In the 1990s, I was in my twenties and returned home to Malaysia after five years of studying in the US. Soon after I arrived, I realised with alarm that I had somehow forgotten where I ‘came from’.
This loss of identity was because I had completely adopted another way of life during my time overseas. To overcome this cultural and identity shock, I intuitively began photographing the local, ritual dance-oriented choreographed dramas around Kuala Lumpur and further afield in Sarawak and Sabah.
I worked with exceptional dancers from companies such as the legendary Sutra Dance Company and the Five Arts Centre. The particularity of Malaysia’s performance art scene is its cross-cultural and experimental nature; most choreographers, dancers and actors had Chinese, Indian, Malay, Arab and European ancestry. This multifaceted approach to the arts perfectly fit my self-search as I had difficulty fusing my American and Malaysian identities. Malaysia, in her multi-cultural complexity, allowed me to accept my unique identity and develop my photographic writing, which I only realised much later.
Thanks to precious moments observing these fabulous eclectic dancers, I gradually began to ‘choreograph’ intuitive body movements and gestures into my portraits.
My fieldwork, accompanied by my 8×10 inch camera, has led me to scrutinise female communities and their dress codes as performative apparel in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Indonesia, China and Sardinia.
This exhibition represents a three-decade-long project.
