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One of the main objectives of Krishen’s pioneering work was celebrating original Malaysian creativity in as varied and alternative ways as possible in all the areas of the arts.
His ground-breaking theatre practice straddled and brought together a wide range of contrasting spheres, producing projects that were inter-disciplinary, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and experimental. Negotiating between academia and practice, tradition and contemporary pop culture, Hollywood and Bollywood, the mainstream and the marginalized, Krishen’s work articulated a Malaysian identity that was ever evolving and encouraged practitioners and audiences to reflect on their lives and societies.
This is the spirit of the Krishen Jit Fund. The Krishen Jit Fund, works as an extension of this spirit to encourage and support creative work in Malaysia.
The announcement of the Fund took place on 28 April 2006 at Utih…Celebrating Krishen. This was a commemorative event on the first anniversary of his death. The Fund was launched by Astro at this event.
The Fund is now supported by ASTRO and CREADOR FOUNDATION. The Selection Panel for 2020 was:
- YBhg Tan Sri Datuk Norliza Rofli – Former Director General, National Department for Culture and Arts, Ministry of Tourism, Arts, and Culture, Malaysia.
- Salehhuddin Bin Md Salleh – Deputy Director General (Policy & Planning), National Department for Culture and Arts, Ministry of Tourism, Arts, and Culture, Malaysia.
- Jolyn Gasper – Snr. AVP Corporate Responsibility, Communications, ASTRO.
- Leow Puay Tin – School of Arts, Sunway University.
- Shobana Sivanendran – Creador Foundation.
- Ravi Navaratnam – Five Arts Centre.The Fund is administrated and managed by Five Arts Centre. In 2020, the allocation of RM33,000 was to be distributed into grants ranging from RM1,000 to RM20,000 each, for training, workshops, attachments or residencies, experimental productions, writing, or creating new work in music, dance, theatre, writing, visual or performance art.This year the Krishen Jit Fund received 75 applications for projects in dance, theatre, film, video, publication, visual arts, music, education, training, research, and interdisciplinary work.Five Arts Centre
27 & 27A, Lorong Datuk Sulaiman 7, Taman Tun Dr. Ismail, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia tel / fax: 603-7725 4858 email: [email protected] www.fiveartscentre.org
2020 GRANTEES
CATRIONA MADDOCKS
The Grant: RM10,000
The Project: Contemporary Indigenous Woven Art, utilising QR codes andcurated digital libraries.
The project aims to work with rural artisans to create woven mats decorated with QR codes that utilise traditional patterns. Through the use of a QR code reader, the audience is directed to a digital library containing curated information – videos, photos and audio made by the indigenous makers themselves.
Catriona Maddocks is a creative director, artist and researcher based in Sarawak, East Malaysia. Her cross-disciplinary work focuses on collaborative platform building, and developing spaces in which to explore identity, community narratives and cultural heritage within a contemporary context. Through the lens of a long-term foreign resident of Malaysia, of non-South East Asian descent, she seeks to encourage dialogue and exploration of tangible and intangible heritage and enable crossovers and interactions between rural indigenous practices and urban creative expression. Catriona is the co-founder of social enterprise Catama, and creative platform Borneo Bengkel, through which she produces, curates, and facilitates content and creative residency programmes for pan-Bornean practitioners.
Contact: Catriona Maddocks – [email protected] / www.catamaborneo.com
The Project: Standard Operation Procedure (S.O.P)
Standard Operation Procedure (S.O.P) is an experimental performance that explores the relationship with the newly adopted S.O.P as a common ritual to counter the pandemic and the cultural dichotomies around it. The production seeks to imagine the possible reality where S.O.P. is developed into a superstition ritual/talisman, believed only by minorities, as a sacred practice to ensure prosperity and protection.
Jowin Foo is a graduate from The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, alumni of Interactive Architecture Lab. He has been actively engaging in discourse that deals with the intersections between tech colonisation, human cognition, and architecture, since 2018. His thesis on Hyperstition, titled The Egress where he explored the issue of cognitive decay was presented in Tate Britain IALab Symposium and staged a standalone exhibition in Here East, London. The work was later published and archived on Architecture Foundation, UK. Recently, he started Kodkod, a collective with Lim Nong Hua and Chan Hui Sim that focuses on sensorial design, design interactions, and design fiction.
JOWIN FOO
The Grant: RM8,000
Contact: Jowin Foo – [email protected] / www.kodkod.world
The Music of Inner Land is a series of graphic, non-fiction stories about the music of people of the interior (orang ulu) the Kerabit people in Malaysia. Combining illustration, comics and journalism, the stories explore the relation between music, nature, and culture.
She enjoys using images to tell stories and uses picture books to tell stories.
llustrated picture books include “Anak Murid yang Memakai Kain Cawat” and “I Belong to the Forest”, among others.
LEONG YOKE MEE
The Grant: RM8,000
The Project: The Music of Inner Land
Leong Yoke Mee (Ammi) is an artist, illustrator and art teacher. She holds three different Diplomas: in Teachers and Trainers, Fine Art, and Technology-Building. She has participated in a number of exhibitions since 2000. She finds inspiration in creating artworks from daily experience and belief. Art has taught her to appreciate the beauty of creation, nature, and the diversity of cultures.
