Assignment 1- ESSAY: LIEW KUNG YU’s Art Works- Cadangan-cadangan untuk Negaraku.

Liew Kung Yu is one of the Malaysia’s well-known contemporary artists, who recently came out with his master piece of art works entitled ‘Cadangan-cadangan untuk Negaraku’, as in English called ‘Proposals for My Country.’

According to Liew, his inspiration of the art works is from various public sculptures he photographed while he was travelling around Malaysia.‘Cadangan-cadangan untuk Negaraku’ consists of four pieces of 3-D photo collages.

Basically, they are mainly about the development and urbanization of our country, Malaysia and at the same times also consists of what we expect in the near future in our country. What is special about the photo collages are they are similar to pages from a pop-up book where certain pictures are popping up in 3-D form. The first photo collage that caught my attention is Konkrit Jungle. Basically, we can see that there are various types of animals in the photo collage. The animals are actually significant concrete buildings, which personally, I would interpret it as Liew tries to communicate with the viewer that apart from Malaysia is developed with high-rise buildings and the advanced technology but at we also preserve and protect the wild life here. In fact, they are also one of our main tourism attractions in the country as we can see there are a lot of tourist-look-alike-people taking pictures and walking around. As for the giraffe that I notice in the photo collage, even though giraffe is the kind of animal which could not be seen easily like elephants or orang utans in Malaysia, but bear in mind that the art work is about our country’s future development as well. Therefore, it is not surprising at all for Malaysia to have giraffe as one of the common animals.

The second piece of photo collage- Metropolis Warisan is mainly about the development and urbanization of the country. Famous building sculptures in the cities like Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC), Kulala Lumpur Tower (KL Tower), Putrajaya, Sultan Abdul Samad Building, LRT, Proton national car, aeroplane and such, these are all the pride of Malaysia and most important of all, they reflect the image of Malaysia. Although, Malaysia is still a developing country; however, it is obvious that our country’s development is coping up well with the pace of the world.

The third piece of photo collage entitled Bandar Sri Tiang Kolam. We can see different architecture sculptures or more precisely, different residential sculptures that differentiate different status of residents in Malaysia.

The fourth photo collage- Pantai Gelora Cahaya is all about the diversity of cultures in Malaysia, as well as the tourism attractions of Malaysia. There are beach, sunset scenery, Malacca flowery trishaw and so much more. Malaysia is formed by different cultures, backgrounds and races; hence, our country is rich with different tourism attraction based on different cultures and backgrounds of the citizen. Besides that, Liew also uses our national flower, which is the hibiscus to be the background decoration of all the photo collages.

In conclusion, from the photo collages, we could more or less foresee the future development of Malysia. Liew is the voices of all the Malaysian on visualizing the future Malaysia and I believe these art pieces of Liew are indeed a very creative way to propose it to our government. All in all, it reflects the unity and harmony of our country as well as the relationship in between urban communities and the space that they habit.

Emotional Documentary- Interview with Carol

Before i start off with my documentary, i would like to say that i actually never expected this interview would turn out to be a very interesting ones and it actually touched me somehow, not because of the story itself, but the reason of the process of working on this documentary brings me closer to person whom i really respect and i get the opportunity to know her more. Besides, from deep down inside my heart, i feel the warmth of a family, of a mother through her words and her smile as i am now away from my hometown. She actually makes me realize how lucky i am to have a family and i shall learn to appreciate my family members more from now on.

