Batik Lepas

Batik Lepas is an ongoing photographic series with much cultural and political gravity. Exit is a cry for community,  a persuasion for peace. An entrance for existence, an exit from entrapment.

Is race more of a curse than a blessing? Can race ever be divorced from reality?

The artist proposes the crisis of having identity today being shackled by an inconsequential  legacy of yesteryears especially one as prophecised by Hang Tuah,  arguably the most well-known and illustrious warrior figure in Malay history and literature,
"Takkan Melayu Hilang di Dunia".

The artist threads on the postulation that race then, becomes a quagmire to the society when it begins to shape perceptions and constraint reinventions. Separation in the populace only brings about distinction in demerits; of judgement and prejudice. The artist questions the need for such defining demarcation that serves no far-reaching motivations for the society, especially when race itself is standing on shaky ground. He revisits the forces of his identity, one made up of a convoluted heritage. He yearns to explore the confluence of identity, and above all, the emancipation for existence. For when you disassociate with something, you gain affiliation with another force by default. Likewise, identity is a fluid elemental.

Through the artist’s inquiry, he seeks a resolution for race and culture to be dancing in an amorphous ground. A ground that carries only the enthral and aura of race whilst absolving it from the agency of identity. One that allows culture to evolve into an ocean of endless possibilities.