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Draft:Nadiah Bamadhaj

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Nadiah Bamadhaj

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Nadiah Bamadhaj (b. 1968) is an artist born in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, and currently residing in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.[1] She is a prolific artist with expansive artistic practices, a lecturer in fine art, a writer who writes about human rights in Indonesia and Malaysia,[2] created artworks focusing on both Malaysia and Indonesian histories and politics[1] and worked in non-governmental organisations working among the HIV-positive.[3]

Her works have deeply engaged with various sociopolitical histories, more specifically focusing on Malaysia and Indonesia's nationalist social and forgotten histories,[1] as well as gender and identities in relation to an idealised Malayness.[3]

She was also the recipient of various prestigious grants, such as the Nippon Foundation's Asian Public Intellectual Fellowship from 2002-2004.[1]

Background and education

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Nadiah Bamadhaj was born in Petaling Jaya, West Malaysia in 1968.[1]

She received her art education at The Center For Advanced Design (CENFAD), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.[4] After finishing art school, Bamadhaj worked with HIV-positive sex workers, cross-dressers and transgenders, before returning to fine art practice.[3] She is currently a board member of a HIV/AIDS homeless shelter in Yogyakarta, called Yayasan Kebaya.[2]

She also has family history based in Singapore, where one of her video artworks, Not Talking to a Brick Wall (2005) was layered with historical photographs of her ancestral family home, located in Geylang, Singapore.[5]

Bamadhaj received numerous grants for her works, such as the Nippon Foundations's Asian Public Intellectual Fellowship (2002-2004), the Indonesian Directorate General of Cultural (2022) as well as from the Arts Council of New Zealand (2022).[2]

Artistic Practice and Artworks

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While trained as a sculptor in New Zealand's Canterbury School of Fine Arts, Bamadhaj's expansive artistic practice also includes drawings, site-specific installations, digital media and print artworks,[2]  as well as creating collaged drawings of a specific technique developed through the years.[6] While better recognised for her charcoal and collage drawings, some of her recent new works have also incorporated collage with fabric.[7]

Bamadhaj's earlier works focused on, and interrogated some of Southeast Asian countries histories and politics, of which Malaysia and Indonesia have been her continued focus and interest. Her exhibition,1965: Membina Semulah Monumennya (Rebuilding Its Monuments, 2001) at Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, looked to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in the context of 'Cold War' and 'communists' in how separate events in these countries in 1965 were nevertheless entangled, as each event impacted and influenced the others and how existing monuments commemorating some such events perpetuated old myths and continued to inflict damage.[8]

enamlima sekarang (2003) took up the historical event and subject of the Gerakan 30 September (G30S, or the 30 September movement) in Indonesia. Through the Malay word, sekarang (now) in the artwork's title, Bamadhaj sought to address questions such as the mystery surrounding an 'aborted coup', the incomprehensible violence that nevertheless happened after the aborted coup, and how did the masses turn to massacre.[9]

Her collaborative exhibition with Malaysian political activist, Tian Chua, titled 147 Tahun Merdeka (2005) was a creation of an imagined future of Malaysia through digital manipulations of one of Malaysia's iconic public monuments dedicated to the May 13 1969 massacre, suggesting the need and possibilities for multiple reconciliatory strategies to address the multiplicity of traumas.[10]

Bamadhaj's subsequent artworks focused on power dynamics of the body and land, gender, Malay identities which were often idealised, as well as important issues of social justice.[3] The Island focused on the built environment, specifically then-planned new administrative city and capital, Putrajaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammad,[3] while simultaneously interrogating cultural notions surrounding the songkok, a Malay ceremonial costume traditionally worn in formal government events and presentation ceremonies, as well as a symbol of Malay male authority.[3]

Her other series of artworks, Taman Impian Jaya and Landlocked composed of topographical maps featuring suburban estates juxtaposed with Bamadhaj's self-portrait, suggesting identity's fixities onto physical locations and the various ideologies of such sites,[11] while simultaneously bringing up aspects of the idealised docile female and suburban dream life of modern Malaysians respectively.[3]

Her current artworks look to Indonesian society and its intricacies of life, expressed through the use of flora and fauna, figures, mythologies, architecture and batik motifs.[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Bamadhaj, Nadiah (2012). Nadiah Bamadhaj: Keserangaman. Richard Koh Fine Art.
  2. ^ a b c d "Sharjah Biennial: Sharjah Art Foundation". www.sharjahart.org. Retrieved 2025-03-15.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Fan, Laura (December 2009). "The Resisting Body: Figurative Painting as a Means to Register Social Protest in Malaysian Art". 미술이론과 현장 (The Journal of Art Theory & Practice). 8: 181–210. ISSN 1738-1789.
  4. ^ Nur Hanim Khairuddin, Rachel Ng, Beverly Yong (2012). "Some Ideas on How to Discuss Art Education in Malaysia: A Conversation". In Beverly Yong, Nur Hanim Khairuddin, Rahel Joseph and Tengku Sabri Ibrahim (ed.). Narratives in Malaysian Art Volume 3: Infrastructures. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: RogueArt. ISBN 978-967-10011-1-0. OCLC 926702654.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ Marc Gloede (2020). "The Films for 'Incomplete Urbanism': Dreaming of a Void to Come". In Bauer, Ute Meta; Ong, Khim; Nelson, Roger (eds.). The impossibility of mapping (urban Asia). Singapore: NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore : World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-12-1192-8.
  6. ^ a b Richard Koh Fine Art (2021). The Inconsistencies of Success. A+ Works of Art.
  7. ^ Sundaram Tagore Galleries (2025). Disobedient Bodies: Reclaiming Her.
  8. ^ Angela Hijjas (2012). "Nadiah Bamadhaj, 1965: Rebuilding its Monuments". In Nur Hanim Khairuddin, Beverly Yong, with T.K. Sabapathy (ed.). Narratives in Malaysian Art Volume 2: Reactions-New Critical Strategies. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: RogueArt. ISBN 978-967-10011-1-0. OCLC 926702654.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  9. ^ Yap, June (2016). Retrospective: a historiographical aesthetic in contemporary Singapore and Malaysia. Strategic Info Research Development. Petaling Jaya, Malaysia: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre. ISBN 978-967-0960-40-1.
  10. ^ Mark Teh (2012). "An-Other May 13: An Ongoing History of Artistic Responses". In Nur Hanim Khairuddin, Beverly Yong, with T.K. Sabapathy (ed.). Narratives in Malaysian Art Volume 2: Reactions-New Critical Strategies. Kuala Lumpur: Rogue art. ISBN 978-967-10011-1-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  11. ^ Adeline Ooi and Beverly Yong (2012). "From Paddy Fields to Fake Plastic Palm Trees: Negotiating a Changing Social Landscape". In Nur Hanim Khairuddin, Beverly Yong, with T.K. Sabapathy (ed.). Narratives in Malaysian Art Volume 1: Imagining Identities. Kuala Lumpur: RogueArt. ISBN 978-967-10011-1-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
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