dusun e-Journal of Asian Arts and Culture
December 2012/January2013 Ridiculously Free
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kushal podder marie jonsson-harison khor chang kheng joel m toledo mia farizza mior rizzuan rosli
dusun
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contents
December 2012/Jan 2013 cover
dusun
editor
martin a bradley
martinabradley@gmail.com
Dusun TM
dusun is a not for profit publication
page 6
editorial
page 8
anakijo cut paper illustrations
page 12
artemis art malaysian gallery art
page 18
deepavali a malaysian festival
page 32
kushal poddar poetry from india
page 36
marie jonsson-harrison australian naive art
page 44
khor chang kheng malaysian paintings
page 48
rafael antonio c.san diego poetry review
page 52
joel m toledo poetry from the philippines
page 58
mia farizza malaysian paintings
page 64 page 72
mior rizzuan rosli malaysian artworks
page 86
colors of cambodia cambodian children’s charity/gallery
page 120
nazlina spice station tales of spice and rice
national visual arts gallery - kuala lumpur members annual showcase
Deepavali has passed and Christmas moves ever closer. It is a very exciting time for Dusun.The book - A Story of Colors of Cambodia is selling much better than expected, and an exhibition of Khmer Art is confirmed for Kuala Lumpur Jan/Feb 2013.
editorial
Dear Reader
Dusun has contributors from far and near for this issue.There is poetry from Indian and the Phillipines and art from Australia, Cambodia and Malaysia.Yes, I did say Australia - a first for us....whoopee!!
Dusun remains free, and open for serious submissions of artwork, photography, poetry and short stories from or about Asia, or by people with Asia descent. So do send in, but hurry as submissions come fast and furious and time is limited - but space goes on. Dusun is a meeting place for all creatives, whatever your chosen means of expression. Dusun welcomes articles, sharing and debate on art and creativity. Now read on...........................................
d
anakijo
(valerie baumal)
malayan tiger + raja brooke butterfly 6 Founder,Valerie Baumal, has been living in South East Asia for many years. Out of her passion for the wildlife and the traditional batik fabric of Southern Asia, she has created Anakijo. Each artwork made by Valerie is handmade and original. She carefully selects the batik fabric for each piece making it unique. She creates all her batik collages in her studio and collects the batik sarongs on traditional markets in Laos and during travels in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
silver leaf monkeys + rhinoceros hornbill 2
malayan tapir 1
orang utan + durian 5
asian elephant + rafflesia 3
water buffalo + egret 6
hawks
bill tu
rtle +
jelly fi
sh 6
milky stork + fiddler crab 2
a card colletion
gallery
artemis art Artemis Art is located at A1-1-3 Solaris Dutamas, Jalan Dutamas, 50480 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
What started out as personal collection of works from Yogyakarta artists, built across the span of several years, now forms the core exhibits of Artemis Art. Apart from Indonesian art pieces, we have on display contemporary artworks by up and coming artists from Malaysia, the Philippines, China, and Taiwan.Various styles that comprise the wide area of Contemporary Arts are represented.
In addition to being just a gallery to display works of art, we also make our space available for art and literary activities, such as book launches, art workshops and talks, as an overall platform to promote a heightened awareness and appreciation for art and culture.
lyia meta - to remain
hafiz hajeedar - what would you do if you have what you do not
skinner - human being
skinner - gaia and cosmos
skinner - sincerely we citizens
azimuddin - lagenda malaya
azimuddin - hope
egn - the banner of the oppressed
egn---my-media
egn---boleh-runding
egn---it's-true
photo essay
deepavali
a kuala lumpur festival - malaysia
poetry
kushal poddar imminent tragedy down there we know. we clothe our souls in black, strip all our ornaments, prepare for some heavy rainfall, tuck our knees under our chin. we sway in that position. down there we see a leaf hung from a saliva thread. down there we know where the things go, what will happen to the man now asleep behind a glass door.
snow some fluff of water crumbles in his hand. all he can show his child glistens on his skin. This spells an amazing disappointment for his childso wonderful I want to fit in his child's apparel, don his small cape and his galosh- bright red, stroll beside his shadow accentuated on a landscape I pay to see in the movies and drown in it ignoring your voice complaining about the faulty air conditioner.
a. a. He and his stupor stand up. Their shadows stagger ahead only to halt at his doorstep. He tilts his head and looks if his son’s window holds a light the way it had the previous night and the nights before that.
