Led by esteemed artist Yee I-Lann and her collaborators, Borneo Heart in Kuala Lumpur reaches a crescendo with the release of two new books by the exhibition’s headliner, titled The Sun Will Rise in the East and At the Table, respectively. The artist lets Augustman in on the epic story behind her latest feat.
To the majority, a mat is just a mat, but to the intellectual artist Yee I-Lann, renowned for her profound examination of power, colonialism and the impact of historical memories on contemporary culture and society in Southeast Asia through her work, the hand-woven mat, along with the market, is a source of inspiration that spawned her latest tour de force Borneo Heart, an epic cross-country art fest co-organised by Beverly Yong of RogueArt that debuted in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, in 2021, and has since travelled to Kuala Lumpur, presenting works made in collaboration with weavers, film-makers, dancers, other fellow creative producers and friends.
It all started back in 2017, when I-Lann moved back to Kota Kinabalu after 25 years in Kuala Lumpur. Following a trip to the countryside market, what was meant to be a short break quickly became an eye-opening, three-year-long journey of exploring the mat, working with two communities of weavers – Dusun and Murut weavers in the inland district of Keningau and Bajau Laut weavers in Pulau Omadal, Semporna, peoples of “tanah” (land) and “air” (water) respectively, with very different traditions employing different materials (bamboo pus and pandanus), motifs and styles. A conversation has since ensued between I-Lann’s stories and ideas, artistic vision and process and the skills, knowledge, stories and experiences of her collaborators, leading to innovations in weaving, local creative economy, and the artist’s own practice.
“Indigenous concepts found through the Tamu, the Tikar, and the complex thinking within our linguistic forms, have been utterly triggering for me, and I hope they trigger you too. I hope our KL audiences ‘boleh rasa’ the incredible journeys and joy my collaborators and I have experienced these past five years learning and playing together.”
More than just an art exhibition, Borneo Heart is a mammoth celebration of the cultures, knowledge and communities of the indigenous peoples of Sabah, to whom I-Lann’s recent practice is heavily indebted. Borneo Heart turns on two concepts: the tikar (woven mat) as a collective platform for community, storytelling and ritual, and the tamu (weekly market) as a meeting place for the exchange of goods, stories and ideas. It celebrates the possibility of creating new spaces, aesthetic languages and shared ideas through conversation and collaboration.
By pulling together communities and culture from both sides of the country and sharing the “mat” with six different venues across Klang Valley, namely The Zhongshan Building, The Back Room, A+ Works of Art, The Godown, ILHAM Gallery and Rumah Lukis, Borneo Heart in Kuala Lumpur also serves as a perfect celebration of the 60th anniversary of the formation of Malaysia with an emphasis on the vital roles of Sabah and Sarawak.
Borneo Heart KL Ushers In 60th Malaysia Day With TAMU TANAH & AIR Arts & Cultural Market
In July 2023, the festivities culminated in the launch of two new books titled Yee I-Lann: The Sun Will Rise in the East and Yee I-Lann: At the Table. A 216-page monograph tracing the arc of I-Lann’s artistic practice through a sequence of essays and conversations, and photographic documentation of works made from 2011 to 2023, The Sun Will Rise in the East traverses different geographies and maps, unfolding lines of thinking, bringing us along on an adventure across languages and philosophies for living in the world. The book comes with essays and interviews by Yee I-Lann, Ray Langenbach, Pauline Fan, Nalini Mohabir, Eriko Kimura, Lucy Davis and Beverly Yong, also featuring conversations with Noraidah Jabarah, Roziah Binti Jalalid, Siat Yanau, Lili Naming, Shahrizan Bin Juin and Julitah Kulinting, and 112 pages of colour images. Featuring essays and conversations only, At the Table comprises 80 pages with illustrations in black and white.
In celebration of the epic feat of Yee I-Lann & Collaborators and the launch of her latest books, Augustman brings you the following one-on-one interview with the esteemed artist:
It all started when I moved back home from KL to Kota Kinabalu. I was quite ill at the time and needed to take a break from the chaos of city life. I love KL, my Klang Valley, but by around 2016 and 2017, the years leading up to the historic general election of 2018, everything had become too toxic for me; everything was political, everyone was bitching. Nasty was the language of the day and I found myself being nasty, judgemental and ungenerous. I realised then I needed to get out of this and hence escaped to my mother’s home and her organic, homegrown veggie patch. I had a couple of years to detox and recalibrate and that was when I connected with the weavers and rediscovered the market.