Carol, is her name. She is the mother of my friend, whom was born in the year of 1960 in Malacca. Avery friendly and open-minded lady who does not even looks like she is at the age of 49 now. She is currently working at Damansara area. Aunty Carol is originally from Malacca. She was born and brought up there until the age of 16 when she followed her dad came to Kuala Lumpur staying in a low-cost flat at Jalan Sungai Besi. She pursued secretarial course in Stanford College and at the same time worked part-time in a company after classes at Jalan P.Ramlee. Aunty Carol and her husband, by then was her high school sweetheart since she was 16, love food and shopping very much. Therefore, during her lunch hour, she would go shopping around Jalan Alor and in Sungei Wang Plaza. At night, they loved to hang out at Jalan Chow Kit because back then there were a lot of stalls selling food as well as night market.
Image 1: Sungei Wang Plaza
Throughout the whole interview session, which is more like a mother-daughter-chit-chat session for me, Aunty Carol actually told me a lot of her past stories such as her stories with her husband and all. However, when we were actually talking about her working experiences, suddenly something popped into Jessie's mind that lead to the main topic which i am going to focus on in this documentary. There was once actually this friend of ours, told me and Jessie about the scary ghost experience which his mom (Aunty Carol) encountered when she was working in a legal firm.

It was back in November when she started joining the law firm which was located in a big bungalow at Taman Billion, Cheras. Everything was fine even though she heard rumours around that the bungalow was haunted. Not until August 2002, when it was also the month of the Hungry Ghost Festival, she started to encounter series of unexplainable and eerie experiences. First of all, it was one early morning around 7.30 in the morning; she was all alone in the office doing her work. Out of a sudden, she heard someone was knocking very hard on the front gate. Hence, she went out thinking that it was her colleague but she realized that it was no one out there when she checked it out. Of course, this happened for quite some times that she tends to ignore it since she was not being disturbed or anything. Often, she would hear a young lady’s voice calling her name, “Li~~~~~” even though she knew that she was actually all alone in the office. Even her colleague told her that sometimes, she felt like there was someone pulling her hair or throwing things on the back of her head while she was working. There was even once when Aunty Carol and one of her colleagues actually witnessed the type writer in the office was typing by itself and the stapler was clipping by itself too. Apart from that, sometimes the files would flip or fell down from the table or rack really hard as if someone purposely did it.

They might all sound like what happened in horror movie, but Aunty Carol told me that initially she never really believed in all these too as she is a Christian, not until she really experienced it by herself. What happened was, after all those weird incidents she encountered in the office, there was one night when she wanted to sleep, right after she dozed off, she felt like somebody was pressing on her body and tried to strangle her. She could not even scream or move until her husband woke her up. It lasted every single night right after the moment she dozed off for quite a while. One night, around 3 AM in the morning, she woke up by hearing a voice of a young lady calling her name outside her house gate, “Li~~~~~~~~”. According to Aunty Carol, no one would call her Li except her colleagues in her office as others will refer her as Carol. Hence, she was curious and thought that it was her colleagues calling her. Of course, when she went out and looked around, there was no one. From then on, Aunty Carol suspected that the spirit was actually followed her home.

Series of weird incidents kept happening inside the bungalow to the extent that the business of the law firm was badly affected. Aunty Carol recalled that there was this lawyer who worked in the law firm never believed in all the rumours or the existence of sprit and ghost until something bad happened to her. It was an afternoon while she was reading in her office, she kept hearing a young lady’s sobbing voice on the second floor of the office while everyone was actually at ground floor having lunch. Hence, she ignored it and thought that it was just tricks played in her mind. In the evening around 6 or 7 o’clock while she was going down from the staircase from second floor, she fell down from the staircase and broke her leg. She told Aunty Carol that she felt like someone was pushing her from behind. From then on, she never returned to work anymore.

It was then Aunty Carol actually heard from the neighbours and colleagues around that there was a young lady being murdered in that bungalow. That was the reason why they kept hearing the young lady’s voice crying or calling their names or even going around the office disturbed them. It got me a chilled when I was listening to these stories of Aunty Carol. But somehow, I enjoyed listening and talking to her. For a moment, I felt touched and I felt the warmth of a mother and the warmth of being at home.All in all, it was an awesome experience to work on this documentary.

When i was interviewing Aunty Carol.

When Aunty Carol was working in the bungalow.

The bungalow.