Lee Mok Yee (B.1988)
Lee Mok Yee (he/him) is a Malaysian visual artist whose work interrogates the role of materials in art-making. Specialising in re-arranging ready-made objects, he challenges conventional functionality and explores the complexities of change and futilities. In 2021, he was a British Council Culture Grants awardee, participated in an online residency with Laura Porter, and co-founded the temporary collective Labour and Weight. He has won the Gold Award at the 2021 UOB Painting of the Year Malaysia and has showcased his work across several countries, including in Germany, France, London, Singapore, and Korea.
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Ryan Naga (B.2000)
Ryan Naga (he/him) is a Malaysian-Chinese artist, educator, and designer living and working in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Ryan runs ‘Homing’, an ongoing data collection project that centres on performative interviews on homes, houses, and feelings of (un)belonging. Having completed most of his practice in Western Australia, Ryan works from the perspective of a young person of colour looking at a space from the outside in – exploring themes of nostalgia, eagerness, language, memory, and ‘home’ as an abstract idea rather than a physical location. The artist constantly questions the boundaries between the ‘home’ and the ‘foreign’, and how these definitions can often intersect and overlap.
Ryan has participated in artist residencies in the Red Earth Arts Festival (2022), Cool Change Contemporary (2022), The Blender Studios (Virtual) (2021), and has run art workshops in the WA Museum Boola Bardup (2023), the State Library of Western Australia (2021), and community high schools in Yandeyarra, WA and Karratha, WA (2022). Ryan was the Visual Arts Coordinator for Pigeonhole Perth’s FLOCK Festival (2022) before returning to Malaysia for his second solo exhibition, ‘Dorm Room Self Portrait’ (2022) at Hin Bus Depot. ‘Homing’ has been run five times in three countries – Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia.
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Mentor: Rajinder Singh (B.1964)
Rajinder Singh is a Malaysian artist-researcher working from his studio in London. Rajinder’s paintings, installations, photography, video and performance works explore ideas around the vulnerable body and its pain, interrogating the economies of power that deny it space and shape. Rajinder graduated with a PhD in Engineering (UK) in 1993 and a Master’s in Fine Arts (Singapore) in 2010. Throughout his career, his works have been commissioned by numerous museums and festivals. He was also shortlisted for both the prestigious Golden Fleece Award and EVA International Biennale 2022. Rajinder is also founder of the contemporary art review magazine Drenched Reviews (www.soaked.space).
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