A native of Kolkata, India, Kushal Poddar (1977- ) writes poetries, fictions and scripts for television mini-series and is published worldwide. He is the author of ‘All Our Fictional Dreams’, and his forthcoming book is ‘Five Poets’ and ‘Dueling Multiplicity’.
Every so often a book appears that reveals and illuminates a project that might otherwise remain largely unknown by the outside world: ‘Colors of Cambodia’ is such a book. This is a highly personal and passionate account written by Martin Bradley and illustrated by Pei Yeou Bradley of her encounter with a remarkable art-based project in and around Siem Reap in Cambodia, and how she was drawn into practical involvement with the children for whom the project exists. Richard Noyce, Artist, Wales 2012
A Story of Colors of Cambodia One woman’s journey into Art charity volunteering, in Cambodia this extraordinary book is now available from
cofcthebook@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/groups/138402846288849/ http://colorsofcambodia.org/
marie jonsson-harrison
Born in Sweden, Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s grandparents were famous circus artists and her father is an Adelaide based sculptor. Marie has developed a unique painting approach wherein figures and objects are rendered in relief, giving the works a wonderful human and tactile quality. Marie has won many Art Competitions and been the recipient of two SA Great awards for the Arts in 2002 and 2007. In South Australia she is represented by the Greenhill Gallery. Her artworks are also featured in corporate collections, private collections and several art books worldwide. Her artwork is for sale to the general public including paintings, sculptures, giclee prints and more.
adam and eve
adam and eve 2
adam and eve 3
san francisco and flowers + edges
come-here
fondue-1
oxford-1
bali-2
khor chang kheng
khor chang kheng is a water colour painter who was born in kedah, Malaysia, and has continued to live there, since 1976.
waterlilly 1
waterlilly 2
review
ruins and rec
poems by Joel M. Toledo - ( by Rafael Antonio C. San Diego “But I for one, value instinct over intelligence.” – Joel M. Toledo Joel once told me long ago, “a poet does not become a poet because he is intelligent. He becomes a poet because he is sensitive.” Words ever scribed into my mind of –i am happy to admit– average intelligence. And that is how i dove into his fourth book. Not with any pre-constructed ideas of how things should be. Just a man with a cold hard drink, and free verse. For that is the greatest pleasure a man can take in being a reader: to sit down, and to sink in. I will not put on any airs here. I don’t pretend to understand everything he writes. And even if that were so, it is pretty difficult to imbibe a whole collection in one sitting. Here I merely speak through intuit. And maybe a little bias. After all, the man is my friend. What I can offer you is a simple review of two good nights well-spent, appreciating a fine book by a nice man. This is where we derive instinct. From the very act of survival. This is where both present themselves in the book: as the narrative and as the style. First comes the ruin. In 2009 after Megaflood Typhoon Ondoy (international name: Ketsana), a question lingered in the author’s mind regarding the value of poetry when the imminence of tragedy struck our people. Was there a place for art when it would have better served to actively participate in the reparation? Perhaps it would have seemed callous, or “armchair sympathetic” to record the tragedy and not lend a helping hand. If you were there, you had to do something. We all pitched in, but we were also all victims. And part of this book is an answer to those times. As Robert Frost once wrote, being a poet is a condition. I’d like to think that what went on in Toledo’s mind when he sifted through the dereliction was that there is a place for monument. Remembering loss. Gathering the rubble and telling the story that once, there was a cataclysm. And people suffered. Is this not what the human condition calls for sometimes, this remembrance?
