Importance of Culture and Creativity for Urban Development

• The active participation of people in cultural activities improves their quality of life, wellbeing and enhances life opportunities and options.

• Within a sustainable development context, culture is both a key tool and a core aspect of the social fabric, promoting cohesion at the neighborhood level, conviviality, and citizenship.

• Culturally informed urban development can inspire more participatory processes:

 Learning the past of our culture, so that we can “own” it and propel this identity and knowledge into the future.

 Cultural actions and expressions can catalyze environmental reclamation and enhance social connections with the ecosystems of local places.

 Cultural activities means for expression contribution to generate transformative change in both urban and rural environments.

According to Cultural & Creative Economy Report

by Cendana Cultural Economy Development Agency

CULTURAL & CREATIVE EDUCATION : Create A Creative Workforce

1. Key Qualities of Kuala Lumpur

• Well educated, young ambitious workforce with strong education.

• Some creative specialisms. Eg: crafts, digital, performing arts etc

• Growing vocational provision with industry partnership

2. Major Gaps in Kuala Lumpur

• Low levels of cultural and creative education in schools

• Weak appreciation of the creative industries as a viable career.

• Major skills gap – backstage skills for performing arts, dying crafts skills and script-writing for audiovisual.

• Lack of world-leading higher education institutions with specialism in creative practice.

3. Opportunities

Cultural and creative economy are high-growth resilient, intensively skilled, and labor-intensive arenas. However, cultural arts shows one of the lowest employment rate in Kuala Lumpur due to the lack of platforms to promote the cultural art industry.

• Undertake a long-term sector-wide audience development program – raising awareness of the power and quality of the arts, programming art in spaces for which there is existing footfall.

• Establish Kuala Lumpur as an events and festivals city.

• Establish Kuala Lumpur as a globally significant center for contemporary visual arts and urbanism

Restraints

1. THE LIMITED MINDSET OF SMALL SCALE HANDICRAFT PRODUCERS

• More than 90% of handicraft producers in Malaysia are small scale players.

• Sole proprietors are reluctant to adapt to changes, such as new methods of craft production to increase economics of scale or to promote their business beyond the local market.

2. LACK OF TALENT SUCESSION

• The first and second generation of craftsmen are approaching retirement age but there is a lack of knowledge transfer to the next generation.

• Low interest level and disinterested of the younger generation to pursue a career in the crafts industry.

3. LACK OF PLATFORMS TO PROMOTE ART & CRAFTS INDUSTRY

• Lack of cooperation and coordination between craft producers and respective regulatory bodies is hampering the industry.

1. CURRENT EFFORTS TO IMPROVE VISIBILITY OF LOCAL ARTS

• The Malaysian art scene, despite a slow growth, is maturing into a professional industry that has the potential to make it onto the word stage.

• The artistic community is continuously making concerted efforts to take the visual arts industry further into the spotlight.

2. TOURIST APPRECIATION OF LOCAL ARTS

• Foreign tourists appreciate local arts for their uniqueness but also due to the attraction towards the story behind of our craft products.

3. A CULTURALLY-DIVERSE AUDIENCE

• Malaysia is recognised internationally as being a culturally-diverse society.

• This provides numerous and diversified opportunities for audiences of various cultures and backgrounds.

Drivers

Looking back at Kuala Lumpur as an urban site itself, it has always been bringing people in KL city and the surrounding suburbs together to celebrate the cultural aspect of the city and enhance Kuala Lumpur as a globally significant centre for cultural arts and urbanism.

KUALA LUMPUR SENTRAL

Dataran Merdeka

KL City Gallery

Central Market

Muzium Telekom

KL Forest Eco Park

Problem Statement

Petaling Street

Kwai Chai Hong

Chin Woo Stadium

Chan See Shu Yuen

Merdeka 118

Stadium Negara

The existing cultural facilities in Kuala Lumpur are mostly focusing on performing arts, music, crafts, textiles, film, broadcasting and digital contents. There is a lack of visual art activities in Kuala Lumpur due to the lack of platforms for promotion and weak appreciation towards visual art sector.

Stadium Merdeka

Guan Yin Temple

Calligraphy facilities and activities are seen small scale and segregated in the context of Kuala Lumpur resulting low visibility of calligraphy arts in the city, thus it needed to be promoted.

Cultural education in school ?

Cultural segregation ?

.HOW

Lack of attention from public ?

Initiation of cultural preservation ?

To promote calligraphy art culture in order to strengthen the local culture identity and cultivate the sense of appreciation among local community and tourists in Kuala Lumpur City.

To study and integrate calligraphy art in architectural form and spatial planning 02

To develop a building program that establish education, tourism and research through calligraphy culture 03

To propose a calligraphy art & cultural centre to promote the diversity of the multicultural identity in Malaysia

Clients

Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur Tourism Association

Government body who responsible for tourism, culture, library, museum, heritage, arts, theatre, handicraft, visual arts, exhibitions, etc

KLTA provides KL based industry players with a common platform to network and engage with all Kuala Lumpur tourism industry stakeholders.

Users

Art & Cultural NGOs

To provide a space for small scales producers and associations to come together to promote calligraphy in a bigger scale

Local Community

To cultivate and enhance cultural interest among local community which consists of the kids, youth, adult and elderly

Local & Foreign Tourists

Capture the interests and become one of the attraction tourist spots for both locals and foreigners.

Summary: Comparison between Different Type of Calligraphies

History

Importance of Calligraphy

Islamic Calligraphy

• Major Islamic art that was used in the earliest writing of Holy Quran in Makah

Chinese Calligraphy

• Used by Confucian scholars and literary men who served the government as officials

• Visible expression of highest art of all, known as the art of the spiritual world

• Provides linkage between the languages of the Muslim with religion of Islam

• Artistic practice of handwriting Arabic script in a fluid manner to convey harmony, grace and beauty

Specialty

Writing style/ technique

• Does not portray figures of animals or people for religious reason, instead become an important means of decoration and a highly creative art form

• Arabic script offers infinite possibilities, as letters can be stretched and transformed in numerous ways to create different motifs

• Associated with geometric Islamic art – arabesque

• Consist of variety of scripts which cursive with vertical extensions and geometric construction

• Some other scripts use fuller curving and linking between letters

• Strong left-slanting vertical strokes and deep curving horizontal lines that often interlaced within letters

• Written from right to left

• Differences in style can convey the feelings, culture and character of the artist who uses language to create their art

• Use to reflect a person’s emotions, moral integrity and character

• Expresses the abstract beauty of lines and rhythms through the organizational structure of lines and dots

• The shape, size, stretch and type of hair brush, colour & density of ink influences the writing outcome

• Focuses on 3 features: ink, strokes and style

• Correct strokes, stroke order, character structure, balance and rhythm are essential

Tools used

• Synthetic paint, markers, spray paint, wood carving, embroidery, metal etching

• Brush, ink and inkstick, inkstone, seal and seal paste