In the space Rongen has curated over two decades, ceramic shards from the Wan Li shipwreck are arranged like relics. Some have been made into jewellery and others set onto small sculptural pieces. The rest remain untouched, displayed just as they were when they were lifted off the seabed.
From the home or hospital where death is certified, the mosque where prayers are led, to the burial ground and the gravestone where names are carved into, each pair of hands carries the deceased a little further along their final journey.
Spearheaded by Arts-ED, a Penang-based arts and education non-profit, this participatory mapping project places local voices at the centre of heritage documentation—literally putting them on the map.
One can only imagine the lonely path Siti Zuraina Abdul Majid has travelled as Malaysia’s first archaeologist, and one with considerable academic gravitas under her belt. A returning graduate from the UK, she was only 24 years old when she excavated her first site in the late 1960s.
An Honorary Consul-General of Pakistan in Penang since 2007, Abdul Rafique Karim attends to the needs of the Pakistani community who reside in Penang. He himself is a fourth-generation naturalised Malaysian of Pakistani descent from Punjab.
Ooi Kee Beng, a prolific writer and academic, continues to shape discourse through Penang Monthly, Penang Institute, and his regular column in The Edge.
EARLIER THIS YEAR, MBPP Councillor Tan Soo Siang and Penang EXCO Jason H’ng echoed the 2016 call by Lim Guan Eng to ban foreigners from cooking 13 local dishes in Penang—Nasi Lemak, Assam Laksa, Pasembur, Mee Sotong, Char Koay Teow,