Culture in miniature
World Culture Organisation Art & Culture Gallery in Kuala Lumpur is home to hundreds of dioramas and figurines inspired by heritage and tradition.
HAVE you ever been to the Tamu Besar Kota Belud, arguably the biggest open-air annual market in Sabah? What about the iconic Drum Tower and Bell Tower of Beijing in China?
Just step into the World Culture Organisation (WCO) Art & Culture Gallery in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur and immerse yourself in hundreds of miniature scenes from across the country, as well as parts of China.
WCO was set up in 2015 by accountant Foo Loke Kee, who is also a dough figurine enthusiast. He had wanted to use WCO as a platform to connect artisans from different parts of the world.
The 743sq m self-funded gallery is home to 153 dioramas and more than 4,500 figurines. Some of the interesting collections include 68 replicas of traditional Malay houses that were built by local master craftsmen, 88 wau kites by kite-maker Shah Redza from Perlis, six batik paintings, 65 paintings from China and Taiwan, and 46 calligraphy artworks from Taiwan.
Talk about building your own miniature cultural wonderland.
“My long term goal is to produce and collect dioramas or artworks of other world cultures and so that visitors can understand and appreciate one another through this exchange,” says Foo, 45.
For now, his collection at the gallery focuses on Malaysia and China.
On the local front, there are dioramas depicting traditional dances like kuda kepang and tarian Mek Mulung, historical landmarks like Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad and Masjid Jamek in KL, legendary princesses like Puteri Siti Wan Kembang and Puteri Santubong, and traditional lifestyles in rural Malaysia.
In the Chinese collection, there’s a massive dioramic recreation of
Along The River During The
Qingming Festival, a 12th century classic. Song dynasty painter Zhang Zeduan created the epic painting depicting the daily life of villagers along the Bian River in Bianjing, which was the capital of the Northern Song dynasty.
At WCO, Along The River During The Qingming Festival is one of the longest dioramas on display. Measuring 17m in length, it features 685 figurines and cost RM100,000 to build. It took Foo and his team a year-and-a-half to complete the set.
Foo intends to add more exhibits to his collection. He wants visitors to wander around the three-storey gallery and escape into tiny worlds where (most of ) the people are barely 8cm tall.
Built on teamwork
The dioramas and figurines at WCO might seem small in scale, but they are highly detailed and properly researched works. Each set is meticulously designed and made with expert precision by trained local artisans and Foo’s wife Yang Yan, who is trained in dough figurine making.
His team of artisans come from a diverse age group, ranging 18 to 70.
Foo’s main objective is to reproduce works accurately from costumes, facial expressions and body gestures to the colour schemes and types of material used.
“It’s a delicate art that requires years of practice,” says Foo.
Likening the process to making a movie, Foo starts by conceptualising how a diorama would look like and sets a theme, which then determines the storyboard.
Background research is integral to the process. The Internet and books offer an array of vintage images for reference. Foo and his team then move on to designing the layout of the diorama, from its size to the exact number and types of figurines needed.
Once the necessary and suitable materials are chosen, the work can start. The whole process – depending on the project’s size – can take months or even more than a year to complete.
All things cultural
Foo’s love affair with dough figurines began when he was 12. Growing up in KL, Foo remembers going to the morning market at Sri
Petaling on weekends with his mother and buying the dough figurines sold there, ranging from historical and legendary Chinese characters to those inspired by famous paintings and poems.
Dough figurines, a traditional Chinese folk art, are made from flour, glutinous rice flour, colouring, honey and stone wax. The mixture is also treated with anti-cracking and anti-fungal materials.
As amazed as he was with the great stories behind each figurine, Foo remembers feeling empty as he wasn’t able to learn more about these historical tales, which were mostly written in Chinese. Soon enough, the young Foo stopped collecting them.
But as fate would have it, an opportunity to reconnect came knocking at his door. While attending the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, Foo met artisans who specialised in dough figurine making. He also saw a huge 3D animation depicting the Along The River During The Qingming Festival painting.
“I thought, wouldn’t it be great if we could bring the famous painting in 3D here not as an animation, but in the form of a miniature diorama.
“That was how my adventure with dioramas started,” recalls Foo.
He later spent three years in Yinjiao, Hebei, China, studying the country’s history, important cultures and learning Mandarin through his interactions, personal sessions and private projects with the craftmasters and professors he met there.
At the same time, he set up a centre there to produce his Chinese miniature diorama series and spent more than a year in Taiwan learning Chinese calligraphy and paintings.
When he returned to Malaysia in 2015, he decided to open up the gallery to keep, display and maintain his diorama collection.
With such a massive collection, Foo set up WCO Holdings Sdn Bhd in 2017, a company to manage his cultural artworks and activities in Malaysia.
Later, Foo realised that his collection was too Chinese-centric and missing the Malaysian element. He started slowly by collecting wau and then graduated to making dioramas of historical landmarks, traditional lifestyles and more.
“As modernisation begins to improve lives in rural areas, many of these cultural heritage practices will be lost in time,” he points out.
“Dioramas help to visualise a scene, a concept or even make a comparison. Plus the amount of research
and technical details involved in producing it means it is another way to document things besides books, manuscripts, photos and videos.”
Outside the gallery, Foo occasionally displays his works at public exhibitions, including the Kuala Lumpur International Craft Festival (2017) and the World Tourism Conference 2019 in KL.
Foo admits that the upkeep of the gallery and the collection is equally difficult.
He spends nearly two hours, twice a week, cleaning the dioramas and the figurines using small brushes and a hand blower. His wife also assists him here.
They also need to apply antiflour bug chemicals to protect the dough figurines and leave the air-conditioning of a particular room on for 24 hours to get rid of moisture.
Other flour dioramas are covered with acrylic display covers and kept in a hot and dry environment to protect them.
If you would like to view some of his works, Foo’s diorama series is a part of the Malaysia Harmony exhibition at Muzium Negara. This showcase features 12 dioramas and more than 400 figurines. The exhibition ends July 30.
Entry to World Culture Organisation (WCO) Art & Culture Gallery is by appointment only. For details, go to www.wco.asia.