As I was going about my daily life with my family, I revisited the local marketplace and started remembering the mats, the baskets, these woven things, and what they all meant as a geographic site, where the hill people would meet the river people, and the land people would meet the sea people, bringing along with them their different products to trade with one another. If you were to slow down, take a moment and try to really understand the marketplace as a meeting place, you will find that, more than just a place of trade, it is also a place for socialising, for gossip. It’s about getting to know each other. The more you unpack, the more you realise it’s a place of exchange of ideas, technologies, information, customs, etc. It becomes a perfect place for discovery.
Witnessing some of the goings-on in the market triggered memories of my grandmother who used to weave. When I asked my father what medium she used to weave with, he said it was a type of reed called Bundusan (Lepironia articulata). To me, Bundusan is the name of a highway; I didn’t even know it was a reed until then. This led me on a journey in search of the plant and someone with the knowledge and tools to make use of the plant for weaving. I couldn’t find the plant in the end. This was compounded by the extinction of the Bornean rhinoceros on our watch. It then dawned on me that we were losing more than just our animals and plants, but also our philosophies, values, mediums, storytelling, knowledge and language in the process of change. What if we forget a story, don’t even know what we’re missing, or worse, what we’ve already lost? That feeling of not knowing what I was losing was really strong.
I had just finished a series called Picturing Power, which was very much looking at the table as a symbol of colonial power. The word “meja” comes from the Portuguese and Spanish word for table “mesa.” And before the colonial period, we didn’t have tables; everyone sat on the mat. The table in my artwork for over 10 years now has been about power. We’ve been indoctrinated to be at the table; women must be at the table. We’ve espoused the power of the table, but then, I started to realise, what about the power of the mat?
This exploration was such a journey and the more I went down that rabbit hole, the more it unpacked and brought with it stories, communities, philosophies. One thing led to another and then I started thinking about circular economies that are based on restorative and regenerative principles, not extractive. Whatever economic system you choose should fundamentally serve to nurture, promote growth, encourage regrowth, ensure the sustainable use of resources and spawn new and meaningful enterprises. This spurred me to put more thought on the economic impact of art and re-examine our role as artists in our respective communities and as conduits for incredible, creative energy and storytelling – the way art can be presented and find its audiences. So, all of those things were sort of brewing and fermenting.
We’re getting whacked with the climate crisis as we speak, begging the question of how prepared are we to face the great trauma coming our way? How do we start to prepare ourselves in this climate crisis, which is only getting worse? So, to me, a big part of dealing with climate crisis lies in the hands of communities – how communities can self-organise, how they might pivot, how they might shift with the environment. But all this needs to also take into account the wealth of our culture and heritage and its relationship with the environment. Culture is a part of your armoury of essential tools for finding the way forward.
During the pandemic, for instance, many of us struggled with the questions of how to cope with working from home and living in a small, confined space for prolonged periods of time, and what we needed to learn and change to make ourselves more self-sufficient and sustainable in terms of livelihood, well-being and social connection/belonging. As it has turned out, many turned to life skills and a more circular way of life, from growing, baking and making your own food, to sharing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing resources. It’s these lessons that I don’t want us to forget. Now, more than ever, society need to put more focus on shifting to a circular, restorative, regenerative economy that addresses the needs of your neighbours and loved ones, to be more caring and inclusive as opposed to extracting. Rather than just taking, we should be building together. These are core principles that I’m pivoting towards, and Borneo Heart reveals some of that change in our mindset, our history of ideas, our knowledge pool.
Economic systems play a really big part and the market as a meeting place holds great power. My grandmother, a Kadazan who used to grow rice, would go to the market and meet the sea people to buy salt. And the sea people would be there selling their salt and, at the same time, looking for rice. So, you go to a market for someone who is not you. You need diversity and our country is rich in diversity, full of individuals looking for the other; the other being the other race, the other religion, the other sexuality, the other whatever. You need the other. When you make those bridges, you become so much richer and healthier as a person. There are all kinds of cultural, political, demographic exchanges happening through trade and ideas. Just look at how musical instruments influence one another and develop over time.
