Angela Goh: A fragile paradise

This year, nine photographers and artists from Malaysia and abroad participated in “Wavelines”, a photographic journey to Perhentian and Redang Islands. Once a temporary anchorage for traders in their journey between Thailand and the Malay archipelago, the islands now serve as resting spots for fishermen and seabirds alike. The journey lasted five days and culminated in a dynamic multimedia artistic expression in the form of still images, poetic verses and video presentations.

Beyond extolling the islands’ beauty, the participants were constantly reminded of the vulnerability and fragility of marine life. They could not help but lament in the same breath how much the islands’ treasure is increasingly depleted as a result of environmentally damaging human development. Human encroachment is the biggest threat to the marine environment not only on Perhentian and Redang Islands but also all over the world.

The collection of images bears testament to a paradise found, and also serves as a reminder that its rich marine resources are under threat from being lost. People must be aware that nature’s loveliness is becoming increasingly intermingled with the spectre of human destruction; for the role of the artist is not only to illustrate and entertain, but also to educate and enlighten.

Ellen Butler: Art on the edges of life

The sea, that vast and seemingly infinite space between sand and sky, indefinable and intangible, represents never-ending time as well as evolution, reproduction, and birth.

Water is central to our life’s journey, and down beneath the ocean surface, you find yourself in the space, depth, and darkness of the underwater world. The individual is isolated and vulnerable, alone in a great big ocean, submerged in a landscape of infinite blue.

Because we are limited to a bottle of oxygen, physicality is an issue: air becomes even more precious, and the precarious nature of being underwater highlights the transient nature of all things. Water creates illusions that make you ask, “what is this?” and everything in the liquid world takes on a surreal quality. Because there is nothing concrete to hold on to, you go deeper into yourself. You are alone, and yet in the spotlight, so obviously human in this otherwise unpeopled place.

Ideas come in waves. They are airborne in the ether; people pick up on them and are unaware that other people are doing the same thing somewhere else. You find that you are exploring a similar territory to another artist and maybe he’s been doing it for years but you had no idea. The nine photographers and two writers participating in “Wavelines” share a common chord; an affinity with water and, in this instance, with the ocean. All of them, in their own way, have pursued the idea of water, and, through water, have reinvented themselves.

Although each participant came away from the experience of “Wavelines” with their individual work of art, it was, in essence a collaboration: between the artists themselves, and the National Art Gallery of Malaysia; and also with the dive masters of the Kembara Dive Center and members of the Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team, who acted not only as “dive buddies” but as underwater partners in a much larger sense. The “Smart” team are men of great physical and emotional strength, trained to handle the disasters that many people would shrink from. But beneath all that, even the strongest men have questions and spiritual needs, which the artist has the ability to address.

Art and the making of it is never a linear experience. All of the artists in “Wavelines” are trained in scuba diving, and each arrived at underwater photography as a result of his or her own circuitous journey. Some are trained in photography, others come from a fine art background, with a deep-rooted attachment to painting. Some are famous for work that focuses on the peoples of the world; others are so entirely at home in water that they elicited the reverence of us all; and the two writers in the group made poetry from their underwater visions. Working together in an undersea world, the artists were unified by the discovery of a form of beauty almost spiritual, and to a certain extent this is reflected in the work.

As the cultural environment around the world changes, the demarcation line between countries and cultures blurs ever more rapidly, and the artist is hungry as ever to communicate and share, reaching out to the furthest corners, listening to the pulse of things, observing and reinterpreting what he or she can see. Now this encompasses previously inaccessible worlds. Artists in Europe are venturing upwards with the Russian astronauts into zero gravity, while participants of “Wavelines” are going deep under the ocean surface. In this project, these artists pushed themselves and their work to other levels, reaching towards a world imbued with silence and peace, entirely separate from the earthbound one of our everyday lives.

Mano Maniam: Poem

Isn’t it curiosity to blame
Why we trespass into realms
Beyond our senses,
Into our responsibilities?

Say no more, my friend
This IS the age of Aquarius!

Perhentian! Oh Perhentian
Sea, sand, sky.
And the sea again.
Always.

Teeming, teeming, teeming
With pulsating
Vibrating
Magicalising
Intoxicating
Seducing…

Shapes and hues and designs
Blow the mind,
Tweak the heart,
And speak to the soul.

Diving for the first time, Like innocence lost,
Leaves me panting,

Swept away in a wondrous Realm of the senses, where,
I find myself in all my nakedness:
Sure of only two things –
Getting thoroughly wet, and,
Wanting more!

The mind reels at the reef; By reeling, revealing,
Whereby retrieving
From the deep in ourselves
The essence:

That Beauty is Life,
And, Life is Beauty.

Isn’t that all we need to know?

If there is a God
She lives under the sea.

For only she knows why