This project was developed from a field trip to Sarawak, Malaysia, undertaken as part of the ephemera: Winston Oh Travelogue exhibition in 2022. Its beginnings trace back to an encounter with a local Bidayuh builder of longhouses who, during our conversations, shared his knowledge of the architectural traditions embedded in these communal dwellings.
The construction of a longhouse begins with a plan that distinguishes bamboo flooring from its wooden structures. Underpinning this building practice is a philosophy oriented toward the reproduction and continuity of community life. Longhouses are inherently extensible: they can be lengthened to accommodate new families, designed with an ethic of inclusion that sustains collective living.
Today, however, the traditional longhouse has become a threatened typology. Many have disappeared, while others are reconstructed in cultural villages, repurposed for tourism. In this process, the architectural form persists, but the lived cultural practices it once sustained are increasingly effaced from the daily life of the community itself.
Appropriating used textiles from a household in Annah Rais Village, I began to recompose them together with fabrics from my own belongings. Guided by the original sketch provided by the Bidayuh builder, I sought to reclaim the principle of community reproduction, once central to the ethos of longhouse life, by piecing together quilted fragments into a larger tapestry. The composition drew inspiration from the sparse linear patterns of bamboo flooring found in his drawing.
The installation was conceived as multi-perspectival. By allowing the piece to recline over a handrail, I disrupted the possibility of a single, fixed vantage point. In doing so, the work resists the traditional subject–object dichotomy and unsettles hierarchical modes of viewing. Rather than offering visual mastery, it draws attention to process: the gestures of stitching, layering, and recomposing that embody an act of solidarity with the local community.
The work thus becomes a conduit for thinking about the dual currents shaping the community today—their aspirations for modernisation, and the simultaneous desire to sustain and prolong local knowledge.
Diary excerpts, 2022
Installation view: used & new textiles, cotton batting, sewing thread, single-channel HD video installation on TV panel, b&w and sound, 2022
Curator: Adeline Kueh. Thanks to Dr. Winston Oh, Adeline Kueh, Hazel Lim, and Ian Woo.
© 2022–2025
