https://open.spotify.com/playlist/376GfuWQgIo6ieSlSyfTRW?si=959c0a45c0744639
Soon, it will be my second trip to Malaysia, this time to work with Karie Liao, a curator I met when I was traveling through the East Coast of Canada, in Toronto. I will be guiding through a homecoming, after six years of not visiting Malaysia again. As diaspora Malaysian-chinese folk who lived abroad for many years.
Home, belonging, feeling loved - a kind of alchemy is brewing. Living on the lands and people around you that you barely know - is to hold a lot in place. To understand the mere meaning-making of representation, symbolism and understanding the faith that held people together in Malaysia. To want to know a place, how arts and culture sits in a place, is to want to know it.
Our project is called: bloodwork:
Bloodwork is a research project between Karie Liao (Canada) and Clarissa Lim (Malaysia/Hong Kong). It begins with listening; we hope to meet artists, understand their practices, and learn firsthand what artists in Malaysia are making and how they're navigating the contemporary art landscape.
This feeds into a broader inquiry: how can diaspora and transnational communities share tactics of mutual aid and collective practice to resist over-reliance on government funding and build sustainable arts ecologies? As co-curator of the Kamias Triennale, Karie also hopes to explore opportunities between Canada, The Philippines, and Malaysia for future collaboration.
So far, we’ve gone to see Lee Mok Yee, a close collaborator with a dear friend of mine - Okui Lala