Ahmad Syahrul's 'Hibiscus' (2025) is seen at the 'Rasa' Merdeka! exhibition at the Ruang Teduh art space, Exchange 106 in KL. Photo: The Star/Azlina Abdullah
EXHIBITION: 'RASA' MERDEKA!
Venue: Ruang Teduh, Exchange 106, Tun Razak Exchange, Kuala Lumpur
Date: ends Sept 16
Ruang Teduh, a new art gallery in Kuala Lumpur, launches with 'Rasa' Merdeka!, a collaboration between Senimalaya and Galeri Puteh. Featuring 31 Malaysian artists, the exhibition reflects on independence as a living, evolving idea tied to identity, belonging, and national pride.
The artists include Masnoor Ramli, Johan Marjonid, Ahmad Shukri Mohamed, Long Thien Shih, Hamir Soib, Rafiee Ghani, Ramlan Abdullah, Bayu Utomo, Kide Baharudin, Ika Sharom, Azizan Paiman, Husin Othman, Umibaizurah Mahir, Azzaha Ibrahim, Lina Tan, Abdullah Jones, and Suddin Lappo.
Through painting, installation, sculpture, and mixed media, the artists - a mix of newcomers and established names - explore Merdeka in different registers: some through everyday rituals and memory, others by reimagining national icons or questioning inherited narratives. Several works also take a critical look at how freedom and unity are negotiated in today’s Malaysia.
Together, these voices create a layered portrait of the nation - nostalgic yet forward-looking, celebratory yet reflective. Free and open daily, 'Rasa' Merdeka! invites visitors to experience Malaysia’s artistic pulse and engage with curators for deeper insights.
More info here.
Leong’s 'Stilt Houses - The Floating World Of Kampung Baru' (2022) rests on a wooden structure built with traditional tanggam joinery, honouring indigenous craft and the gotong-royong spirit that sustains communities. Photo: Wei-Ling Gallery
EXHIBITION: LEON LEONG'S 'MAKING ROOM'
Venue: Wei-Ling Gallery, Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur
Date: ends Aug 30
Making Room, a solo exhibition by Leon Leong, offers a timely survey of his research-based work and pre-occupations. Spanning his practice from 2017 to the present, the show gathers works shaped by questions of shelter, displacement, and lived space.
At its centre is a skeletal timber structure assembled with "tanggam" joinery, echoing Kampung Baru in KL and its gotong-royong spirit. Within it, miniature dioramas recall family memory and national allegory, drawing from the visual language of Indo-Persian manuscripts.
Ipoh-born Leong’s Stilt Houses - The Floating World Of Kampung Baru (2022) chronicles the area’s history through seven detailed paintings, each with its own story. Shown in Making Room, the series allows viewers to examine its intricacies up close with a magnifying glass.
The exhibition also revisits key works from Cracks In The Wall and AISYALAM: The Tree Nation, projects grounded in long-term site research and dialogue. Together, they explore what kinds of architectures take form when memory and loss meet shifting urban ground.
Open to walk-ins and by appointment, Making Room invites viewers to reflect on the spaces we build, inhabit, and remember.
More info here.
This Saturday, Ilham Gallery closes the first phase of its Skola Gambar Ilham tour with a stop at the Mah Meri community in Pulau Carey, Selangor. Photo: The Star/Muhamad Shahril Rosli
EXHIBITION: 'SKOLA GAMBAR ILHAM' TOUR
Venue: Orang Asli Craft Centre, Kampung Sungai Bumbun, Pulau Carey, Selangor
Date: Aug 23, 10am-5pm
If you're looking for a road trip and a "touring art gallery", this is your weekend pick. This Saturday, Ilham Gallery closes the first phase of its Skola Gambar Ilham mobile art truck tour with a visit to the Orang Asli community in Pulau Carey, home to the Mah Meri people. Designed to take art beyond the gallery walls, the initiative transforms a truck into a mobile exhibition space, making contemporary art accessible to communities outside urban centres.
The exhibition, titled Ceritalah, features works by 12 Malaysian artists: Anisa Abdullah, Ho Mei Kei, Ismail Hashim, Joshua Kane Gomes, Kide Baharudin, Nadirah Zakariya, Padil Osman, Pangrok Sulap, Rafiee Ghani, Sharon Chin, Vincent Leong, and Yau Bee Ling. Together, the works highlight the power of storytelling as a shared cultural thread, bridging diverse artistic practices with everyday lives.
By concluding this first phase of the tour at Pulau Carey, Ilham Gallery reinforces its commitment to outreach and inclusivity. The Mah Meri community, known for their distinctive wood carvings and ritual performances, engaged with the exhibition as part of a wider cultural exchange — one that demonstrates how art can connect traditions, audiences, and perspectives across different contexts.
