I Am....
An audience-centered public installation, Penang, Malaysia 2009
I Am....
I Am.... An audience-centered public installation 23 - 25 July 2009 Jalan Kapitan Keling, Penang, Malaysia Pengkarya / Artist Shahram Entekhabi Produser / Producers Joe Sidek & Hasnul Jamal Saidon Konsep Rekabentuk & Produksi Video / Design Concept & Video Production Shamsul Ikhmal Mansori Pembantu Teknikal / Technical Assistants Afzanizam Mohd Ali,Aizuan Azmi,Mohd Firdaus Khairuddin, Nur Hafizah Ab. Aziz, Nor Mohamad Abd. Rahim, Noordin Ban, Rosli Hamzah, Muhammad Husni Abd. Latiff, Mohamad Yazdi Yaacop, Izrul Abd. Aziz, Noor Rashid Shabidi Pembantu Penerbitan / Publication Assistants Nor Laila Abd. Rozak@Razak, Safinawati Samsudin Pembantu Kewangan / Financial Assistant Rohaya Sanapi Promosi & Publisiti / Promotion & Publicity Nurul Ashikin Shuib, Azizi Yahya, Adlan Redzuan, Salim Ibrahim Sokongan Umum / General Support Radhiyah Abu Bakar, Salmiah Mohamad, Faridah Hashim, Ravi Vansamy Pelajar / Students Muhammad Firdaus Khiruddin, Shabihan Ibrahim, Mohamad Afif bin Mohamad Jafre, Nur Syuhairah Mohd Harun, Nur Malawati Abdul Hamid, Siti Nazurah Hashim, Marshitah Jaapar, Husna Nawar Loksin, Siti Fatemah Khamis, Llwellyn Frederick, Wan Mariam Adila Wan Ali Mohktar,Siti Rahayu,Nor Maizan Ab Razak, Nur Farah Atikah Azhar Pameran Atas Talian / Online Exhibition http://mgtf.usm.my/exhibit/php
ISBN 978-967-100008-8-5 In Conjuction with 1st Anniversary GEORGE TOWN World Heritage Site Celebration Š2010 Muzium & Galeri Tuanku Fauziah, Universiti Sains Malaysia. Semua hak cipta adalah terpelihara. Sebarang bahagian di dalam buku ini tidak boleh diterbitkan semula kecuali untuk tujuan kajian dan kritikan dalam bentuk atau dengan sebarang cara tanpa izin penulis atau penerbit.
Muzium & Galeri Tuanku Fauziah, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang Telefon/Telephone: 04 6533888 samb/ext3261/4789/2137/4786/4787/4788 Faks/Fax: 04 6563531 Emel/Email: dir_muzium@notes.usm.my Laman web/Website: http://www.mgtf.usm.my http://mgtfusmpenang.blogspot.com http://profile.to/mgtfusm www.tagged.com/mgtf www.twitter.com/mgtf www.youtube.com/mgtf
supported by
JALAN KAPITAN KELING “The Cultural Heritage Area is part of the earliest and historically, the most well-endowed part of George Town. Built up over a period of more than 200 years, it offers an evocative and readable record of the diverse cultural traditions of a largely immigrant society.�1
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“Pitt Street (now called Jalan Mesjid Kapitan Keling) was reserved for religious institutions.”2 1 & 2.The Urban Legacy of Penang’s Early Sattlers. Historical Background of the Cultural Heritage Area by Khoo Salmah. 30 October 1997 http://www.hbp.usm.my/sanusi/lalilu/websitewarisan/Tentative%20Lists/Urban%20Legacy/Urban%20Legacy.htm
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Contents Synopsis
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Foreword
14-15
Listening to, instead of talking to
16-17
“I Am”... Video Recording
21-27
“I Am”... The Video Statements
28-43
“I Am”... In Texts and Images
44-61
“I Am”... The Making
62-75
“I Am”... The Team
76-77
Acknowledgement
78-79
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Synopsis I Am... This project is a process of self-definiton that adresseses the question of identify amongst Penang’s peoples who are made up of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. Here, we are curious to learn how members of Penang’s vibrant community identify themselves in a heritage city that traces its roots to various parts of Asia and Europe. This project utilises a cargo container that is installed at the historically and culturally vibrant Kapitan Keling road, George Town, Penang. While its interior space functions as a contemporary video recording studio, an LCD monitor installed in its exterior projects live video of people naratting their identities to the public. When members enter the ‘studio’, they will adress the subject of “I Am...” with a short video statement. Their ‘statements’ are screened on the LCD monitor on the exterior and watched by the passing public. This process encourages people in public spaces to discuss and share their notions of identify with one another, while celebrating the diversity that is unique only to Penang. In employing an inter-textual approach, the project functions as a discursive, inclusive and participative site where the notions of identify and of ‘becoming’ are performed by the public.
