ShrineShare Bios
Artists: Amze Emmons, Arif Rafhan, Bethany Balan, Betti Stong, David Blandy, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Daniel Locke, Hardeep Pandhal, Jamie Oon Muxian, Jesse Joy, John Powell-Jones, Nadhir Nor, Petra Szemán, Ruangtup Kaeokamechun, Rupa Subramaniam & Shaifuddin Mamat @ Poodien
Curators: David Blandy, Sharon Chin & Zedeck Siew
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*Amze Emmons
1. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in the small town of Middleburgh, New York, USA. I now live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
2. List FIVE items that represent your daily routine (a typical day)
A sketchbook, a pencil, a cup of coffee, an apron, and a kitchen knife.
3. How would you describe your identity to someone you would like to be friendly with?
I am a curious, attentive person, broadly interested in too many things, with the mischievous sense of humor that marks me as a younger sibling. I’m also an artist and teacher, both vocations which daily remind me that I have so much more to learn. All of which has broadly informed my own self-awareness as a white, cis-guy from America.
4. How would you describe the kind of creative work that you do?
I make work that often sits at the intersection of drawing and printmaking. These result in images exploring the politics of architecture & material culture. I also produce events and situations that foster temporary communities organized around the exchange and distribution of multiples. I collaborate whenever possible, this often results in experimental publications. Basically, my creative work is an assembly of side projects.
5. What are you most inspired by at the moment?
Thinking about games and play. Wondering how to make art from the waste stream. Thinking about the changing climate. Researching models of self-organized communities.
www.amzeemmons.com
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Arif Rafhan
1. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in Ipoh, but am living in Selangor currently.
2. List FIVE items that represent your daily routine (a typical day)
Logistics for my children's school, a brisk walking with my wife, work in between, jamming with my children, dinner together.
3. How would you describe your identity to someone you would like to be friendly with?
Funny, when I'm comfortable.
4. How would you describe the kind of creative work that you do?
I create visual art as a communication means, via comics, murals, and illustrations.
5. What are you most inspired by at the moment?
My children.
www.instagram.com/arifrafhan
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*Bethany Balan
1. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia. Currently I split my time between Singapore and Kuching.
2. List FIVE items that represent your daily routine (a typical day)
Coffee, earphones, laptop, phone, melatonin.
3. How would you describe your identity to someone you would like to be friendly with?
My identity is complicated :) and I have written many poems about it.
4. How would you describe the kind of creative work that you do?
I like to work with my hands. I make jewelry, zines, clothes, and visual art pieces, usually for art exhibitions. But I also write and perform poetry.
5. What are you most inspired by at the moment?
My heritage, and rediscovering it. And the process of creating, the making of art itself, instead of the end product.
www.bethanybalan.carrd.co
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Betti Stong
1. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in Butterworth, Penang, Malaysia. Now I live in Kulim, Kedah.
2. List FIVE items that represent your daily routine (a typical day)
Stylus, Progynova, Prozac, essential oils and hair comb.
3. How would you describe your identity to someone you would like to be friendly with?
I'm a male to female transgender person. My transition journey makes me a bit sensitive especially on misgendering. I am spiritually connected with the sea.
4. How would you describe the kind of creative work that you do?
I paint of course, but recently I'm exploring cottage core prop-making, you know, like elixir bottles and other types of decor.
5. What are you most inspired by at the moment?
Kinda hard to answer, but I guess it's when I’ve finally made peace with myself and accepted who I am truly.
www.instagram.com/komradbetti
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*David Blandy
David Blandy (1976, UK, Lives & works in Brighton) makes work that slips between performance and video, digital and analogue, investigating the stories and cultural forces that inform and influence our lives. Collaboration is central to his practice, examining communal and personal heritage and interdependence.
With research spanning multiple forms of archive, from fandoms to the archive of the body, historic texts to academic libraries, archaeology and ecological theory, twitch streams and film archives, Blandy weaves poetic works that explore the complexities of the contemporary subject.
He is represented by Seventeen Gallery, London, his films are distributed by LUX, London.
www.davidblandy.co.uk
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*Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley is an artist living and working in Berlin.
I create work that seeks to archive black trans experience. I use technology to imagine our lives in environments that centre our bodies...
Those living, those that have passed and those that have been forgotten
You think you came here to enjoy some art
You are mistaken
This is about you
How you feel is the medium i am working with
You may feel uncomfortable
You may feel represented
But you wont feel forgotten
www.daniellebrathwaiteshirley.com
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*Daniel Locke
Daniel Locke is an artist and graphic novelist based in Brighton, UK. Since 2013, much of his work has been informed and shaped by the discoveries of contemporary science. His work ranges between commissions for commercial bodies and socially engaged organisations, such as universities and charities, alongside personal work and residencies.