Skola Gambar Ilham at Pulau Carey will be open between 10am to 5pm (this Saturday), with a series of public programmes planned for art lovers. Free admission.
More info here.
DIALOGUE AND MUSIC: BILIANA VOUTCHKOVA IN CONCERT
Venue: Percussion Store, Kota Damansara, Petaling Jaya
Date: Aug 23, 8pm
In a special edition of the Serious Play Improv Lab (SPIL), the KLEX fest series welcomes Berlin-based composer, violinist, interdisciplinary artist, and curator Biliana Voutchkova - an internationally recognised figure whose work moves fluidly between contemporary composition, free improvisation, and performance art.
Known for her deep engagement with sound and presence, Voutchkova brings to the Percussion Store in Kota Damansara a practice that is both rigorous and adventurous.
At 8pm, the evening begins with an artist’s talk, offering insight into her processes and approaches, followed by a solo concert that showcases her command of the violin as both instrument and sonic laboratory.
The night will culminate in a collaborative improvisation with local guest musicians Siew-Wai Kok (voice), Yii Kah Hoe (dizi/suling), and Yong Yandsen (tenor sax), in a performance shaped by the moment.
This concert event is made possible with the support of the Goethe Institut.
More info here.
THEATRE: 'SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME'
Venue: Pentas 2, KLPac
Date: ends Aug 24
Last chance to catch one of the year’s hottest theatre shows this weekend: Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, directed by Joe Hasham, returns for its third Malaysian staging as part of KLPac’s 20th anniversary highlights.
This masterpiece by one of Ireland’s most respected playwrights, Frank McGuinness, was performed in the West End and then on Broadway for over a year where it was named Best Foreign Play (New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award).
Lebanon-born Hasham revisits this gripping story which last played in KL in January 2011, reuniting the original cast – Charles Donnelly, Kingsley Judd and Gavin Yap.
Set in a windowless cell in Beirut, it follows an Englishman, an Irishman and an American held hostage, cut off from the world and clinging to hope. Inspired by the 1986 abduction of Irishman Brian Keenan, the play sidesteps politics to focus on humour, fantasy and the resilience of the human spirit.
The show is supported by the Embassy of Ireland in Malaysia and the Australian High Commission.
More info here.
The 'Society: WIP' duo exhibition at Tali Art Gallery, featuring Gilang Propagila and Sanan Anuar, channels punk spirit and creative energy. Photo: The Star/Low Lay Phon
EXHIBITION: 'SOCIETY: WORK-IN-PROGRESS'
Venue: Tali Art Gallery, Petaling Jaya
Date: ends Aug 31
After showcasing Sabahan art collective Pangrok Sulap last month, Tali Art Gallery continues its taste for the unconventional with Society: WIP, a duo exhibition featuring Balinese punk artist, illustrator, and zine-maker Gilang Propagila alongside Kuala Lumpur-based artist and printmaker Sanan Anuar.
Rather than keeping things safely within the “white cube,” Society: WIP opens the gallery up as a place for questions and challenges. Gilang’s raw, DIY energy meets Sanan’s detailed printmaking to explore the many sides of society - its rules and customs, its clashing beliefs, its contradictions, and its quiet moments of beauty.
The gallery space, mapped out by wooden partitions, features an exhibition that brings together old furniture, metal grilles, giant tote bags, silkscreen installations, and cassette tapes
Here, society is shown not as something fixed, but as a work in progress - messy, complex, and always changing.
Free admission show.
More info here.
A gallery view of the 'Celebrating Diversity: Consuming Culture, Constructing Identity' group exhibition at G13 Gallery in Petaling Jaya. Photo: The Star/Samuel Ong
EXHIBITION: 'CELEBRATING DIVERSITY: CONSUMING CULTURE, CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY'
Venue: G13 Gallery, Petaling Jaya
Date: ends Aug 30
Nothing brings Malaysians together quite like food. In that same spirit, this exhibition gathers 26 contemporary Malaysian artists working across painting, installation, sculpture, and mixed media - all exploring the theme of food.
From playful takes on nostalgic rituals to works that question inherited beliefs, the show celebrates how food reflects the diversity and harmony of Malaysia’s multicultural society.
Featured artists include Anisa Abdullah, Amy Nazira, Chong Ai Lei, Fawwaz Sukri, Gan Sze Hooi, Gan Tee Sheng, Haziq Syawal, Ho Mei Kei, Izzuddin Basiron, Wong Ming Hao, Yuki Tham, Amar Shahid, Azizan Paiman, Calvin Chua, Gabriel Cheah, Gan Chin Lee, Sack Tin, Lim Yiji, and Lee Sou Ven.
Rather than simply celebrating Malaysia’s culinary heritage, the exhibition explores themes of nationalism, migration, and identity, inviting audiences to reflect on what it means to “come to the table” in a society shaped by cultural exchange.
More info here.