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“Happy doing business in Little India because I meet a lot of people� -K Kanakambar (Rajathy@Aty)
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Foreword
by Shahram Entekhabi
The “I AM...” Project or UNITY Project engages with local communities in exploring notions of identity, culture and belonging in multi-cultural Malaysia. This project is a process of self-definition that addresses the question of identity amongst Penangites who are made up of a variety of ethnicity, faith, gender, age, education and social status. Here, we are curious to learn how members of Penang’s vibrant community identify themselves in a heritage city that traces its roots to various parts of Asia and Europe. Functioning as a video recording studio in which people enter to narrate their identities to the public, the cargo container that is placed in the heart of Penang’s Street of Harmony also symbolises the voyages and mobility of diverse peoples who have traveled to the shores of Penang. In encouraging people to discuss and share their notions of identity with one another in the public space, the ‘I AM’ Project hopes to foster a sense of openness and dialogue amongst people, while inspiring them to celebrate the diversity that is unique only to Penang. In the last 30 years, the so-called community art has become a very common and widely used artistic praxis. The method of stabilising an artistic process by involving a public space and its diwellers includes the process of highlighting their social and ethnic positioning on the one hand and using the new media for documentation on the other. Often, the artistic process also includes an intense research of social phenomenon and leads sometimes to a discovery of unknown or hidden layers of information. “I Am...” is a project that responds to both artistic and media development. It is a response to the numerous works about the “I” identity in a globalised world. “I Am...” project is an experiment to develope an alternative way to handle the question of belonging within the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic history of Malaysia especially in Penang.
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“I Am...” project opens a natural view to “looking for” minorities without creating an “artistic self portrait of the community”.
introspection, I’ve come to appreciate how the spiritual, Muslim and Oriental aspects of my upbringing are very much a part of who I am as an individual.
“I Am...” project offers the possibility of interactivity so that members of the audience can make their own portraits of the community - reflecting the information given by the community itself without the director’s ‘censorship’ and ‘control’.
Indeed, I see the artist as a hybrid, a very elastic sort of identity, of having access to what ‘was’ and ‘is’. I also believe in the necessity of cultures opening up to each other and to mutually contribute towards the thought and production of contemporary art.