constructions
(Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2011)
Whether as victim, champion, or witness, the poet has a single-mindedness in this collection you are wont to find lacking elsewhere. It is, in my mind, to offer loss as the catalyst for mending. The author proposes, in his first poem, a calling. “Dig,” the poem urges, “dig in the dark… Permit the throbbing pain.” Then he begins with a poignant titular word. PAGASA, the Philippine Weather Bureau, or as the acronym suggests in Filipino: HOPE. This sets the tone for the rest of the collection. As the collection travels across the many faces of grief, one would be remiss to leave unnoticed that the poet tends, in his ruminations, to move from debris to “higher things.” This betrays most of the poems’ beginnings whose tones seem to evoke the surrendering of so many things: a house, a garden, division, sudden excitement. This is indeed the ache of a weathered and weary soul burdened by calamity, when he simply wants “to remain caught in sun, drunk within it.” (-Currency) In my experience, this is what happens when a simple man is faced against daunting odds. He either falls, or rises. But the rising is gradual. Destruction is always first followed by pause. And so it is with the second movement in Joel’s collection. This time around our protagonist (and I say this as it is clear there is a sort of epic ode-ness to the order of poems as if to follow one single hero’s narrative from desolation onwards) meanders to less immediate aches, and where there is an attempt at reformation. “We must rise up,” he declares, “persist long enough not to wait for divinity, but to study all our crumbling, collapsing antiquities.” (-We Must Persist) Yet as the second movement seems to turn phrase into more hopefulness, there is, as mortality dictates, more sudden occurrences of death, more human loss, more personal. How then shall we shudder at this grief, or harder still, aspire to rise from it? But our hero does not dwell too long on this turmoil as there is yet much to be accomplished. In the poem “Mirage” we see a turningpoint, where in a quiet moment, almost inconspicuous, the poet seems
to have willed himself into that long-sought sun. “I want these ghosts,” he realizes, “… I want to catch their speech, to ask if summers keep them warm. Also, I want to know if they live basking under slight rainfalls, and if that apparition back there, my noticing, was actually their quiet doing.” This is faith in the invisible hands of the passing. Where one walks onward into, as the poet says, “perfect human gestures… risk, raise, return.” Then comes the reconstruction. The third movement of the book is where we find Joel Toledo at his most luminous and most familiar, where, as the road lay before the hero, the man knows what the world has urged him to do. To return home. To recapture the elegance of phenomena, as most poets are wont to do. This is where they draw their strength. From this recapitulation, this transcendence, this flight. “I’ve learned how to be comforted,” speaks the poet in “Voices”. There is a steadiness now to the bristle and hush of Toledo’s signature styles of meditation, as he seeks to further his humanity. The final part of the book, which is, I suppose, where the reconstruction comes into fruition, is where the victim, the champion, the witness, and the poet comes to terms with grief and returns to his old self, as a patron of recreation. A run-off from the consistency of the style he uses in most of the book, he now swerves into a riskier approach to the usage of the Word. In the poem “Alpha” he manages to compress eons of cosmic history and still manages to humanize the story of the universe. I like the ending, both cold and warm. As if to acknowledge the cycles our lives undergo in the very nature of greater
things beyond us. Highs and lows. Entropy and grace. Which returns me now to my first idea. Instinct over intelligence. Strewn across all his poetry, Toledo manages to lodge within the tightly-versed, word-weave his own ideas about the nature of poetry, and the primacy of empathy over carefully wrought lyrical structure (despite the fact that he is master of both). Perhaps his best argument comes from “Go Figure,” where he says that science cannot offer us any consolations, and that faith is nothing but a surrender to frailty. I subscribe to that view. I don’t know about you. I usually read poetry when I am in pain. I don’t go to Wikipedia to look up methods to create a robot that will sit down and tell me he has been where I have been. What it all boils down to is relation. Relationship. Relativity. Where I am drawn onward by impulse and not curiosity. If I were, I would be still be studying; I read to be moved. This is where the strength of Toledo’s work comes from. Its power to make the reader relate to the loneliness most of us would never find words for.You will never stumble upon an unintelligible phrase in the whole book, all of it as clear as raindrops. What this third collection of poetry does is crystallize his already formidable wordcraft into a shaft aimed at a particular human trait, and shoot it straight through fiftyfour verses all geared toward changing human life. So now I offer to you, dear readers, an evening or two perusing the music of transformation. Stop being such a nerd. Feel it. And if you can’t, well, it’s not my fault. Maybe it’s your own damned heart. Rafael San Diego is a winner of the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Poetry. Ruins and Reconstructions is a finalist for the 2012 National Book Awards.
joel m. toledo
Asian The ease of fleeing to old temples. To just go. Matchsticks for candles. Incense for warding off spirits, homilies to absorb cleansing. Culture's but a phone call away, a channel away, a plane ride way out of my way. Now and then I find myself studying inflation rates, departure dates. Now and then I hear myself saying Tao and mispronouncing. It's like a complex game of scrabble I keep losing. Civilization: I love that, that word. Not that I'm disoriented; I just can't, I just can't afford it.
