POLLINATION ed. 4

About

This edition of POLLINATION, titled ‘the palms of y/our hands’ proposes to connect, compare and be in conversation with multiple generations from Myanmar—to explore overlaps, differences, parallels, and repetitions, as well as cycles of migration, mobility, and waves of ‘flight’. The creative partners in this endeavor strive to go beyond the representation of violence, despair, broken-ness, and negative affect that often accompanies exhibitions or artistic projects concerning contexts of conflict. The 2021 military coup in Myanmar, which serves as a critical juncture to this edition of POLLINATION, has brought large scale violence, forced conscriptions, and economic hardship, spurring many to flee their homes and their country. Confronted with this ongoing trauma, the curators and artists behind this edition desire a reparative project that offers a multi-layering of the spatial, relational, spiritual, inter/national vibrations between Myanmar and Malaysia. Yet it is not bound only to these two contexts for it seeks to give agency to the universal role of friendship and trust in times of conflict and its often enforced dislocation, towards the writing of stories whose experiences are rarely given legacy.

These explorations will make use of video, photography, performance, poetry, projection, collective mapping, and a presentation of archival materials to reflect on the multi-layered conversations of histories, memories, people, and places that are woven into this project. An exhibition of works produced through this interdisciplinary collaboration will open on 19 April at ILHAM Gallery in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

You can learn more about the history, ethos, supporters and program structure of POLLINATION here.

Curators 

Diana Nway Htwe (Yangon & London) 

Diana is an art historian, curator, and writer who periodically oscillates between contemporary art and Buddhist heritage studies. Her curatorial projects include /Shi (Yangon, 2022-23), Rahula Retrospective (Yangon, 2022), and Moe Satt’s solo If I Say It’s True Seven Times (Yangon, 2018). She graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2020), Shan State Buddhist University (Taunggyi, 2024), and is currently pursuing her masters in Art History and Conservation of Buddhist Heritage at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Mark Teh (Kuala Lumpur) 

Mark is a performance maker, researcher, and curator based in Malaysia. His diverse, collaborative projects take on documentary, speculative and generative forms, and address the issues and entanglements of history, memory, counter-cartography and the political. Mark’s practice is situated primarily in performance, but also operates via exhibitions, education, social interventions, writing, and curating. Mark is a member of Five Arts Centre, a collective of Malaysian artists, activists, and producers established in 1984 and committed to generating alternative art forms and images in the contemporary arts landscape. He graduated with an MA in Art and Politics from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Artists

Okui Lala (Kuala Lumpur & Penang) 

Okui is an artist and cultural worker based in Malaysia. Her practice spans from video  and performance to community engagement and participatory projects. Okui’s work explores themes of identities, diaspora and belonging through the performances of domestic acts or vocational labour, such as sewing, cooking, conversing and building. Her projects often take on a collaborative or participatory approach, involving everyday people in her vicinity, including family members, friends, cultural workers, activists and migrant workers.

M (Yangon; relocated to Washington D.C.) 

M is a writer and poet. He writes mostly in Burmese and his poems employ layers of imagery and symbolism. M spent the first 25 years of his life in Yangon, and has deep affection for his neighborhood of Hledan. If it were not for 2021, he would have happily stayed there forever. M and Diana have practically known each other their whole lives. In 2021, M was a final-year student at university when he had to leave home and everything behind overnight, while Diana somehow found herself back in Yangon. The two friends thus began a conversation across time and space about poetry, language, history, memory, their absurd realities, stars, tattoos, and blackholes. 

Steven Nyi Nyi (Yangon) 

Steven was born in 1974. He left Myanmar in 1993 at the age of 19. After a riveting journey through Southeast Asia, he found his way to Penang where he spent the next 25 years (half his life) working variously: refrigerator repairman, club deejay, tour guide, translator amongst many others. He speaks Burmese, English, Hokkien, and Malay. Steven moved back to Yangon in 2018. He now works as a copywriter at a creative agency, and is a partner at a seafood restaurant called ‘Penang (Ikan Bakar- ငါးကင်)’. He had previously collaborated with Okui in her 2015 work, Let’s Eat and Drink Tea! 

