About the exhibition
Welcome April, the beginning of spring and the blossoming of young things. We are delighted to invite you to the opening of our next show, an exhibition of new photography from a group of emerging, Malaysian contemporary photographers.
With motifs of fleeting youth, the precarity of time, and the abundantly incidental beauty of nature, the photographs in April express a mood of calm, quiet contemplation. All three photographers are established in their respective image-making fields which run parallel to the art world. The work of a professional photographer is busy and there is rarely time to contemplate one’s photos on a human scale, i.e. in a size larger than a phone screen. April presents photography in real life, as something to gaze at rather than scroll past, something you can own rather than merely Like, something that can accompany you through life rather than be drowned among the flood of images that we consume daily.
Our three featured photographers are Alvin Lau, known for his photographs of urban terrains and textures, who has shifted his lens away from concrete and manmade structures to contemplate the precarious fragments of the natural world that bloom secretly within urban surroundings. Amani Azlin is an editorial and fashion photographer who is sharing with us a selection of diaristic photos of her observations while on location and in between scheduled shoots, betraying a more intimate and personal gaze which is at once the core and the reverse of her studied editorial style. Conversely, Nadirah Zakariya, known for her personal meditations on womanhood through self-portraiture and floral still lives, has shifted her lens outward to present tender portraits and landscapes captured during her residency at an artist commune near Mt Fuji, Japan, in 2025.
Exhibition dates:
11 April – 3 May 2026
Opening reception:
Saturday, April 11 from 3pm – 7pm
Enquiries:
hello@thebackroomkl.com
About the artists
Alvin Lau (b. 1994) is a full-time photographer and artist based in Kuala Lumpur. His works are centred around a constant exploration and investigation into life and death, often using his images as a way of condensing or documenting larger ideas and narratives. His work has been exhibited around the world, notably in the Jeonju International Photo Festival, Landskrona Photo Festival, Sentul Biennale: To Our Friends (2025, A+ Works of Art, KL), Swallow & Spit (2023, A+ Works of Art, KL), holes (2023, The Back Room, KL), and we will have been young (2018, ILHAM Gallery, KL). In 2024, he organised his own debut solo exhibition, titled I Want to Go Home, which took place at 293, an artist-run space in Kuala Lumpur. Aside from exhibitions, he was a participant in the SUNYI Artist Residency by the National Gallery of Art (Langkawi), Malaysia, in 2024 and represented Malaysia in the Southeast Asian Masterclass supported by Goethe-Institut Malaysia, Ostkreuz Photographers’ Agency, Berlin and OBSCURA Festival in 2017.
Amani Azlin (b. 1994) is a photographer and director based in Kuala Lumpur. She received her BA in Graphic Media Design from the University of the Arts, London, but pivoted to professional photography soon after graduating, thus embracing her teenage passion. In her commercial work, she has done fashion and editorial shoots for ANAABU, Nelissa Hilman, the United Nations, Grazia, Harper’s Bazaar, and more. In her capacity as a photography artist, she has shown work in group exhibitions around Kuala Lumpur. Notable recent exhibitions include the recollection project: an exercise in learning (2024, HARTA), Realpolitik (2023, CULT Gallery), and Angkat Berat (2021, Tun Perak Co-op). Her work is in the collection of and on display at Momo’s and The Chow Kit hotels in Kuala Lumpur.
Nadirah Zakariya (b. 1984) is a Malaysian photography artist whose work explores themes of place, memory, and intimacy. She graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, in 2010 and is currently based in Kuala Lumpur. She has had solo and group exhibitions in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, New York, London, and Japan; exhibitions of note include FLOWERS: Flora in Contemporary Art and Culture (2025, Saatchi Gallery, London) and Times to Come (2024, DECK, Singapore). Her most ambitious solo show to date was Feeling Feelings Makes Me, Me (2023, temu house, KL), which featured nearly 40 works and offered an expansive reflection on her artistic journey. This exhibition was followed by the multimedia installation Air Mata Air in 2025, which was shown first at The Back Room, KL, before travelling to the Indonesia Contemporary Art & Design (ICAD) 15: Earth Society in Jakarta. That same year, she was an artist-in-residence at the 6okken Artist Residency near Mt. Fuji, Japan. Outside of her artistic practice, Nadirah is an in-demand commercial photographer, producer, and director, the co-founder of Layar Lucida creative studio, and the co-founder of the Exposure+ Photo Festival.
Installation