PAGASA I don’t anymore aspire for a house or a garden I could weed or water. What I call my own: a damp floor, cushions and sheets baking in the sun. I’m being optimistic here, banking on better weather. These days I mix up assurance with insurance. The weatherman keeps insisting I move out, or build a second story, or a third. As if everything in my country is being pulled down, and the populace accepts this, and the academe condones this. Now I understand how it is to live in an archipelago, and how water keeps imposing its taxes. My only direction, the weatherman continues, is toward higher ground. We were warned about the flood, but see, it doesn’t really matter. I’ve always feared water, and I’ve yet to climb a tall enough mountain. But I’m certain there’s a fishbone there somewhere, seemingly displaced but actually home. And no amount of construction can console me from this sad return; no amount of building can prevent me from listening to the cries of migrating birds, from mourning a beached whale. Again, I do not anymore aspire for a house. I cannot gather enough soil or wood to temper the surge and change the course of storms. I am still hopeful, though. If the next one misses us, then maybe I could offer you some relief, and more relief, if it does hit. There are many names for storms, adds the weatherman. But what were those I called my own again? Oh, broken and unnamed things. Because in the aftermath, there was never any betrayal in the forecast. Just more stories, PAGASA insists. Just more stories. *PAGASA is the Filipino word for “hope,” and is likewise the name of the country’s weather bureau
Bereavement Leave Pass out the biscuits. Pass around an exhausted hand. Match the grip of strangers, firm in their insistence on lapsed kinship. I pass by the old mirror and do not find grief. Maybe because that can wait. No, not that— because no one stares at mirrors hoping for the sudden sorrows. Even actors cannot do that, I think. One instead finds it in the faces of a new cousin, aging relatives helping out in the kitchen, neighbors whose name you will never recall when this leave's over. Death has a funny way of extending the family. Or delaying the absence. Looking now at my mother, the curl of her lips tracing a smile beneath the glass, I realize the world can wait. She holds her peace well, and nine days after it’s still not the time to speak, but for simply passing the time, passing by the mirror again and again, holding back the necessary arrangements. Because now a newfound uncle, the one with a booming laugh and the thickest barrio accent, is asking for coffee.
What
Are T
he Od ds?
And w e To rem all run the risk ain —Chi silent, I don of na Cr 't kno isis w.... I know . The w The clichés o a the st rld's round bound – orm. T , the c alm he feastin g on s y grow ma ’s before l u ignant They dden flo , d balanc urish in sy eaths, old t m ie in that p g on seesaw metry, as ch s. lateau , insta s aspiring f ildren flatline nces o o s. Still f even r ness, the cr ow and th s are circl in e scar ecrow g the field And, m st o horizo ving on, I r ands usele ss. ealize ns fluc that simply tuate be p goodb ermits it. I cause the sea was w ye to someo aving in a ho my ne spital. Her h , in a dream ead , tilting like le ft-b ng on the stroki es s docks ehind wom t a e rtb preve pik in film en nting e. Hea ard land. S bored s c . n C e l r i v u s oice. F farthe e tow or bela ar awa l gestures, r nings r the lt e e v v e o y now e lips m away. Until w th , ov ev m, I fe ing no otrud In that drea ensed of the ed has bec en how he r p r o sea. C s. Is ollisio me an aspe sence hat dream s recob a n ct e lie . In t happy e. See, ther c s presen e, there goe e th. very. S of dep y r a e f sm this hisper ch. g and w n i , n s d w dro pee e od are th mmoning s veying t a h W su ur den rass, s finally sister, staring at g ow the sud h e eWe ar h, aware of words som t r r the ea carrying ou s i wind where – the sea, r else fa not e it is s u a c but ital. Be a hosp nd shaking this is not ou e the gr ies. Becaus ers are d w o the flo he world our b d n a m et a drea nd becaus ltimately, u .A wilted s been, and ay is, alw n in death. e flat. Ev 2010 1950, r e h t y mo For m
Boomerang Threatening the throw, the betrayal of weight and the resistances of wind, tail, aim. Fingers unfolding and darting into space. Any moment now you will let it go— flick of wrist, the stroke, and sallying forth now the release. But this is not the point. At the tip of all light lies the consumed thing. An eye for an eye, swish and arc. Slingshot arched toward bird or desired slope, enough hope of hitting the mark, voices that keep coming back given uneven mountains, right heights. Such wide berths we give to firmament, the many presences it keeps. We whistle for wind, calling out to the missing, and in the dark, that elaborate maneuver of pointing to ignited things, great capture or failure. Perfect human gestures forever motioning risk, raise, return.
