Among Malaysian artists working in the mode of participatory art, Sharon Chin has garnered much admiration for her thoughtful, socially-engaged artworks. Recently, she unveiled
In the Skin of a Tiger: Monument to What We Want (Tugu Kita) at the 2019 Singapore Biennale, a massive installation artwork made of recycled cloth from partisan flags stitched with messages and drawings from participants in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. A few years back, during the 2013 Singapore Biennale, she had also produced Mandi Bunga, a collaborative piece involving over a hundred participants joining her in a Bersih-yellow flower bath on the lawn of the National Gallery of Singapore. Most recently, she launched a web-based project, titled
Letters to What We Want, inviting her friends to contribute letters to their deepest desires, “in 2021 and beyond” (although this is not explicitly presented as an artwork; just a fun project with a few friends).
Then, there is Roslisham Ismail a.k.a. Ise, whose practice extensively featured engagement with the public. For instance, in 2018, he hosted a by-raffle-only Kelantanese feast at ILHAM Gallery that brought the public together over a shared appreciation of food, a medium understood more easily than art. In the realm of participatory art in Malaysia, engagement with the public has been relatively stress-free and uncontroversial, with participants being asked to perform simple gestures or provide input on a simple matter. In contrast, Wong Hoy Cheong’s
Tapestry of Justice (1998–2004), a collection of over a thousand fingerprints from friends and acquaintances supporting the repeal of the Internal Security Act (ISA), represents an overt political position from participants, like an artistic petition.
These are only a limited number of examples of participatory artworks and projects in Malaysian art history. Unmentioned are public art, street art, or interactive art, all of which mean subtly different things but which nonetheless are defined by their consideration for the
public: the “Mak Cik Kiah”s and “Pak Salleh”s, the average labourers, the businessmen, the housewives, the gig workers, the migrant workers, the Malaysians who are not initiated into the “art world” and in whose lives art is of the lowest possible priority.