Jae Jae (Thanlyin & Yangon) 

Jae Jae(JJ) was born and raised in Thanlyin city just across the river from the heart of downtown Yangon. JJ’s intro to art began as a part-timer at a local online art school where she met Diana. She later began working as a project assistant for Spaces-31 (Myanm/art Gallery), managing city-scale projects like /Shi exhibition (Yangon, 2022-23). She also co-runs an art/punk zine and collective Lite-Par (လိုက်ပါ) with artist Er Yi. In 2021, JJ was 19. JJ’s Yangon is marked with absence. A whole generation of youths seem to have left. Based in Yangon where she currently goes to university, JJ collects traces of Steven, M, and Diana’s Yangon in the palms of her hands.

Curatorial Advisors

Penwadee Nophaket Manont (Bangkok)

Penwadee Nophaket Manont is an independent curator, researcher and cultural worker. She is Founder of ‘Rai.D Collective’ and Co-Founder of ‘Project-PRY’ – two differing curatorial initiatives supporting alternative creation of space for art in Thailand, dedicated to socio-political issues and locality-based practices (established 2016/2020 respectively). Following her curatorial appointment at The Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok (2007-2012), Penwadee’s consequent curatorial experiences include ‘UNDERLYING’, a traveling project in collaboration with the Mekong Art and Culture Hub (2007-2008); ‘Poperomia/Golden Teardrop’, Thai Pavilion, the 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Italy (2013); ‘[R]Ejecting Mantra’, a research and archive-based exhibition series, Thailand (2017-present); ‘Altered-in-Between’ as part of ‘Migration Narratives in East and Southeast Asia’, a research and contemporary art exhibition project in Germany, Mongolia, South Korea, Thailand (2018-2020); ‘Do we live in the same playground?’ in ‘Biennale Jogja XV Equator#5’, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2019); ‘BERSAMA Minority Voicing Festival’, an alternative art festival (2019-present); ‘PLUVIOPHILE Pavilion: Open World-Thailand Biennale’, Chiang Rai 2023.

Rahel Joseph (Kuala Lumpur)

Rahel Joseph is Gallery Director of ILHAM, responsible for the curatorial and public programming of the Gallery. She has held this position since the Gallery’s inception in 2015, and has built the gallery to be a leading public art institution in Malaysia. She has co curated various exhibitions , most recently ‘Kok Yew Puah – Portrait of a Malaysian Artist’ (2020), ILHAM Art Show (2022) and also co-facilitated ILHAM Contemporary Forum Malaysia 2009-2017 (2017). She has written extensively for both print and media. She was an art and culture columnist for both the New Straits Times and The Nutgraph and co-­editor of Narratives in Malaysian Art Volume 3: Infrastructures (ed. Rogue Art). She is the author of several publications including Beginnings (ed. Rhina Press), Malaysian Art Book for Children (ed.Khazanah Nasional Berhad), and Awesome Art from Malaysia (ed. National Gallery of Singapore).

Sumit Mandal (Semenyih)

Sumit Mandal is a transregional historian. His research concerns historical forms of inter-religious and inter-cultural interactions and their outcomes in the Malay world as well as contemporary Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Currently, his research explores the Muslim shrines that underpin a historical sacred geography spanning the Indian Ocean from Jakarta to Cape Town. Before joining the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus in 2015, Sumit worked at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and held fellowships at New York University and Kyoto University. He completed his doctoral degree in history at Columbia University in 1994.

Zoe Butt (Chiang Mai)

Zoe Butt is a curator, writer and educator, nurturing critically thinking and historically conscious artistic communities, fostering dialogue among cultures of the globalizing souths. Possessing an extensive exhibition, publishing and public-speaking history globally, she founded ‘in-tangible institute’ in 2022, seeking a robust ecology for locally-responsive curatorial talent in Southeast Asia. Zoe holds a PhD by Published Works, Center for Research and Education in Art and Media, University of Westminster, London and is currently Lead Advisor (Southeast Asia and Oceania), Kadist Art Foundation. Previously she was Artistic Director, Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City (2017-2021), Executive Director, Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City (2009–2016), Director, International Programs, Long March Project, Beijing (2007–2009), Assistant Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2001–2007). She has been published by Hatje Cantz, JRP-Ringier, Routledge, Sternberg Press, among others. Zoe lives between Chiang Mai, Ho Chi Minh City, and Sydney.

Sponsors and Institutional Partners

Edition 4 is initiated and managed by in-tangible institute, co-developed and co-sponsored with and by ILHAM Gallery, the Sidharta Aboejono Martoredjo (SAM) Fund for Arts and Ecology, and Foundation for Arts Initiatives, New York. With thanks also to SAC Gallery for their support.