I Am Shahram Entekhabi. As an Iranian-born artist who left to study in Europe, I am a product of Persian-Islamic culture enriched with a deep insight of European culture and its everyday life. As I travel the world and witness the similarities and differences between various cultures, I observe my surroundings without consuming it. People and their cultures intrigue me and in my study of them, of us and how we are, I attempt to also understand myself. Throughout my journey and stays around the world, I’ve come to realise how our cultural belonging is to a large extent shaped by our childhood. For it is during our childhood that we were able to discover, understand and experiment in what was usually a secure and protected environment. At least for me, that was the case. My surrounding was deeply imbued with a strong sense of spirituality and this was where my impressions of Self, of others and how I engaged with the world were formed. Living in Penang and having an assortment of socalled identities imposed on me, e.g. ‘foreigner’, ‘Persian’, ‘Muslim’, etc. have made me realised how one’s personal identity is really a hybrid and not monolithic at all. We are who we are, made up of and influenced by a variety of inter-playing elements. My consciousness about being an artist has definitely given me the opportunity to work with Joe Sidek and Hasnul J Saidon to discover experiences of being in contrasting environments and understanding how this impacts one’s identity. Fascinatingly enough, it has allowed me to come ‘home’. Through reflection and 15
Listening to, instead of talking to... by Hasnul Jamal Saidon
“I AM…” as a form of production, research and curatorial methodology, can be read as cultural studies in action, especially in regards to language, culture and identity. Language has long been taken as the core of cultural studies. It does not only mirror an independent object world but constructs and constitutes it. All cultural forms can be analysed like a language (Barthes, 1967, 1972). They are said to work like language especially in regards to identity. The discourse of identity, which was the central category of cultural studies in the 1990s, was held to be social and discursive construction (Barker, 2000). Following Derrida (1976) and a good many cultural studies writers following him, deployment of binary relation between signs in structuralism was ‘deconstructed’ by the notion of the instability of language, meaning and identity (Barker and Galashiski, 2001). Cultural studies then swung from the structuralism’s study of texts to the post-structuralist’s exploration of audience. Consequently, meanings in language, as in identities, were taken to be unstable. They are nevertheless regulated and temporarily stabilised in social practice into pragmatic narratives or discourses. Discourses, especially after Foucault (1972, 1977, 1980) refer to language and practice that are regulated as ways of speaking about a topic. Meanings, including those pertinent to many notions of multiple identities, are relational and formed within ‘language games’. Cultural studies read multiple identities as products of signifying practices. To unveil George Town as a zone of multiple identities is to explore how meanings attached to it are produced symbolically through the signifying practices of language and representation.
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Similar to meanings in language, identities are produced by active human agents. Derrida’s influence has underpinned the widespread adoption of anti-essentialism, social construction and textual deconstruction. Such adoption has sparked further theorisation of identity as an unstable description in language, that the notion of identity is more a state of becoming rather than a fixed entity (Hall, 1992, 1996). Such adoption can be traced in the discourse of gender (Nicholson, 1990 and Weedon, 1997); and post-colonial theory (Bhabha, 1994). It has also lead to a proposition that all forms of culture and identity are zones of shifting boundaries and hybridisation. Such proposition reads multiple identities as to be wholly social, political and malleable cultural construction, not necessarily biological and universal all the time. Consequently, cultural studies now entails a process of ‘listening to people’, the active interpreters of signs and constructors of cultural identities. “I AM…” looks at ‘self-identity as a reflective project’ (Barker and Galashiski, 2001). It surveys how the many notions of self, both personal and collective as well as cultural are narrated by the public at large, in this case the living dwellers of George Town’s ‘street of harmony’. As indicated by the ‘findings’ of this project, the many notions of self-identity (and even of George Town and Penang) are not necessarily given, universal, homogenous, fixed and frozen. They are rather ‘performed’ and appear to be in a constant state of ‘becoming’. “I AM…”also epitomises the spirit of ‘listening to’instead of ‘talking to’. It marks a shift from ‘institution/statedictated’ to ‘people-defined’, while simultaneously returns to the spirit of interdependence, inclusiveness and participation in dealing with issues that are pertinent to the interest of the whole. Notwithstanding UNESCO’s official recognition of George Town as a heritage site, the more substantial meanings of heritage, of belonging and most importantly of becoming are best constructed, re-constructed and
performed by the citizens of George Town. Despite concerted efforts by many ‘experts’ to define George Town (and perhaps its citizens) along the line of its unique multi-cultural heritage, the actual ‘living experience’ of ‘multi-cultural’ identities belongs to the people of George Town’s themselves. “I AM…” reiterates several key principles that can be traced in many forms of eastern traditions such as modularity, non-linear, simultaneous, impermanence/ ephemeral, communal, interdependence, convergence, cross-disciplinary, cyclical, audiencecentered and many more. These key principles have also been deployed as the constant guides for Muzium & Galeri Tuanku Fauziah (MGTF), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in advocating sustainability as it steers itself into the challenging terrains of the increasingly globalised world. MGTF is honoured to be able to work collaboratively with the internationally renowned contemporary artist, Shahram Entekhabi, the indefatigable Joe Sidek, students of the School of the Arts and the blessed citizens of George Town for this very special and meaningful project.