Alpha I will conclude by saying that Z is an A with the luxury of hindsight —Stanford Friedman 1.
2. Something. Sight. 3. Depth. Water quickly making sense. 4. Plot. Coastline. Animals emerging. Possibility of flight. The fall. Ground and collision. 5. Tone. Exposure and gradations. The relenting of dark. More views and hues. 6. Texture. A leaf against the sunlight. Pain of fire. Waking up from dreams. Feeling. 7. Feeling. 8. Feeling. 9. Sound. A definition for the simple. Syllables. 10. A definition for complexities. Howling in the evening. The nod, the grunt. More gestures. 11. The line. Fear explained in vain. More and more abstractions discovered. Prayer. 12. Surrender. Pointing. Carving to make pointed. The kill, because of hunger. Patience. Then murder. 13. Victory. Craving. The beginning of adjectives. 14. More adjectives. Awe, then boredom. Pity. Then anger. More anger. 15. An understanding that verbs arrived long before. Collective laughter. 16. Declarations. Cruelty in spite, in scrolls. Warrior paint and red soil. 17. Conquests. Defeats. A return to nouns. Scribes turning now from chroniclers to historians. Others examining fallen pillars, surveying newly-risen banners. 18. Calligraphy. Days and days of quiet and solitude. 19. 20. Music. Bards. 21. Temperance. Culture, cultivation. Regret and remorse. Reconstruction. 22. It is to be called denouement, someone whispers, and all the scholars agree. 23. More attempts at heightening the language. A great care for diction. The risk of metaphors. 24. Entropy/Grace
mia farizza Mia Farizza is a Malaysian artist interested in colours, art, interior deco, writing, photography & music. Mia is a self-taught artist whose seductive exploration of explosive colours is fast becoming her signature style. Part of the reason Mia started painting seriously was because after many years producing TV commercials, she felt part of her creative soul had been left dormant for too long. After a 4-year tenure in Jakarta, Mia returned to KL to focus on her art.
biru
chasm of a happy heart
desires and lustful Ffowers
flowra7
mior rizzuan rosli
tetamu - senja 4
kasih ayah
super mokh 1
tetamu senja -2
tetamu senja -5
tetamu senja -1
rindu bonda
event
national visual arts gallery kuala lumpur
zainuddinb. abidin hazir - tanda kasih
chekri mansor - beauty in paradise
choy siew kek - the young couple
chuah seong hooi - fishing village
raduan b noradin - mendongak ke atas, merenung ke bawah
syed mohd amin syed hashim (s. amin shahab) - wayang dalam almari
liu cheng hua - pride #2
colors of
cambodia gallery
Colors of Cambodia is an organisation created in 2003 by the American artist William Gentry. It was established to introduce art and art materials to the underprivileged schoolchildren of the Siem Reap area of Cambodia. Its purpose is to aid under privileged children to gain self esteem, and self worth. The wider aim is to teach basic skills, so that children aided by Colors of Cambodia have a good start in life and may aspire to more than just working in the rice fields Through Colors of Cambodia, the children have the chance to uncover their artistic abilities and discover the wonderful world of creativity and colour. During his trip to Cambodia several years ago, William Gentry was in awe of the artistic history the region had to offer. He noticed most of that the children in the Siem Reap impoverished villages had never had the means, or opportunity, to use art materials. Thus the charity was founded to bring to light the potential creativity of the children of the most underprivileged villages in the area, through material donations and mentoring.