He has collaborated with a wide range of researchers and artists on a diverse series of projects, including Scribner, Bloomsbury, Nobrow, The Nib, Arts Council England, The Wellcome Trust, NHS, and The National Trust.
www.daniellocke.com
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*Hardeep Pandhal
Hardeep Pandhal, a British artist, works predominantly with drawing and voice to transform feelings of disinheritance and disaffection into generative spaces that bolster interdependence and self-belief. Applying practices of associative thinking, his wide-ranging practice exhibits syncretic strains of post-brown weirdness. Across media, his works are imbued with acerbity and playful complexity; at once confrontational and reflective.
His work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including, most recently: The New Art Gallery Walsall (2023); British Art Show 9, Manchester, Wolverhampton, Aberdeen (2021-22); Goldsmiths Centre of Contemporary Art (2020); Tramway, Glasgow (2020); New Art Exchange, Nottingham (2019); Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2019); South London Gallery, London (2018); New Museum, New York (2018); Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham (2018); Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2017); Modern Art Oxford, Oxford (2016).
Pandhal’s work is part of a number of prestigious public collections, including Arts Council Collection, UK; British Council Collection, UK; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow.
He was shortlisted for the Jarman Award (2018) and selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2013).
www.lux.org.uk/artist/hardeep-pandhal
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*Jamie Oon Muxian
1. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I’m born in Penang, Malaysia and still live in Penang.
2. List FIVE items that represent your daily routine (a typical day)
Coffee, motorbike, phone, keys, contact lens.
3. How would you describe your identity to someone you would like to be friendly with?
I hope to be balanced in my viewpoints. I like sharing my struggles and passion and energy. I don’t remember names and words well, I remember emotions and stories. I hope to have a real connection.
4. How would you describe the kind of creative work that you do?
I co-run a cafe. Besides curating and making everything from music playlist to menu and recipes, we also host small exhibitions and music events. I dabble with macrame and painting, drawing a little.
5. What are you most inspired by at the moment?
I’m exploring the possibilities in my own character growth, also to express my learnings through different mediums.
www.instagram.com/jamie_muxian
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*Jesse Joy
1. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia and currently living in Kuala Lumpur.
2. List FIVE items that represent your daily routine (a typical day)
Books, Beads, Food, Walks and Sleep
3. How would you describe your identity to someone you would like to be friendly with?
Like a faceted gemstone, I have many sides. I am usually reserved but I can be somewhat
unhinged. Haha!
4. How would you describe the kind of creative work that you do?
I do embroidery work and sometimes I draw. Although my sketches kept going missing. I write
and I sell books. I look forward to opening a cute studio bookshop.
5. What are you most inspired by at the moment?
Books, Beads and Borneo. Cultural topics shared online and the people who practice them. And
sun hats. Lots and lots of sun hats.
www.instagram.com/seorangjesse
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*John Powell-Jones
John Powell-Jones’ practice deals with themes of perception, power structures and personal reality, an ongoing exploration into how the warped western view on progress and success can act to inform our perception of morality.
These ideas are explored through the use of speculative fiction and presented across various mediums including, video, performance, animation and comic books. Taking inspiration from his love of RPGs, body and survival horror, European folklore and science fiction (specifically the sub-genre of cyberpunk).
Powell-Jones' aim is to form a dialogue between our present and an imagined dystopian future in which the horrors of capitalism and neo-liberal ideology are presented as cyborgs and demons.
www.johnpowell-jones.co.uk
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*Nadhir Nor
1. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Now I stay in Selangor.
2. List FIVE items that represent your daily routine (a typical day)
Coffee, cigarettes ( :c ), video games, banters and stolen kisses
3. How would you describe your identity to someone you would like to be friendly with?
Indoorsy, quite shy but I am also a huge admirer of many different things and I’m
more than happy to nerd out on those with you.
4. How would you describe the kind of creative work that you do?
My work revolves around queer subjects, mythology and culture, with a focus on comics and illustrations.
5. What are you most inspired by at the moment?
Elden Ring.
www.nadhirnor.com
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*Petra Szemán
Petra Szemán is a moving image artist whose practice focuses on the murky borderlands along the arbitrary separation of the real and the fictional. Using a virtual version of themself as a protagonist journeying through animatic realms, they explore liminal spaces and threshold situations, looking to dissect the ways our memories and selves are constructed within a fictionally oversaturated landscape (both on- and off-screen).
Turning away from considering cyberspace as a radically ‘other’ realm, Petra walks the line between dystopian and utopian frameworks, eyes set on new queer horizons. They’re based between NE England and Ibaraki, Japan.
www.petraszeman.com
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*Ruangtup Kaeokamechun
1. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in Khao Lhuang which means the great mountains. The landscape is tropical rainforest and located in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, South Thailand. However, I currently live in the highlands of Northeastern Thailand. For some reason, I am far away from my great mountains and I miss them badly.