6.Foucault, M. (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge. New York: Pantheon 7.Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punishment. London: Allen Lane 8.Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge. New York: Pantheon 9.Hall, S. (1992) ‘Cultural studies and its theoretical legacies’, in L. Grossberg, C.Nelson and P.Treichler (eds), Cultural Studies. London and New York: Routledge 10.Hall, S. (1996) ‘Who needs identity?’, in S.Hall and P. Du Gay (eds), Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage 11.Nicholson, L.(ed) (1990) Feminism/Postmodernism. London and New York: Routledge 12.Weedon, C. (1997) Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. Oxford: Blackwell
References 1.Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge 2.Barker, Chris and Galasinski (2001) Cultural Studies and Discourse Analysis – A Dialogue on Language and Identity. London: Sage Publications 3.Barthes, R.(1967) The Elements of Semiology. London: Cape 4.Barthes, R. (1972) Mythologies. London: Cape 5.Derrida, J. (1976) (trans. G Spivak) Of Grammatology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press
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“The Captain of the Klings himself had his house in Kampong Kolam, where his tomb is located. The Kapitan Keling Mosque, enlarged several times, remained the focus of the Indian Muslim trading community of jewellers, shippers, textile merchants and petty traders.”3
3.The Urban Legacy of Penang’s Early Sattlers. Historical Background of the Cultural Heritage Area by Khoo Salmah. 30 October 1997 http://www.hbp.usm.my/sanusi/lalilu/websitewarisan/Tentative%20Lists/Urban%20Legacy/Urban%20Legacy.htm 19
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“I Am...” Video Recording
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“I Am...” The Video Statements
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“I Am...” through education “My name is Mohamad Farhan bt Zambri. I go to SMKA Al-Mashoor (boys) Penang.” “I am happy today because my daughter’s exam was very good.” ‘‘I am a law graduate from United Kingdom.” “I am happy to be here and I am an ex-student of USM.” ‘‘I am disappointed with the Malaysian Education System using quota system for high level (university) intake.”
“I Am...” through religion and ethnicity ‘‘First and foremost I am a Muslim. After that, I’m a person who makes many, many mistakes.” “I am a Malay-Finnish, I feel hot now.” ‘‘I am a Chinese of 48 years old. I simply love being a Penangite.” “I am an Indian-Muslim and very thankful to Allah.” “My name is Eva. I am from Pulau Tikus. I have a mixed Chinese background.” ‘‘I am Richard. I am 25 years old, I am half Malay.”
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“I Am...” through gratitude ‘‘I am thankful for what I have today.” ‘‘I am alive.” “Mom, I love you.” “I love my mom and my daddy.” “I am still happy, they take me for outing, sometimes I’m tired.” ‘‘I am happy. I am funny.” ‘‘I am happy with my darling.”
“I Am...” through age, gender and emotion “I am 8 years old. I like the ‘Nasi Kandar Imigresen’ because the dishes are delicious.” “I am 5 years old and I love you.” ‘‘I am over 55 and still working to stay happy everyday.” ‘‘I am a girl.” ‘‘I am a women without any job now because I am retired. I feel dull and stressful.”
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“I Am...” through ambition and hope
“I Am...” through name
“I like to go to Hong Kong.”
‘‘I am Kiah Kiean. I live in Penang and I love Penang. Today is very hot.”
