I recently completed a residency in Temu House, an event/gallery space located in my hometown, Petaling Jaya, after living in Australia for 29 years. Catching up with friends there, my view on family and belonging expanded beyond blood relations. Collecting memories triggered by this warm sense of connection with my chosen family, my old friends – people that have been a large part of my history in the place.

Working with musician and longtime creative collaborator Ria Soemardjo and Malaysian artist Ching Yong Chuah, we reimagined Temu House as a sanctuary for reconnection. This part 3 creative project grew out of my experience of feeling isolated and disconnected.

We invited people into our artistic processes firsthand, engaging with us in an open studio environment whilst welcoming them to view and interact with the evolving artworks.

ABOUT KUEHLAPIS

KuehLapis is an autobiographical project inspired by the Nyonya ‘kueh lapis’, a layered steamed rice cake which my Chinese-Indonesian por por (grandma) used to make. The kueh reminds me of her as her version was unique – its nine laters were pink and a deep green colour extracted from pandanus leaves. The sweet kueh also takes me back to gatherings and celebrations, with family and close friends in my younger days in Malaysia where the sense of home and belonging felt deep and held.

The project seeded in 2020 at a time when I became progressively aware and struggled with confronting the major changes in my physicality as a woman and a performer and more recently, affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. How do I make sense of what is going on in this middle-aged perimenopausal body that is constantly changing? How do I process this loss/shift of identity?

As a migrant living in Australia, the sense of alone-ness I was feeling was compounded by the lack of opportunity to talk about this inevitable phase of a woman’s life, or find useful information. The project offered a way to find language by exploring my sensory based memory through dance and art making.

KuehLapis is inspired by the layers of the familiar kueh lapis, as a sweet and distant bridge to my roots in Malaysia. Like a child peeling off and eating each layer of the keh, I grapple with this stage of my life, in digestible segments.

The project has gone through 3 creative developments:

PART 1: 2021

Supported by City of Melbourne Arts Grant Program

PART 2: 2021-22

Pivot Residency, supported by Abbotsford Covent Foundation and Creative Victoria’s Creative Project’s Fund

PART 3: 2023

Supported by Temu House Residency (M’sia) and Creative Australia (Australia Council for the Arts) & NECCHi residency