For BASKL's first Artscursion, we brought participants to Sabah Art Gallery, a art tour around town, and a cooking session featuring Ambuyat!
By CHIN JIAN WEI
September marks BASKL’s first Artscursion event! Artscursion was created as an extension of our function as BASKL, an arts and culture platform for the people. Instead of just telling people about the arts, we thought that we should try to bring people out to experience the arts directly. Artscursion was envisioned as a curated event blending arts and exploration, diving into the cultural landscapes of each state to provide our participants with a free and interactive journey through local culture. For this momentous occasion, we partnered with our sister organisation RIUH, coinciding with RIUH BAH! in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, their latest RIUH festival.
We wanted to deliver an authentic Kota Kinabalu arts experience, so we turned to the locals. For day one, we organised a trip to the Sabah Art Gallery and engaged Jennifer Linggi to host and be our guide at the museum.
At the time, the gallery was exhibiting a retrospective tribute to the late Datuk Mohd. Yaman Hj. Ahmad Mus. He was an extremely important figure in Sabah’s visual arts history. Responsible for many designs for the state government’s official logos and insignias, he also designed government and ceremonial uniforms, and even the state flag and crest. It is no overstatement to call him the father of Sabah’s official visual identity.
He was also a tireless worker, creating art and design day in and day out. Other than his official work, he was particularly fond of geometrical optical illusions, and the upper floor of the museum was dedicated to showing his extensive works on that mind-bending theme.
After that, we met up with visual artist Jared Abdul Rahman for a city walk, to explore the various graffiti sites in town. Jared served as our tour guide, explaining the history of not just graffiti in Kota Kinabalu, but also the spirit and purpose behind graffiti as a subjective art form. Jared offered us much food for thought, with his interesting perspectives on graffiti art’s origins as rebellion, and how the changing times have in turn changed the art form.
On the second day, we paid a visit to Lenny Marlini’s premises, formerly known as D’Soka Restaurant, where she and her mother, Halimah, run a business conducting cooking sessions for visitors. For that authentic Sabahan flavour, our cooking class featured none other than Ambuyat, alongside several other savoury dishes. For those unfamiliar, it is a glutinous, starchy dish made out of sago, dipped in sauce using some chopsticks and then swallowed.
All the cooking was carried out by the participants under the watchful eyes of Lenny and Halimah, from chopping up and blending the vegetables to cooking the sauces. At the end, we all sat down for a delicious and hearty meal, enjoying the end result of our own hard work.
With that, day 2 of the Artscursion ended and we dropped the participants back off at the RIUH premises to enjoy the rest of their evening. All in all, it was an enjoyable first Artscursion for BASKL. Here’s hoping for many more successful outings to come!
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