Arts collectives are not new in Malaysia. Established names like Five Arts Center (F.A.C), Artis Pro Activ (APA) etc are among a handful of local collectives that have made their mark when it comes to pushing numerous boundaries that hampers the growth of Malaysian independent and alternative arts.

The last few years have seen a healthy mushrooming of new arts collectives around the Klang Valley. Independently run by young, idealistic and committed groups of individuals, arts collectives like Akshen, Rumah Air Panas, Spacekraft, Space Spirit Studio, Experimental Musicians & artists’ co-op Malaysia, Doxob, Think-republic, Reactive etc. were established to tackle very specific issues relevant both to their practices and their generation. Issues range from the construction/ exploration of new contemporary Malaysian identity, the lack of alternative spaces for liberal (both political and personal) expression, empowerment, awareness, to collaboration and opportunities as full time arts practitioners in Malaysia today.

Space Spirit Studio or S3, which was founded about 3 years ago, is committed to bringing art and architecture together in ways that would affect our thinking and living. Core members of Space Spirit Studio are Caecar Chong and Philip Leong. Other prominent volunteer members include Jimmy Wong, Warren teh, Kit Hoe, Khoo Chin Koi, Choy Wee Heng all of whom are graduates of architecture except for Kong Yew Heng, who is a photographer.

Caecar, the head honcho of S3, believes that there is currently a spiritual vacuum in architecture due to an unbalanced development in the relationship between architecture and art in Malaysia. Caecar, an architecture graduate from Curtin University of Australia, and who also lectures part time on interior architecture at a local college in Kajang, feels that “the architect has somehow lost his or her human and artistic touch in his or her involvement during the act of 'building'” .

When architects abandon the use of traditional media while designing and visualizing at the most elementary stage, they subjugate abstract concepts with oppressively precise mechanical tools made possible by computers and machines. This unhealthy reliance is due to cost effectiveness and efficient consistency for mass reproducibility. This practice extinguishes the discovery of the personal and particular in the creator when in the act of creating. No longer concerned with giving life to personal worldviews through more fluid and freer means, the architect becomes a faceless worker, whose creative labor now operates under the dictates of market demands or whims of uninformed clients.

The outcome is evident almost everywhere in the Klang Valley. Houses either look like mass produced products found in supermarket shelves or like chimera-like experiments, with fragments stitched together from different periods of Western architecture history that serve no practical purpose other than a sad excuse for 'good' taste or 'high culturedness'. As Caecar sadly points out “It is architecture reduced to being about creating a façade”.

Drawing from diverse sources such as Zen to post modernist ideas in architecture, Caecar and S3 hold the view that “living spaces should not only provide basic facilities built in accordance with consideration of their surrounding and environment (a kampung house is a good example), it should also incorporate elements that contribute to a harmonious development of its inhabitants’ psychological and spiritual well being”.

Cold, hard surfaces are incompatible with the fluid and volatile passions that drive the human soul. A point that Caecar and S3 wish to convey through their activities as “architecture should be about the art of living; a philosophy which takes into consideration the individual and his or her activities within the environment in which they live and operate”.

Among the projects that S3 has initiated and collaborated, a few notable ones include 'Post card architecture #1 and #2 (2001), the Chow Kit Fest (2002) and ‘Illusions’ (2001)

Post card architecture was a photography exhibition of spaces and buildings 'captured' when some of its members visited famous architectural sites in numerous countries around the world. Its objectives were to bring awareness of the dynamics of space to the public by presenting parts of buildings and structures from angles that best express their characteristics and identity.

Chow kit Fest (2002), a multi arts event put together by many different collectives in K.L with sponsorship from Artis Pro Activ, was a platform for S3 to “explore and comment on the textures of everyday realities taken for granted in Chow Kit Road”. (A socially and economically depressed area in the heart of metropolitan K.L.)

'Illusions' was the first collaborative effort undertaken with director Ling Tang. In this experimental performance, S3 designed the stage and structures for the entrance that led audiences coming for the show directly onto the stage, placing them in the spotlight, exposing them as 'actors' instead. This reversal of roles between performers and audience somehow prompts one to question the masks we don and the 'characters' we assume within situations and contexts in which we unwittingly find ourselves.

Lastly, S3 feels that the government can do more to encourage and promote the arts to the public, the Singapore government's policy on the arts is a good example to go by this point. An arts council to support arts projects and events and the Singapore Esplanade, which showcases both 'high and low' arts to attract and educate the public, is a very good model for Malaysia to emulate. Individuals too need to develop the curiosity of finding out what ‘art’ is and personally explore how its function can benefit them in their daily lives.

Space Spirit Studio is located at No.1, Jln Sin Chew Kee, 50150 K.L. For further inquiries, contact 03 21489420 or email Caecar24@hotmail.com.

Seihon is a non-governmental individual who writes these articles with the intent of introducing, documenting and promoting the concept of art collectives. For inquiries contact: 012 2850931