Singaporean son
“Village boy” Zai Kuning tells sonia kolesnikov-jessop about his artistic inquiry into our nation’s cultural history
for the past 18 years, artist Zai Kuning has investigated Malay history and culture, in particular the lesser-known narratives of the Orang Laut (semi-nomadic indigenous fishermen who live along the coastlines of the Riau Archipelago), mak yong (a disappearing traditional form of Malay dance-drama) and preIslamic history of the Malays.
His dedicated research culminated last year in a muchlauded, large-scale installation at the 57th Venice Biennale, which is now on view at 72-13, an art space in Singapore better known as the home of Theatreworks. Dapunta Hyang: Transmission of Knowledge features a 17-m-long suspended phinisi boat skeleton made of rattan, string and wax that seemingly floats over piles of books. The ship is a representation of the imaginary vessel of Dapunta Hyang Sri Jayanasa, the first ruler of the Srivijayan Empire, who embarked on his journey to unite the Riau Archipelago. But this looming symbol of a mighty empire that controlled modernday Indonesia and much of the Malay Archipelago between the 7th and 13th centuries contrasts with the books sealed in beeswax (thus never to be opened), to reflect a history lost. The installation dominates the room though your’ eyes will soon be drawn to the surrounding photographic portraits of contemporary mak yong performers, the last witnesses to a fast disappearing culture.
“I know for some artists a subject can only last one or two months and then they move on — as with theatre companies, after you do Shakespeare you move on
to something else. I don’t mean this is bad, but for artists such as myself who are more research-based, sometimes you can’t give up so easily. You need time to be able to articulate what you want to say,” Zai says about his long-held interest. “This history is in the dark. I feel if I write just one book, it will still live in the dark of a library. I want to make his name (Dapunta Hyang Sri Jayanasa) well-known. Most people, even Singaporeans, don’t know how far back the Malay history began.”
Zai’s practice resists conventional artistic categorisation. Born in Singapore in 1964, this multi-disciplinary artist has worked across drawing, painting, performance, dance, theatre, music, sculpture, photography, film and poetry. He collaborates with other artists who specialise in Asian classical traditions too.
“Over the years, we’ve seen a deepening of Zai’s vision and through the various strands of his artworks and performances, Zai shared his dream. He’s uncovered a myriad and complex cultural map of the Riau Archipelago, which very much influenced the cultures and history of presentday Southeast Asia,” says Tay Tong, managing director of Theatreworks, which supported Zai’s early research into the subject in 2001.
Zai describes himself as a “village boy” and recalls fondly his childhood in a Bugis village near Pasir Panjang where he grew up alongside artists — his father was a maestro of ghazal music and his mother, a Malay traditional dancer, who performed in black-and-white films during the 1950s and 1960s.
Clay was the material he had the most connection with, having played with it as a child, so he studied ceramic sculpture at the LASALLE College of the Arts though his interests were varied. Upon graduation in 1989, he was awarded a grant to study in Bali under the prolific Indonesian philosopher-novelist Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana. This early experience had a major influence on Zai’s practice. Closely observing rituals and seeing Balinese priests easily moving between disciplines showed “there was more than one door” in front of him and inspired the artist to find the real meaning of “being multidisciplinary.”
From 1992 to 1999, Zai led the Metabolic Theatre Laboratory
“For artists like myself that are more researchbased...you need time to be able to articulate what you want to say”
– Zai Kuning
(MTL), a research-oriented dance theatre company, where he collaborated with artists such as dancer Motofuji Akiko and composer Tetsu Saitoh. While in Bali, Zai had learnt to use his body as a tool and he started to explore physical movement as well as learning language related to Southeast Asian rituals, incorporating both in his practice.
“At that time I was working with Kuo Pao Kun on theatre-based performance. Performance art and theatre have quite different languages, but I like the systematic approach to the body that theatre offers. You have to exercise. You have to do a lot of physical studio work before actually performing and I enjoy that process,” he says.
But Zai did not enjoy the management side of running a theatre company so much and eventually returned to a solo career. Thinking about his childhood, he started to research the Orang Laut, whose ancestors were among the earliest recorded inhabitants of Singapore. “I remembered them from when I was growing up, seeing them by the beach near the village I grew up in. And I wondered what had happened to them and where they were, so I decided to look for them,” he adds.
Zai’s journey into Singapore’s past began with trips to the Riau islands in search of the Orang Laut, who move fluidly from one location to another according to the seasons. When he finally connected with them, he was shocked to discover the level of poverty in which the descendants of these first Singaporeans live, having — in his eyes at least — been robbed of their natural resources by progress and development.
His deep-diving investigations into the Orang Laut led the artist to create his From the series Brutality of Fact drawings, compose several pieces with acoustic guitar, write a novel Segantang Lada (“a bunch of chilies” in Malay), and in 2005 produce a short film Riau, which screened at the Busan International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, and 3rd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial.
While the film was highly praised and acquired by several institutions, it also marked Zai’s change of focus from the Orang Laut to a more general artistic inquiry into broader Malay culture and history, which he feels is misunderstood or forgotten. He quips: “This subject needs several art forms to tell its story and that’s why I keep changing my hats. I want to continue exploring and I think I need many more years.”
Zai is spending the next two years on a new film, Chronicles of Amnesia, which documents his encounters with a mak yong troupe. “I’m not even sure two years will give justice to the project,” he says with a laugh.
As Tay from Theatreworks shares: “I think this (extended film project) is quite characteristic of Zai’s process over the years. It comes from a core and out of that it grows and there are different kinds of expressions. For Zai, the work needs to deepen rather than be made, shown, and then disposed of.”