pon lue - yesterday
cham - apsara
soun seney - gently i serve
yon bouch - long day
pon lue - the catch
iep kiri - silver
chan - in the detail
hoeung sok oun - trust
senoy soum - silence
mayor - idyll
diep kiri - memory
narong - market
soun seney - 3 boys
An exhibition of Art for and by the children of Cambodia including Art by their teachers
26th January to 9th February 2013 Exhibition opening 6pm 26th February 2013 wine and light refreshments At Alliance Franรงaise 15 Lorong Gurney Off Jalan Semarak 54100 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia contact +60 0126069219
A
by nazlina hussin
penang laksa When you say “Penang food”, what comes to mind? Laksa? Hmm...! That was pretty close, but the real name is Assam Laksa (sometimes spelled as Asam Laksa). Assam Laksa is a noodle dish which, together with beef rendang, is one of the most popular dishes requested by my students in my cooking classes. I always share the origin of the words with my students - both “laksa” and “assam” (tamarind) that make up this fishy broth. What is “laksa”? What is “assam”? Laksa, comes from the Sanskrit word “lakh” which means one hundred thousand - in tribute to the long list of ingredients you might acquire to make that dish.You can go over the top with the “toppings” and tickle the taste buds of your guest with crunchy salad leaves, julienned cucumber, slivers of sardines, raw onions, hae ko, chili padi slices… Boiled eggs! Fish balls! Lime slices to squeeze! Need I say more? “Assam” refers to the two kinds of tamarind used in the broth. Interesting enough, the word tamarind came from two Arabic words: ‘Tamar Hind’ which literally translates to “dates of India”. One can just imagine the Arab traders in the old days, when they sailed to India to look for exotic spice and other riches, to see these sticky looking pods that reminded them of their own dates but tasted so sour instead of sweet! Then along came hard tongued Brits who could not pronounce the Arabic words properly, and christened it to be “tamarind” instead. Penang Laksa uses two kinds of tamarind! The more commonly known one is tamarind paste, which comes from a tree also known as “Asam Jawa” (tamarind from Java). The other is dried tamarind apple pieces, known as “Asam Gelugor”. The gelugor tree, used to be a ubiquitous fixture all over Penang, so popular that two places in that fair state are named after them - Gelugor, where USM is located and Tasik Gelugor, on the Penang mainland.
Common knowledge has it that the person who owns a good, fruit bearing gelugor tree will guard it jealously - its fruits are much coveted to make the best Assam Laksa. So you could just imagine its fruits, the same size of an apple, with ridges all around it like a pumpkin, being sliced thinly and then dried. They look exactly like apples, hence the name. I like using these tamarind apple pieces as they are much easier to cook with – you simply throw them into a pot, whenever what you are cooking calls for a piquant taste. These dried slices, which look like mushrooms to the uninitiated, can last forever because of their acidity helps to preserve them – as long as you do not wet them and cause mould to grow. As for Asam Jawa - you need to soak the paste first with enough water, and then leave it to sit for at least 15 minutes and massage the goo, then strain the liquid. Do not discard the pulp too fast as it is useful for cleaning fish, after gutting them or removing the slime off prawns after they are de-veined. The asam pulp is also good for cleaning your stainless steel utensils - its content of natural acid! These two kinds of tamarind, which come from totally different trees, are interchangeable in cooking. The equivalent quantity, more or less is - one teaspoon of tamarind paste, soaked in 150 ml of water will give the same sour taste of two slices average size tamarind apple. Now, off you go and start cooking!
Note: you can find a few laksa and other recipes that use both Asam Jawa and Asam Gelugor on Nazlina’s food website: http://www.pickles-and-spices. com Nazlina also holds cooking classes four days a week in George Town, Penang. Check out http://www.penangcooking-class.com
remembering whiteness & other poems by martin bradley
downloadable as a free pdf from http://correspondences-martin.blogspot.com/2012/04/open-publication-free-publishing-more.html