by simonsoon | Apr 15, 2020 | Penang, Malaysia
There is a provocative observation floating around the Internet that “Malaysia is a place where everyone exists in a state of racist harmony.” A less cynical way of putting this is that while daily interactions between different migrant groups are both complex and...
by simonsoon | Jan 16, 2020 | Penang, Malaysia
Okay, I’m not actually mapping grave diggers, nor am I mapping fowl thieves. Granted, I’ve taken huge poetic license in the naming of this map, the title never the less captures something of genealogical uncertainty, ambivalence but also creativity that...
by simonsoon | Aug 10, 2019 | Penang, Malaysia, Photo(s) or Illustration(s), Textual Note
It didn’t take very long to figure out that since joining Site and Space, I already had an inkling that Penang would be a research topic that I am going to focus on for the long haul. Unlike my other two field director colleagues, this is not my area of...
by simonsoon | Jan 8, 2019 | Penang, Malaysia
What are visions but learning how to recognise new visual patterns as one gains the ability to see the natural world through language or mythology? ‘Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.’ – William...
by simonsoon | Sep 2, 2018 | Penang, Malaysia, Photo(s) or Illustration(s), Textual Note
The Penang team 2018 field school kicked off with a series of site-based presentations by its team members. One of the first presentations fell to team member Lawrence Chua, who took us on a walking tour along what is known as the ‘millionaire row’ on...