2. List FIVE items that represent your daily routine (a typical day)
Birdbath, kitten, stove, flowers, washable sanitary napkins
3. How would you describe your identity to someone you would like to be friendly with?
I am an ordinary person, but I'm a very sensitive person. I will be happy with you when you are happy. I will grieve with you if you suffer. I'm that type of person. Other people or other creatures often ask me to listen to them when they have problems or secrets. And I'm that kind of person too.
4. How would you describe the kind of creative work that you do?
I draw plants from my memory and my feelings of faith in the nature that surrounds me.
5. What are you most inspired by at the moment?
I found that I have a lot of details to share with everyone. Especially when I make this art. I miss my ancestors and the homeland I came from. Even though I miss everything I've left behind, I've found peace in my heart when I transform those feelings through my art. Now, everyone knows what is sacred to me.
www.instagram.com/hinghoynoy
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*Rupa Subramaniam
1. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I now live in Batu Caves.
2. List FIVE items that represent your daily routine (a typical day)
Water bottle. Incense. Cutting board. Journal. Baju Kelawar.
3. How would you describe your identity to someone you would like to be friendly with?
Someone who's actively practicing the art of slowing down and tuning within. May make noises when happy and stimulated.
4. How would you describe the kind of creative work that you do?
I'm experimenting with digital space as a white box on www.skinandsoul.art. Writing about the brown skin body and lived experience seems to be natural output. I dance too.
5. What are you most inspired by at the moment?
Slowness. How slow can I move? Taking the path of least resistance.
www.skinandsoul.art
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*Shaifuddin Mamat @ Poodien
1. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in Tumpat, Kelantan, Malaysia and now live in Kuala Lumpur
2. List FIVE items that represent your daily routine (a typical day)
Listening to music, reading - books and online, drawing, cycling and doom scrolling :P
3. How would you describe your identity to someone you would like to be friendly with?
I’m a quiet person, introvert but likes to listen to people’s stories and interested to learn stuff and work on some good causes together.
4. How would you describe the kind of creative work that you do?
I try not to be specific to disciplines in visual art, I still want to try various methods and techniques so it depends on the type of project. But now I prefer to do home/studio based work such as drawing.
5. What are you most inspired by at the moment?
Gardening!
www.instagram.com/poodien
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CURATORS BIOS
*David Blandy - see bio above
www.davidblandy.co.uk
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*Sharon Chin
1. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia. Now I live in Zedeck’s childhood home in Port Dickson, by the sea.
2. List FIVE items that represent your daily routine (a typical day)
Dispense cat kibble, meditate with monks and nuns of Plum Village on their Youtube channel, drink coffee Zedeck made, battle the oil refinery next door, care for house and garden.
3. How would you describe your identity to someone you would like to be friendly with?
A monitor lizard with a missing arm (Zedeck spotted her limping resolutely along in the garden), a bintangor seed washed up on a foreign shore, a sea snail nestled in a gnarled root… always coming home.
4. How would you describe the kind of creative work that you do?
I’ve done alot of stuff: sculpture, installation, performance, production design, big participatory projects. When I moved to Port Dickson, I found people primarily associated artists with drawing or painting. So I learned to draw! These days I’m occupied with printmaking as it combines artistry, technical craft, distributive media and community building.
5. What are you most inspired by at the moment?
Being with the land - be it in the garden or wandering amongst the mangroves along the coast of Port Dickson.
www.sharonchin.com
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*Zedeck Siew
1. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
Grew up in Port Dickson, Malaysia, a small seaside town I spent my teens longing to escape. I moved back to Port Dickson when I was nearly 30, longing for a true home.
2. List FIVE items that represent your daily routine (a typical day)
French press, desktop computer, book balanced on flush-toilet cistern, bicycle, hair tie.
3. How would you describe your identity to someone you would like to be friendly with?
I am a cis man of Chinese descent. I do not speak Chinese, and struggle with my Chinese identity. I also struggle a bit with ideas of masculinity. Chinese-Malaysian dudes like me weren’t raised with many tools for self-reflection.
4. How would you describe the kind of creative work that you do?
Fiction, translation, game design. In the last few years I have been writing for indie tabletop roleplaying games—most notably the adventures Lorn Song of the Bachelor; Spy in the House of Eth; and Reach of the Roach God.
5. What are you most inspired by at the moment?
Honestly: tabletop roleplaying games. After years struggling with a direction, art-wise, I think I have finally found home.
www.zedecksiew.tumblr.com
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