It’s not just a Bornean thing. It’s here, too – the many, many ethnic groups of the Peninsular who have been sidelined or overlooked; the diversity between the Temuan and the Minangkabau, the Bugis and the Orang Laut, etc. Cultural homogenisation is causing us to lose the nuances of distinction and the nuances in storytelling. Borneo Heart keeps going back to storytelling and ideas that come from the ground, not just for the sake of memory, but also as an opportunity to look for inspiration for the way forward. When a whole language goes extinct, likewise the philosophy, history and values associated with it. If we look at it through a contemporary lens rather than a nostalgic one, the lens of something super contemporary, like absolutely cutting-edge, you will realise that this is, in fact, the avant-garde.
I’m a fangirl, and I want to introduce you to these amazing people and their amazing projects and stories, to experience what I’ve experienced so we can all fangirl together. When you introduce two people to each other, something is bound to spark.
On top of that, this is the 60th anniversary of the formation of Malaysia and yet, what events have you seen advertised so far? So that’s another motivation and an open invitation for you to celebrate with us. it’s a celebration of what happens when we all get together and celebrate each other. That’s what it is.
Sabah and Sarawak make up 61% of Malaysia’s total landmass whereas the Peninsular make up 39%. Our map is constantly manipulated to make Semanjung look larger while Sabah and Sarawak smaller. Semanjung and Sarawak are in fact very close in size. The distance for you to drive from Johor to Kedah is the same from Batang Ai all the way up to the Bruneian borders. That’s how big Sarawak is. Our entire federal annual budget of RM5 billion for each state in Borneo is equal to the price of just one building in KL, and yet our land is the size of the Peninsular’s entire geography. When you start to see the scale, you start to understand. Moreover, two-thirds of this country’s wealth comes from Borneo – two-thirds of the oil, two-thirds of the gas.
At present, KKIA (Kota Kinabalu International Airport) is the second busiest airport in Malaysia. China and Hong Kong are nearer to KK than to KL. Indonesia has announced plans of relocating its capital from Jakarta to Nusantara, next door to us. Just imagine the loss you will see on the west side of Malaysia. There’s this assumption that KL is the centre of power, but what happens when Borneo becomes the gateway to the Pacific, to Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, even Vietnam, and the Philippines, which is just straight across the water? Taiwan is just next door to the Philippines, with Japan just a short flight north. There’s a whole other geography that is not in the Semanjung frame of reference.
What I love most is that each venue is like a mat, with its own charm and distinctive group of followers, coming together from different locations and backgrounds – before you know it, it’s the market again! I’m so glad about the offshoot. More than that, as a result of the venues’ different locations and strong personalities, you get to explore the geography of Kuala Lumpur in different directions, whether you go from The Zhongshan Building and its peculiar commune of creative people, to the sleek and industrial environment of A+, to the warehouse-turned-(Boom Boom Room)-turned-art space of The Godown between Bukit Nanas and the Klang and Gombak Rivers, the origin of Kuala Lumpur, to Rumah Lukis in the heartland of the Ampang, Gombak and Melawati areas, all the way to the more formal yet child-friendly gallery of Ilham. And you kind of get a sense of the richly diverse art community of Klang Valley in the combination of these different audiences, art practitioners and patrons, both young and old, new and regular.
The books are epic. It’s almost like talking about my life for the last 13 years. They are about my journey together with Beverly Yong (RogueArt) as curator and editor, and our friendship. As an artist, I journey a lot, not alone, but with a lot of people. It’s very much an exploration of ideas, both historic ideas, where ideas come from, and that which has triggered a lot of the art making art motivations, why I do what I do. It’s a lot of work. It’s linguistics, words, ideas, questions and interviews. For example, do you ever talk about the history of Southeast Asian ideas? What is our conceptual thinking? What are some of the things that have developed across time in terms of our thinking about society, about power? About women, feminism? Journeys we take and meeting people who are looking for the other.
There are two groups of weavers – the colourful works are by the Bajau Laut community from the Omadal Island; the monochromatic bamboo works are by the Keningau community of the Interior Division of Sabah. There’s also video work made in collaboration with the urban creatives. There were essentially three communities of people who let me in on the way they work. The inland bamboo people, the Dusun and the Murut, are at the epicentre of craft production. We discussed a lot about what we can do new and created new, innovative motifs. The sea people taught me to weave intricate patterns that captured the spirit of community and heritage. And then the urban creatives are about expression with the funkiest video work. For me, it’s about finding a balance between my newfound rural knowledge, my indigenous background and contemporary, urban life.