‘‘I am trying to be a better person.” ‘‘Waiting for that shooting star.” ‘‘I am trying to be a good person and stay happy and healthy. God bless you all.” “I am from Selangor, from Penang, from Kuala Lumpur. I like to be an artist.”
“I am Nur Affandi and I have been living in Penang since I was a child.” ‘‘I am Tan Seong Pin.” “My name is Lorent Richard, now I want to sing a song.” ‘‘I am Kenny and I am going to get married.” “Why do yo call me? You don’t even ask my name?.”
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“I Am...” through philosophy “I am a soul, existing in this form, existing amongs other souls, sharing the like of soul, sharing life, happiness. That is who I am.” ‘‘I am the wind that blows in the night. I come, I go. But none will know of it.” “I am a man of goodwill, and I wish all Malaysians to pray to all gods, not only Muslims or Christians or Buddhists. Everyone must pray for our Country.”
“I Am...” through nationhood “I am a Malaysian son. I have two wifes, one Indian and another one Malaysian.” ‘‘I am just a little sweet girl from Thailand.” ‘‘I am myself. I am unity. I am not a Malay. I am not a Chinese. I am not an Indian. I am a Malaysian. We are one 1Malaysia.”
‘‘I am a spark of the divine power given this human body to experience the sublime love of divinity.” ‘‘I am freedom.”
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“I Am...” through a state of emotion ‘‘I am joyful and hot in a bit of pain because my lips broke.” ‘‘I am feeling hot.” “I am tired to live.” ‘‘I am angry.” ‘‘Happy.” ‘‘I am so bored.” ‘‘I am hungry for all news, have red hairs and are not patient.” ‘‘I am not very happy because I have a problem with my finance.” “I am cute and sexy.” “What I really dislike is that they like to gossip, because my eyes look like normal people, but when they talk about this gossiping, when I heard, I feel insulted a bit.”
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Shamsul Ikhmal Mansori
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“I am from Selangor, from Penang, from Kuala Lumpur. I like to be an artist� -Khoo Boo Eng
Shahram Entekhabi
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“I Am...” through interest “Ok..I’m a singer actually.I like myself to be the number one in Malaysia but maybe it is not time yet because my star is not shining.” “I love singing but not just singing in a shower.” ‘‘Waiting for that shooting star.” (Singing) “Laici Kang semangkuk dua kupang kena sekali tak kenyang semangkuk dua kupang.” ‘‘I am watching the world go round.” ‘‘I am passionate about singing. I am passionate about writting.”
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“I Am...” through the unknown “I am...” ‘‘Can say what you want to say.” ‘‘Who I am.”
“I Am...” through possession
“I Am...” through place
“I am very happy with my wife and children. I have a very cute wife. Others could not get her, only I managed to have her.”
‘‘I am a Penangite still learning about our cultural roots of hope to live a great life as a Penangite and proud of it.” ‘‘I am leaving my hometown today!!” ‘‘I have families in Brazil and half in Mexico and I can be in so many places. Although so many places,I like to go to Africa.” “I am from Iran and I’m finished.”
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“I Am...” through profession “I have been peddling the trishaw for 15 years. Not only to gain money, but this is my hobby.” “I am the best nurse in the world.” ‘‘I am a chief editor, chief reporter, chief goyang kaki.” ‘‘I am an intermediate photographer for today.” “Yes,I am happy with drive taxi in Penang.” ‘‘I am exploring my job.” “I am a salesman and love Penang.” “I have been selling nuts at little India for the past 15 years.” “I like selling flowers at my shop, its fun.” ‘‘I am a wedding planner.”
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Song by Lorent Richard “Nona nona zaman sekarang tak boleh tegur tak boleh dilarang, baju la pendek beramai ramai, gigi mancung hatipun berang, nonalah manis di Pulau Pinang, nonalah manis hati pun girang, hai assalamualaikum, hai assalamualaikum, salam segar dihalal tuhan jadilah hai assalamualaikum hai assalamualaikum, hai assalamualaikum, minta lah syurga pada lah tuhan, hai assalamualaikum.�
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“I Am...” In Texts and Images
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“I Am...” as performed by the public via texts and images.
