While Malaysia may have produced highly talented individuals in the creative industry ––– some may lack the funds to pursue their projects to allow them to be showcased on proper platforms.
Krishen Jit Fund supported by ASTRO and Creador Foundation was created in 2006 to commemorate the Dato’ Krishen Jit and is aimed to provide deserving arts practitioners with monetary aid to pursue projects in the Arts. His pioneering work centred around celebrating original Malaysian creativity in varied and alternative ways and in all the areas of the arts.
The Fund has given out RM626,000 over the years to deserving individuals that were carefully handpicked by a Selection Panel. This year, a total of six recipients out of 62 applications received grants.
Taha Long
Having graduated School of Visual Arts, New York with an MPS in Film Directing, the 25-year-old artist now works across filmmaking, photography, and visual arts. His project ‘Tidur Lambak’ is an immersive performance that highlights nostalgic communal sleeping arrangements associated with the Malaysian practice of ‘Balik Kampung’ or the practice of citizens working in other states returning to their hometowns for the festive season. The piece consists of 12 performers of varying ages, races, and gender on single mattresses that form ‘one large nest’.
Deepak Kumaran Menon
Deepak comes from a truly Malaysian background –– he is a third-generation Malaysian Indian, Hindu by birth, raised in a Muslim country, and happily married to a Christian. His writings have won international awards, and his films have been screened in more than two dozen countries and featured in The New York Times.
His project ‘The Diaspora Story: Kalpavriksha’ is an anthology of eight Tamil short films that explore the delightfully chaotic blend of identity, culture, and nationhood by lifting the veil on the Indian diaspora in Malaysia and simultaneously giving a voice to ethnic minorities who are too often marginalised and ignored.
Dylan Yeo Kok Siong
He started performing in 2016 in notable works that include ‘Ola Bola The Musical’ and the musical ‘Fame’. Dylan has since tried his hand at script writing and directing and his musical ‘Lao Wang’ was awarded Mercedes-Benz Malaysia Award for Creative Excellence. The project he is working on is local Chinese traditional puppets, a dying art form and an adaptation of a one-act play by Eugène Ionesco ‘Les Chaises’.
Goh Choon Ean
Choon Ean has channelled her efforts into supporting arts and culture in Malaysia with works like ‘PROJEK BANSAN’ which aims to develop and produce a table-top game that incorporates meaningful content about wet markets as an embodiment of the evolving economic, social, and cultural identity of local communities.
She currently runs the LUMA studio in Penang that provides media and audio-visual support to the arts & culture community and serves as a committee member of Arts-ED, a non-profit organisation that provides innovative community-based arts & culture education to rural and urban communities.
Low Hsin Yin
This type and graphic designer graduated from the Korea National University of Arts in 2011 with a Hangul (the Korean alphabet) typeface design as her final project. She currently works with Hrftype, a Malaysian type design studio and was involved with creating the award-winning Grab Community custom typeface.
For her project, she will be working with a South Korean collaborator to create a book that is an observation of contemporary formal and vernacular signage and outlines the contested history of multilingualism in Malaysia.
Vesant Nair
This film student is an aspiring filmmaker with the objective of making films that reflect the human emotions that we experience in day-to-day life.
‘Goldfish’ is a Tamil language family drama/short film about a boy’s desire for a pet goldfish and the complications he faces once he gets that fish. It aims to convey an understanding of the culture of Malaysian people living in low-cost flats and bring light to the real dialect of the Tamil locals living in that area.
Malaysia is truly home to some brilliant people!
