Reduced to One: How 'no idea' Stole the Show

  No Idea has been on quite a journey. It all started back in 2012 with my photo performance, Sign of Times @ Copenhagen. Teaming up with photographer Maher Khatib, we roamed Copenhagen on Maher's car for a day, holding up signs and asking passersby, “What pops into your mind when I say the word ‘No?’”

The responses were as varied as the people themselves—some funny, some thought-provoking, and some downright puzzling. Somewhere in that mix, No Idea was born—a phrase so simple, yet so full of possibilities.

Fast forward to 2022, during my residency at Fyns Grafiske Værksted / Funen Printmaking Studio in Odense. No Idea resurfaced as part of a text-based series silkscreened onto pages of an old Danish atlas. The combination of familiar phrases and intricate maps created a playful tension, inviting viewers to find connections between language and geography.

When it came time to exhibit the works at Kapallorek Artspace for my solo show In Between Worlds, nine pieces from the series made the initial cut. They were arranged on the wall, and the process of figuring out their placement became a project in itself. Enter Akmal Sabran, the ever-patient technician, and Anna Cuomo, the curator, who suggested mounting the works on boards to give them a cleaner, more polished look.

And then came the magic moment. Akmal placed No Idea right in the center of the wall. Anna and I looked at each other—both amused and intrigued. It just worked. Suddenly, it felt like the rest of the series was unnecessary. No Idea stood there, holding its own, commanding attention. Less is more, they say—and in this case, it couldn’t have been truer.

What started as nine works became one. Reduced to a single piece, the series transformed into a statement about simplicity, focus, and perhaps the power of a well-placed idea. It was as if No Idea was winking at us, saying, “I’ve got this.”

This unexpected twist got me thinking about how I might approach exhibiting the full series in the future. For now, though, I’m enjoying how No Idea managed to steal the show—proving that sometimes, the best ideas come from no idea at all.

 

Tong Tana @ KL Biennale

I recently participated in KL Biennale with the work called Tong Tana. This work is in collaboration with sound artist Kamal Sabran who did the sound for Tong Tana. KL Biennale is taken place at the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur from 1 Nov 2017 - 31 March 2018.

Below is the description about the artwork:-

Tong Tana

Within the theme, five categorization applies socio-cultural practices in which I will approach the environmental shifts of deforestation and urbanisation of the Malaysian Indigenous people The Orang Asli and The Penan.

Tong Tana means ’in the forest’. It is a word taken from the Penan, a group of nomadic  people that live in the rainforest in Sarawak Borneo. The Penan are some of the last people remaining as hunters and gatherers, and they are noted for their practice of 'molong' which means ’never taking more than necessary’.

This practice is quite the opposite from the system in the world most people are living in today. The dominating world economic is generated by consumerism, blamed for growing inequality and wasteful use of resources.

As an interdisciplinary artist that have migrated to Denmark and lived here for the past 15 years. My work has been shaped and inspired by my new environment and cultural conditions which explores themes such as identity, migration, movement and displacement. The expression of longing is also shaped by the feeling of belonging and not-belonging to two different countries, Malaysia and Denmark.

The indigenous people have been the subject of debate in Malaysia and the international human rights arena. The rights of several indigenous groups, such as the Penan, have been neglected as they continue struggle for land rights. They  have a strong affinity to the land they live on and their environment is essential for their social and cultural conditions and survival as a cultural entity. The Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia continue to suffer day to day violations of their social, economic and cultural rights although Court decisions have acknowledged, that the orang asli have a form of native title to customary land.
At the same time the environmental shift due to deforestation, industrial logging, large-scale commercial oil palm plantations , road construction and large dams  which have  contributed to  forest degradation. These activities have created hardship to the indigenous people as a result of diminished resources.

This artwork for the Kuala Lumpur Biennale reflects a longing towards the country where I was born and grew up. The installation attempts to capture a sense of memory in relation to history, diminishing cultures and a new way of life. Tong Tana examines conflict, displacement, marginalization and urban progress with regards to the indigenous people of Malaysia through site visits to homes of the indigenous people in Malaysia and through the mass media.

An artist abroad

Living and working in Denmark now, Amir was back to visit his old haunts in KL for a few months. But not content to sit and do nothing, he started work on an installation called Art, Politics and Power at the National Art Gallery, represented by a wall filled by makeshift flags, mostly created from bits of newspapers and satay skewers.
Sporting the mandatory Bohemian ponytail, Amir comes across as a fairly likeable person - always grinning, with a youthful, early 20s look and attitude that belies his 42 years, his sparse frame clad in a brand new white T-shirt.
"I get kicked and I get a kick out of it! I can be me, that's the closest thing I get to being myself, being honest to what I'm doing," says Amir, explaining his reasons for becoming an artist.
(to read more please click the headlines, tq)