She has won awards; Honourable mention for the Philip Morris Art Awards (2000) & Best Student Award Fine Art Section, Kuala Lumpur College of Art (2001).
The Project: A Clay Stop Motion Animation Short Film
This is a clay stop motion short film. In a world of clay people society, a husband and wife are fighting another family of thieves, who are breaking into their house. They are all finding a way to survive. It is a film about survival and hope. Born in a family of ceramic making in Malaysia, Aw See Wee studied filmmaking in National Taiwan University of Arts. His film works mostly focus on human relationships as well as social phenomena. Besides directing, See Wee is also involved in cinematography and sound designing.
AW SEE WEE
The Grant: RM7,000
Canada, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland, Finland, UAE, and the United Kingdom.
Since it was formed in 1984, by theatre directors Chin San Sooi and Krishen Jit, and dancer- choreographer Marion D’Cruz, Five Arts Centre has been committed to articulating the complexity of Malaysian culture and identity through explorations and fusions of local vocabularies, forms, and traditions, in relation to the global, modern, and cross-cultural. As such, it has been instrumental in the growth of a Malaysian identity in the arts, that draws from multiple influences and hybrid histories.
For over three decades, Five Arts Centre has been at the forefront of creating experimental, interdisciplinary, and intercultural work, providing platforms for the next generation of arts practitioners. Contemporary social, political, and cultural issues impinging on Malaysian life are precipitated by way of performances, exhibitions, creative seminars, and research workshops.
From 2004 to 2006, Five Arts Centre was the manager of Arts Network Asia, a regional organisationsupportingartsworkinAsia. In2006,ASTROandFiveArtsCentrelaunchedthe Krishen Jit ASTRO Fund to support artistic work by Malaysians and others committed to the development of the arts in Malaysia. This Fund is now called the Krishen Jit Fund, supported by Astro and Creador Foundation. At the 12th Boh Cameronian Arts Awards in 2015, Five Arts Centre was awarded the inaugural “Most Inspiring Award”. In 2016, Five Arts Centre was awarded the “Praemium Imperiale Grant for Young Artists” from The Japan Art Association.
Today, the collective consists 14 individuals from diverse generations and disciplines. They are Anne James, Chee Sek Thim, Chew Kin Wah, Fahmi Fadzil, Ivy N. Josiah, Janet Pillai, June Tan, Kubhaer T. Jethwani, Lee Ren Xin, Mac Chan, Marion D’Cruz, Mark Teh, Ravi Navaratnam, and Suhaila Merican.
ABOUT ASTRO MALAYSIA HOLDINGS BERHAD
Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad (Astro) is Malaysia’s leading content and consumer company, serving 5.7 million or 75% of Malaysian households across our TV, radio, digital and commerce platforms.
As a trusted brand, Astro keeps Malaysians entertained and informed with a variety of vernacular, international and live sports content; engaging with 24 million individuals. In 2019, we elevated customer viewing experience by launching the Ultra Box, our latest 4K Ultra High
Definition Set-top box with Cloud Recording, and introduced content-broadband bundles to cater to customers’ needs. Our streaming service, Astro GO, allows its 1.4 million monthly active users to access their preferred content anytime, anywhere across multiple devices.
Astro Radio houses Malaysia’s highest-rated radio brands across all key languages, available on terrestrial with 16.9 million weekly listeners and on digital with 3.5 million monthly digital radio users. Our multilingual entertainment and lifestyle app, SYOK offers access to all our radio brands, as well as podcasts and original videos. Our digital brands host 12.7 million digital monthly unique visitors while Go Shop, our home shopping and commerce business engages with 2.6 million shoppers.
As the leading movie producer in Malaysia, Astro is committed to raising the standard of local films with blockbusters such as Hantu Kak Limah, BoBoiBoy Movie 2, Paskal, Polis Evo 2 and award-winning The Garden of Evening Mists. In FY20, Astro Shaw garnered 50% share of the local box office sales.
Astro was voted by consumers as Malaysia’s Brand of the Year and Platinum winner in Media Network category, and was inducted into the Putra Hall of Fame for its 10th consecutive win at the Putra Brand Awards 2019. Our foundation, Yayasan Astro Kasih advocates long-term impactful endeavours guided by its key pillars of lifelong learning, community development, sports, and environment. ___________________________________________________________________________
ABOUT CREADOR FOUNDATION
Creador Foundation believes in empowering local communities so they can take ownership of their lives and be their own primary agents for change. The Foundation’s starting point is to draw on the expertise of its parent company, Creador, to help non-profit organisations in arts and culture, and education specifically in the areas of business and financial literacy. Under arts and culture, Creador Foundation supports the Krishen Jit Fund and the KL Performing Arts Centre. Within the education pillar, Creador Foundation has recently developed a free financial literacy platform for Malaysians, Multiply (multiply.org.my), that covers a broad range of personal finance topics in a fun, interactive manner – from saving, to investing, to managing debt. ___________________________________________________________________________
