Features
Best known as @earthtodorcas, Tan Wen Yu is an architecture student by day, and social media activist by night. She uses Instagram as a platform to discuss issues such as sustainability and racism through art.
When it was first staged in 1992, ‘Anak Melayu’ (Malay Child) was deemed controversial for its graphic language and sexually suggestive content. Almost three decades later, it is being revived and will be read live online for Teater Ekamatra’s Baca Skrip: #_ series. AKAR caught up with playwright Noor Effendy Ibrahim for his reflections on the “anak melayu” today.
Baca Skrip: #_ is a series of online script-reading sessions of Malay plays written by four prolific Singaporean Malay playwrights. AKAR spoke to Baca Skrip: #_ producer Fezhah Maznan on her experience producing for a virtual audience for the first time.
Kicking off Teater Ekamatra’s Baca Skrip: #_ series was a trilogy of plays titled Hantaran Buat Mangsa Lupa (Offerings for the Victims of Amnesia) written by Irfan Kasban. Each of the plays is inspired by a significant historical event that led to the establishment of Islam.
We gathered book recommendations from literary experts, book bloggers, librarians, and booksellers to accompany you through your stay-home days.
Seven years ago, Vijay started a Facebook group of outdoor enthusiasts who would spend their weekends going on treks and nature hikes around Singapore. Slowly, the group expanded as they trekked further north to mountains Malaysia. Driven by this enthusiasm and his own love for the outdoors, he founded SG Trek, Singapore’s leading outdoor adventure platform specialising in adventure sports and nature treks. Since then, he has quit his day job as an engineer and has been helping people reach their dream summits around Southeast Asia.
“Bangsa” Melayu in everyday usage can carry various meanings such as the Malay “community”, “race” or “nation”. Meanwhile, academic discussions of the concept of Bangsa points to the discourse of Malay nationalism, and in some cases, the issue of “Malayness”.
Her passion for keeping traditional stories alive has taken her on extraordinary journeys into the jungles of Malaysia and villages of India. Director of MoonShadow Stories and Creative Producer of StoryFest: International Storytelling Festival Singapore, Kamini Ramachandran, shares with us her storytelling inspiration and how the art of listening is at the heart of community.
This interview first appeared in AKAR Vol 01 Foundations.
In painting, I am required to find the delicate balance between control and trust. This is especially true in my current exploration of watercolour landscapes, where expressing a gentle subject matter requires a gentle handling of the medium. I draw much of my inspiration from nature. It is subtle in its presence and patient in waiting to be noticed, a far cry from the jarring world of machines and advertisements that distracts us as a society today.