Projects + Collaborations
We love working with new collaborators on off-site exhibitions or experimental projects.
If you’re a gallery, curator, or artist who’d like to collaborate, share your ideas with us at hello@thebackroomkl.com
Pencil Exercises (in Penang)
A solo exhibition and book launch by Liew Kwai Fei and cloud projects
Hosted by ChinaHouse, 153 & 155 Beach Street, 183B Victoria Street, George Town, Penang
Over a two-month period in 2021, artist Liew Kwai Fei conducted a series of Drawing Exercises, using pencils (both graphite and coloured) to draw variations on the theme of pencils on graph paper. Through the two deceptively simple elements of a pencil and a grid, Liew explores the limits of gridded form, composing scenes of rebellion, community, and pleasure that are irreverent and profound in equal measure.
The drawings have been collated in a new book titled Pencil Exercises 一只铅笔还是一支铅笔 by local publisher cloud projects. First launched in Kuala Lumpur in 2022, the book received a Penang launch in June 2023 at the upper-floor gallery in ChinaHouse café, George Town. A selection of the original drawings was displayed, along with ten new pencil paintings (titled the “Pencil Workouts” in keeping with the theme of “exercises”) created by Liew in 2023.
Dates: 24 June — 30 July 2023
Nothing Personal
A solo exhibition by Liew Kwai Fei - In collaboration with Rissim Contemporary
Nothing Personal is a collaboration between Rissim Contemporary and The Back Room presenting the 11th solo exhibition by Malaysian artist Liew Kwai Fei. The exhibition features a selection of paintings from the artist’s Gesture. Abstraction. Painting. (“GAP”) series, started in 2019, in which he explores the performance element in painting.
These works can best be understood through the metaphor of the stage. Imagine each of these paintings as a separate stage play, with the canvas serving as the stage and the artist as the director. The cast for this production consists of the basic elements of a painting: its forms, colours, and such. These “actors”, like their stage counterparts, are vessels for the intentions of their artist-director, but they each have a personality of their own that provides interesting resistance to the artist’s will. They play out varied ideas of what constitutes gesture, abstraction, and painting. And just as how a play can leave different impressions on the same audience once the curtains come down, the paintings will leave different impressions on each viewer, who comes with their own unique subjectivity.
The stage metaphor helps viewers to understand the act of painting in a new light, i.e. as an aesthetic performance rather than as a sentimental gesture. As such, the exhibition’s title, “Nothing Personal”, serves as a tongue-in-cheek remark that challenges the interpretation of art as a reflection of the artist’s personal life or emotional state, and the romanticisation of the artist as a tortured genius. The works demonstrate Fei’s playful and relentless questioning of the medium of painting, and the different ways that it can be utilised as a mode of creative expression.
Dates: May 21 - June 13 2022
The Trinket Shop by KodKod
Curated by Kod(kod), The Trinket Shop is presented as part of the Project S.O.P. funded by CENDANA Malaysia. This exhibition explores human-tech relationships by featuring 11 light ‘creatures’ that were born from the collision of art and science, with their characteristics uniquely crafted by makers as young as 7 at ‘Kokidi Kodiki Kod’ lockdown camp. Experimenting with new media methods, these ‘creatures’ are designed to bring lights to the world through the interactions with humans.
The Back Room will be transformed into The Trinket Shop to accommodate these intricate ‘creatures’ that are reaching out to humans. There will be no monetary trade, rather, the space values the interactions between the people and the enchanted objects - it is a place for us to cross connect. With this, the host welcomes people of any kind to enter the shop and explore the stories behind each ‘creature’ through an experiential journey.
KOD(KOD) COLLECTIVE
Chan Hui Sim, Jowin Foo, Lim Nong Hua
Kod(kod) is a Kuala Lumpur based collective that specializes on crafting sensorial experiences and investigating design interactions with a discourse to tame 21st century digital technology so that it can cohabit with the society harmoniously. It comprises three interdisciplinary designers graduated from the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL (alumni of Interactive Architecture Lab), committed to bringing happiness to the society through the lens of media, artscience and technology.
The members of this collective have produced and exhibited works internationally at renowned cultural institutions including the Bartlett School of Architecture, Here East, Ugly Duck Gallery, KLAF, UCL Postdoctoral Studies, UCL Neuroscience Department, Tate Britain Museum and Ars Electronica Festival.
Exhibition dates: 30 April - 2 May 2021
Thank God It’s Monday
I believe in personal projects. Personal projects are self-initiated, curiosity-driven and experimental. They fuel my work and determined the direction of my art career for the past ten years.
Last July, I moved to Kuala Lumpur and set up a team to work with me. I ran an experiment with my team by using Google's “20-percent rule”, using 20 percent of working time to work on passion projects. The team has been taking Mondays off to explore various projects, from sketches to sculptures to paintings to mental health to NFTs. Take time to wander around, play some mahjong, and say hi if you see us.
-Red Hong Yi
Artists: Red Hong Yi, Chee Chung, Annice Lyn, Yu En Sy, WC Yan, Kaiyi Wong and Esmond Sit
Exhibition Dates: 21 - 25 April 2021
*This exhibition is self-funded and self-organised exhibition by the artists and it is part of the 2021 The Back Room Takeover Programme.
