MAP Fest
Melaka, Malaysia (various projects – 2018, 2014, 2010, 2009)
For over 10 years, Melaka Arts and Performance Festival has offered an important pilgrimage for artists from all over the world, with its unique approach to site-specific performance, authentic movement, cross-cultural collaboration and creative development. Produced by E-Plus Global, with Tony Yap as Founder and Creative Director, MAP Fest has had over 400 artists participate since its inception. My involvement began with a founding role as Co-Creative Director for the inaugural festival in 2009, as well as conceiving Eulogy for the Living with Tony Yap. I went on to co-curate the 2010 Visual Arts program with Anthony Pelchen, and was a facilitator / guest speaker for the Artist Forum in both 2014 and 2018. I performed in a series of solos, duets, and ensemble collaborations over the years – highlights outlined below.
Vessel (2018)
“Vessel: a hollow container; a buoyant volume; a person embodying a certain quality, charting a journey or activity.
To carry, to conduct or convey, to hold, to honor… how many ways do we act as vessels for one another?”
[ Festival program, Michael Hornblow ]
A collaboration between architect Ploy Yamtreee, designer Benjamin Allen, and myself as lead artist. Our aim was to explore the intersection of local food, flora and urban heritage in Melaka, by performing a collectively embodied map of the UNESCO listed Old Town area. The work also draws out the 2018 Festival theme around Death and Dying, as a ritual of exchange with audience participants, through notions of decay, consumption, loss and renewal.
This was enacted in two ways – first, as a processional structure made of bamboo, modeled on the Old Town plan and carried through the streets to St Paul’s Hill. Clad with dry noodle packets, people were asked to highlight places they had visited by staining the Vessel with butterfly pea juice from locally foraged flowers. Second, a durational performance next to the Vessel where Ploy Yamtree wrapped me in a death shroud of bean curd sheets sourced from a local market. Audience members were offered Longan fruit to eat and asked to place the ‘dragon’s eye’ pip on my corpse-like body, on a point that connects to something they feel in themselves. Two participants had similar emotional responses – placing the pip on my throat to articulate their difficulty in expressing their feelings around the recent passing of a loved one.
Eulogy for the Living (2009-2018)
“Eulogy for the Living is a kind of devotional work for making our way in the world.
We the living both preserve the past and allow things to pass – we eulogize ourselves in each moment.
Life goes on...”
[ Festival program, Michael Hornblow ]
A large-scale ensemble finale performance, including all festival artists in a 2-hour durational improvisation, at the historic World Heritage site of St Paul’s Church in Melaka. Created in 2009 by Tony Yap and myself, ‘Eulogy...’ went on to become a MAP Fest tradition for 9 years, under Tony’s direction. Inspired by the commemorative altar at the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple in Melaka – with it’s little wooden tablets mounted with photographic portraits of family members who had passed on – Eulogy for the Living is a kind of devotional work for making our way in the world, an internal journey where artists and audience connect with a deeper part of themselves.
Rangila Archaeologi (2014)
Rangila Archaeologi (2014) uses found materials (circa 1960) from the ruined projection room of an abandoned cinema in Melaka, opposite the hotel where the Festival artists were staying. Desiccated celluloid and scratchy soundtracks offer their secrets from an old love story, a promiscuous archaeology tracing desires long-forgotten to suggest an uneasy present and uncertain futures. Performed in St Paul’s Church as a solo for the daytime Mapping program, and around St.Paul’s Hill for the night-time ensemble piece, Eulogy for the Living. What remained of the cinema has since been demolished, further testament to pressures on the Old Town urban fabric in the face of heritage tourism.
Padi Complaining (2010)
Padi Complaining explores the way rice symbolizes a spiritual way of life in Indonesia, with the gratitude that comes with growing and eating, and gathering people together. This collaboration with Agung Gunawan was developed as part of my Artist Residency with Performance Klub in Yogyakarta through the Australia Indonesia Institute. Padi Complaining was presented at No 8 Heeren Street Heritage Centre as a multiscreen video / performance installation, as part of the MAP Fest Visual Arts program, which also featured Australian artists Tim Silver and Anthony Pelchen. (Co-curated by Anthony and myself).