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| Title : | Nadiah Bamadhaj: Surveillance |
| Venue : | Valentine Willie Fine Art 1st Floor, 17, Jalan Telawi 3, Bangsar Baru Kuala Lumpur Opening Hours : Mon - Fri: 12pm - 8pm, Sat: 12pm - 6pm. Closed on Sundays and Public Holidays. URL : http://www.vwfa.net |
| Date & Time : | Sat 16 - Sat 30 Aug 2008 (Mon - Fri: 12noon - 8pm; Sat: 12noon - 6pm. Closed on Sun and Public Holidays) |
| Tickets : | Free Admission |
| Phone : | 03-2284 2348 |
| Email : | info@vwfa.net |
| URL : | http://www.vwfa.net |
| Synopsis : | Nadiah Bamadhaj's art practice is predicated on a lifelong engagement with the political and historical forces that have shaped our cultural identities. This new body of work continues from her previous series that investigates how built environments in Malaysia contribute to the practice and maintenance of state power. She argues that these are not neutral spaces and that they have moulded the population into specific groups, based on religion and ethnicity, so that the population fits into fixed and readily identifiable subjects in the multi-cultural rhetoric commonly understood as our 'national' identity. Adopting the concept of surveillance, Nadiah zones into specific localities, in the guise of a sociologist or anthropologist, mapping the complex racial and religious ideologies that attend our different built environment. Each suburban estate is associated with a symbolic representation of a particular aspect of 'national' identity, shaped by local terrain. Their emergence in Nadiah's drawings inevitably reveal and expose the very structure that has perpetuated their presence in the way ethnicity and religion is understood, discussed and policed in Malaysia, commenting on how this has been subliminally embraced by the population. Whether they are aerial or panoramic surveys of the broad and ever shifting transformation that development has wrought upon the terrain, the strength of her art lies in her insight into a nation grappling with the dark side of its post-colonial modernity and progress. |
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