ABSTRACT
(Composed from three articles: “Reconstructing Images: Mengkerang as a Method,” originally published in No Man’s Land “Difficulties of Historical / Time (Image): Sarong, Frank, Painter, Jim, Moonlight and Fire and Party” and “Film (Image) and Its Historical Index System”)
This chapter is a collection of fragmented tales, recollecting the mind travelling voyage of my two art projects, namely The Mengkerang Project (2013–2015) and The Kris Project (2016–2020). The Mengkerang Project sheds light on my home country Malaysia, turning the nation-state into a fictitious place called Mengkerang. The work looks into the politics of image, racial identity, Cold War resonances, as well as foreign labours in Malaysia in three parts. The two projects intermingle through various clues. Mengkerang and its protagonists emerged from the first in the series A Day without Sun in Mengkerang (Chapter One). They then merge into the path of The Kris Project. The mind travelling voyage then shifts into the colonised history of Malaya and the involvement of film during the Cold War, particularly during the 1960s, resonating with personal histories and further forms a non-linear history/time narrative full of ruptures and leaking holes. This chapter attempts to embark on a voyage, opened through some thoughts intertwined during the making of The Mengkerang Project, followed by intermingling keywords deeply embedded in The Kris Project, an art project exploring politics of the fluctuating borders within Southeast Asia, as well as the interconnecting resonances of east and west, and north and south.