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“This street was built by Francis Light in 1787 the second oldest street next to Light Street the oldest. For almost two hundred years ago it was called ‘Pitt Street’ in memory of William Pitt, the younger, the Prime Minister of Great Britian (GB). The Chinese called it ‘The Legs of Coconut Tree’, because at that time it was coconut forest beside seaside. Light officially landed in Penang in 11 August 1786, the birthday of Prince of Wales, so it was called the Prince of Wales Islands officially. Light held the Landing Ceremony at Esplanade (Padang Kota Lama) in 1787. Placed a cannon at the ground, put Spanish and Mexican coins (the US Dollars at the time) inside it, and boombed toward the coconut forest so the natives, in order to get the coins, they cut the coconut trees. The lenght of this street is not over 1 km, so short, but it is religious (Christian, Buddhist Temple, Indian Temple and Islam Mosque - Kapitan Keling and Acheenese).Four cultures could be found here. (Malay, Chinese,Indian and western). So this street is better to call ‘Street of Harmony’ than ‘Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling’, it will be more fair and true. My name is Chang Yong Mee and was born in 1944 (during the Japanese invasion period). Although I am a Chinese, I am considered to be a citizen.” Chang Yong Mee
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Chang Yong Mee defines himself in terms of time, period, ethnicity, nationality and in some ways, a keeper and narrator of Penang colonial history.
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Personalised notions of nationality, loyality, place, gender, age, interest and positioning are performed by the public.
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Identification through feeling towards a place.
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Identification through emotional state.
Identification through nationality.
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Childhood experience is said to be an important part of identity formation.
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On the level of the mind, we are more interconnected than separated.
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A synchronised state is like a musical rhythm or a beautiful jazz in which each musician is free to improvise on his/her own, ever-changing and individually unique, but is simultaneously synchronised with the tempo and rhythm of the whole.
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Heritage is not merely ‘buildings’, but what we instill and build in the mind and heart of our future generations.
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“I Am...” The Making
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Press conference.
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Recording at the street.
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Honest man with blind eyes.
Shahram , viewing the recorded materials.
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Joe Sidek introduces his old friend to be a part of “I Am...�
Chang Yong Mee tells stories related to Penang history.
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“I Am....” attracts many passers-by.
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Walk-in interviews.
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Shamsul Bahari introduces “I Am....� to a potential participant.
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The “I Am...� team roaming around the area to introduce the project and invite the public to participate.
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Love by Mia...
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Kwong Wah newspaper’s reporter interviews Chang Yong Mee.
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........for the people of Penang
“I Am...� The Team
Hasnul Jamal Saidon.
Llwellyn Frederick.
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Joe Sidek.
(from left) Wan Mariam Adila Wan Ali Mokhtar, Nur Farah Atikah Azhar,
(from left) Mohamad Afif Mohamad Jafre, Nur
Siti Rahayu, Nor Maizan Ab Bakar.
Harun,Nur Malawati Abdul Hamid, Siti Nazu
Muhammad Firdaus Khiruddin.
Syuhairah Mohd urah Hashim.
Shahram Entekhabi, Shamsul Bahari, Shabihan Ibrahim, Shamsul Ikhmal Mansori.
Siti Fatemah Kamis.
Marshitah Jaafar, Husna Nawar Loksin.
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Acknowledgement “I Am...” An Audience-centered public installation, Penang, Malaysia 2009 by Shahram Entekhabi. with friendly support of Hasnul J Saidon (Museum & Gallery Tuanku Fauziah, USM) and Joe Sidek for Unity Project / UNESCO HERITAGE SITE. Special thanks to the people of George Town, staffs of Museum & Gallery Tuanku Fauziah, (USM) and Shamsul Bahari.
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