Making Room

‘Making Room’ marks the first solo presentation of Ipoh-born artist Leon Leong at Wei-Ling Gallery. Over the past decade, Leong has developed a research-driven practice shaped by sustained engagement with informal architecture, displacement, and spatial memory. This exhibition brings together works from 2017 to the present, including new pieces, offering insight into his patient and iterative approach to place.

At the main gallery space, the installation houses the miniature works within a skeletal framework that bears the imprint of time. It recalls the timber dwellings once common in Kampung Baru, Kuala Lumpur. Raised on slender legs and joined using “tanggam” carpentry, the structure honours indigenous craftsmanship and gestures toward gotong-royong, the ethic of shared labour that continues to sustain local communities. The suite of miniatures draws on the visual traditions of Indo-Persian illuminated manuscripts, compressing familial, and political narratives into layered compositions that remain deliberately open-ended.

The exhibition also includes works from ‘Cracks in the Wall’ and ‘AISYALAM: The Tree Nation’, shaped through on-site engagement and shared conversations. In these pieces, Leong registers a clear concern for the conditions in which shelter is negotiated, as communities respond to eviction, neglect, and changing urban landscapes.

To “make room” is not to clear space. It is to acknowledge what endures. Habitation leaves behind dust, punctures, stains, joinery, and repairs, the marks of ongoing life. In this, it reflects the structures it references, always in the process of becoming.

‘Making Room’ is featured at Wei-Ling Gallery and Wei-Ling Contemporary from 2 – 30 August 2025. Wei-Ling Gallery is located at No 8, Jalan Scott, Brickfields, 50470 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Admission hours are Tuesday – Friday 10am – 6pm, Saturday 10am – 5pm. Exhibition is open by appointment only. For appointments and further assistance, please contact +60322601106 or e-mail siewboon@weiling-gallery.com

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Leon Leong (b. 1971) is a Malaysian artist and author. His work typically addresses man’s interaction with the built environment and explores the broader themes of people, place, and history. It combines social critique and creative storytelling, weaving fact and fiction, documentation and memory into narratives. Leon has had solos at Richard Koh Fine Art and Cult Gallery, and a number of group shows in Malaysia.

His work ‘Stilt Houses—The Floating World of Kampung Baru’ (2022) was shown at Ilham Gallery’s Triennial Ilham Art Show 2022, and then at the IX Tashkent International Biennale of Contemporary Art, where it received a special jury prize. His mixed-medium installation series ‘Cracks in the Wall’ (2018) was shown at the inaugural Kuala Lumpur Biennale and featured in the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage 20/20 Forum.

Leon’s novel, ‘Beautiful Things’ (2006), published by Crown Publishing Taiwan and serialized in Sin Chew Daily, was a top five finalist for the Crown World Fiction Prize. His short stories have won international accolades and included in an anthology of Malaysian fiction. In 1992, he got a Bachelor of Science in Communication from The University of Texas at Austin in the United States.