FAC3D by Chong Yan Chuah
Initiated by Chong Yan Chuah, FAC3D is a collaborative exploration encompassing the idea of the digital self; one that connects machine learning, digital art, and the written word. The project consists mainly of an interactive exhibition at The Backroom, featuring a fragment of the artist’s latest body of work, accompanied by a printed publication, offering various nuances surrounding the complex relationship between human identity and the virtual realm. This catalogue includes writings and Q&As, contributed by both human and machine writers: Aahan Prakash, Bethany Edgoose, Ellen Lee, jo l, LALUNE, Mikhail Hilmi, Ong Kar Jin, Sebastian Tiew, Lim Sheau Yun, Skylar Ang, and UBERMORGEN (Prof. Hans Bernhard & Prof. Lizvlx).
Through an automated learning process based on datasets, OpenAI technology has developed a certain strength in mirroring human beings down to the intangible aspects that shape them, including creativity, taste, and preference. With this in mind, the artist feels that it is timely to further question the role that these intelligent machines hold, and the place that they occupy the reality that we exist in. As a first step of understanding his standpoint in this discussion, the artist created three digital identities, which were trained using the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT), a learning-based technology that enables auto-generation of text. Each digital identity was fed with a set of literary works, which were picked to match their fictional identities, so as to influence their choices of words and styles of expression.
Through this experimentation however, Chong Yan would like to sit away from presenting any auto-generated artwork as an end result. Intrigued by the idea of a hyper-connected world, whereby the line between physical and virtual realities is blurred, he is rather interested in setting up a situation which allows a conversation between a “real” person and a digital identity. This exhibition therefore highlights one of the three digital identities created—Skylar Ang, and invites viewers to interact with her. Whenever the audience types in a question, Skylar would respond in an almost-natural manner, sampling from selected books by Joseph Campbell, Haruki Murakami, and Italo Calvino, amongst others. Meanwhile, Mikhail Hilmi and Aahan Prakash, two of the artist’s other creations, are accessible on the cloud.
As a digital artist coming from an architectural background, Chong Yan’s work rarely shifts away from the concept of world-building. Leaning on the idea that environment forms identity, prior to the making of the three digital identities, he devoted himself to the creation of the world that they are part of—featured in this exhibition as a one-channel video projection. This fictional universe conveys a somewhat eerie feeling, as 3D human-like figures are distorted, juxtaposed, and placed in an uncanny manner across the space. This piece is, in one way or another, the artist’s portrayal of the unsettling sentiments that he felt from existing under multiple identities—once again challenging his perception towards the coexistence between a physical and a digital self.
Exhibition dates: 27 March - 18 April 2021
Kyphosis, Through a Looking Glass
A project by Chong Yan Chuah
Kyphosis, Through a Looking Glass (2020), a video game installation developed during the recent pandemic. Made in response to the idea of ‘unhappiness’, interprets the notion of isolation through a multilayered context: the worldwide lockdown, as well as the solitary path of an artist. Here, stretched human figures are juxtaposed in the centre of the visual, expressing a certain longing for human touch and interaction, at the same time addressing the perpetual struggle between individual and collective concerns.
Dates: 30 and 31 May 2020
Tearoom
A project by The Picnic and Kent Lee
Tearoom is a collaborative project between The Picnic and Kent Lee. This project intends to provide the audience with an opportunity to be aware of the present moment through the combination of tea and sound. Tea brewed by Aiwei Foo and sound design by Kent Lee.
The Picnic/路邊野餐is an multi-disciplinary studio that integrates art into experience, in hope to offer a different perspective towards life through their artistic articulation expressed through the art of tea, site-specific space curatorial, and provocations that trigger thoughts and senses.
Dates: 29 February and 1 March 2020
Biro Kaji Visual George Town
A solo exhibition by Hoo Fan Chon
Biro Kaji Visual George Town (BKVGT) / Bureau of Visual Studies George Town is a solo exhibition by Hoo Fan Chon. As the name suggests, BKVGT is a visual observation unit that focuses on various visual and cultural practices in George Town. It surveys the municipal’s aesthetic of self-representation, medicinal instant coffee packaging design, how photography was used by female impersonation performers, local Chinese folk belief and informal parking space booking system, sampled from places like mamak stalls, kopitiams, vintage stores, government offices and the streets of George Town. The BKVGT aims to study and understand these symbols as a form of visual communication, to make connections with local socio-historical contexts, and to reimagine alternative artistic interpretations. This on-going visual studies process will be presented in a mixed-media exhibition that features a mixture of paintings, silkscreen prints, relief wood carving, sculpture, photography works, video work along with ancillary programmes.
The exhibition opens on the 14 December 2019 till 7 January 2020. This exhibition is co-produced by Jamie Oon, in collaboration with The Back Room KL and hosted by Narrow Marrow (George Town). Exhibition visual collaterals by Tauras Stalnionis.
Exhibition dates: 14 December 2019 – 7 January 2020
Venue: Narrow Marrow
The 14th Resolution
Screening by Mariana Bisti
Taking cue from Henri Lefebvre's bibliography on the social production and politics of space, alongside Guy Debord's invented term "psychogeography", the 2-channel aerial video essay 'The 14th Resolution', goes beyond the tradition modes of seeing, experiencing and interpreting the city, its history and the spatiality of its politics. Exclusively filmed with a drone, perspectives are twisted and multiplied while new types of visuality arise through a disembodied and remote-controlled gaze, that wishes to challenge the process of observation for a more thorough understanding of our surroundings and, by extension, ourselves.
Date: 9 July 2019