heart as I replay fond memories of her. My mother and I shared a great mother and daughter relationship and bond.  She had an irrepressible love of a good mother and will be unforgettable.  I don’t ever recall saying out loud “I love you” to my mother.  Words may be missing but we had a deep affection for each other.  Most of the time, even before she opened her mouth to say something, I already had an inclination what my mother is going to tell me. I still miss her very much and I know she is always watching over me, my brother and her immediate family members.

In this one, Eric pulled out one example from each of his last 30 shows. What you get is a kind of retrospective view of one of Malaysia’s master photographer’s lifework. He deserves better national acknowledgement for his contributions as an artist, photographer, photojournalist and teacher. (It may yet come we hope.)

Eric, at 70, is a prodigious artist at work and his photographs have encompassed a wide variety of subjects. Many of his shots have been influenced by some of the most famous photographers of the last century.

His visual takes of the world around him have also in turn helped many Malaysian photographers see. Of course, he is most partial to those photographers whose works are in black and white, as most of his works are such.

Bob Teoh, Eric & Lee HL at the opening

In the early 80s, Eric showed photos of views in and out of windows. His first set was from Thai windows and its architecture and landscapes. Later, he added his views of Malaysian landscapes from train windows.

On show are some vintage images of his unique way of seeing and capturing his surroundings. Not the usual postcard aesthetics of beautiful landscapes at sunset but the more unusual and unknown views that are just as photographic. This is just Eric’s art of seeing.

Eric was also one of the few photographers who trained his lenses on tin mine landscapes near his former house in the Puchong tin mining area (now Bandar Kinrara). To many, this disused tin mining area was just a desolate and ugly gaping hole.

He turned those sand dunes, mounts and valleys into a record of our land forms, our history of the tin industry; in some ways like what the American photographer Ansel Adams did in the 40s and 50s with his country’s landscape.

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Visitors coming to a show at KLPac, not everyone was there for our photos.

We took down ‘EXITS’ our one month long exhibition at KLPac, 13 Sept, Sunday night. It was four weeks of being in attendance at the display at weekends. We met and talked to many visitors and friends. Not everyone who walked pass our show was into seeing or contemplating a difficult subject – life and death.

What was most rewarding was to have a partner Peter Tan and his wife Wuan to join in with me to commemorate our mothers exits. Peter and Wuan didn’t quite know what they were into at first, putting up an exhibition of photographs of grief, but they both warmed up and finally we all enjoyed the experience.

Our mothers, where ever they might be, would have been proud of us (or may be not) we’ll never know. But on our part, arranging and selecting the pictures of our mothers, and sharing it to a larger public was like opening the doors of our intimate self to others. Photography was the path. Love was the key.

How these pictures were received or read was also a vary individual matter too. Many wrote in our visitors book that they were moved and shared our openness and regard of our mothers.

Thanks to Numpueng, Seenum for their support (being dragged there by me)

Some visitors at the exhibition

Wuan and Peter Tan talking to some visitors

Me, Raymond, Lee (from Applied Imaging that supported this project) and Tuan

Stephano signing in the visitor’s book, Peter Crook chatting with Peter Tan

This join exhbition with Peter Tan & Wuan is a revisiting of the momories of our mother’s death and our grief. But it is not only that, to some visitors this show acts as a reminder to them that death is a mystery and it can happen to anyone at anytime. Some said that after looking at our presentation, they hope that their own children will one day do something like what we have done for our mother, for them when they are gone. There are a few who happened to be there, at the KLPac, but haven’t come to see our project and they would not look at the pictures at all and walk straight pass. Of course many are surprised by what we are showing.  We hope this display will open minds to an eternal truth about our human condition – death. How shall we prepare for it?

The exhibition at the KLPac

Peter and Wuan with their presentations

Me with some of my photographs

Our group photograhpic exhibition is now on at the KLPac and thanks to KLPac the show  has been extended from 17 August to 13 September. With this extension, it will also co inside with Shakespeare’s play Hamlet ,which also explores the ideas of death, at the KLPac directed by Chris Ling.

We simply wanted to share our private photographs of our grief with a public and hope that this encounter might initiate important dialogue about life and death, and explore the relation between the two. We know this sort of private experiences of lost are seldom seen in the open, like what we are doing with our pictures, but we hope this show will open up often closed doors of our sorrows.

Peter Tan had his story in his blog.

The Sin Chew and the Star newspapers had also helped with the publicity of our exhibition.  Thanks to the editors and staff.

Peter Tan with his mother.

Relatives and friends at Peter Tan’s mother funeral.

Peter Tan and his wife Wuan and I will be having a exhibition of photos from 17 to 30 August 2009 at the KLPac.

My pictures of my mother going into hospital and then she ‘disappeared’ there.

What is death? This is a question that confronts everyone as it is at the heart of humanity.  There are those who believe that after death, there is nothing, and there are those who believe it is the exit to another life. But the real answer is finally unknowable – for no one has been there and come back to tell us what it is.

What may survive after death are memories, some of which are concretized in photographs. Photography has a tremendous power to preserve private memories and perpetuate the ‘life’ of a departed one. They record moments and emotions that can be revisited by the person looking at them.

Mohamad Najib ahmad Dewa, Director General of the National Art Gallery

APRIL 12 – For 20 years or more, if you were a Malaysian artist, not in the popular line-up, yet one of those lucky ones with your artwork in the National Art Gallery’s (NAG) collection, you’ll probably have a quibble with NAG because you can’t find any of your works on display in the premier art institution. Why?

There could be many reasons for this distressing situation. One was that there was simply no deliberate policy, in the past, to display a sample of ever artist, past and present, old and young, of the 3,800 artworks in their collection, for the public to get an overview and judge for themselves what sort of artistic talents we have in the country.

But thanks to the current Director General of NAG, Mohamad Najib Ahmad Dewa, many things have changed. The 54-year-old, who has a PhD in textiles, was the former Dean of the University Science Malaysia’s Centre for Art Studies. He took over the helm of NAG in 2007.

Najib’s own artistic career has also seen many changes; starting as a batik artist at Central Market in Kuala Lumpur, he went on to university and later became an academic before moving on to the top job as custodian of Malaysian art.

NAG is now more inviting and informative about the general cultural wealth and health of the country. There are many more art activities by or endorsed by NAG in and outside the premises in Jalan Temerloh.

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