Simon Soon & Munirah Mansoor
Papan Soerih Perhimpoenan Orang Melayoe, 2018
종이에 디지털 프린트
3 패널, 각 45 × 84.1cm
Digital print on paper
3 panels of 45 × 84.1cm
프리메이슨의 트레이싱 보드에 영감을 받은 세 개의 ‹파판 소에리›는 페르힘포에난의 각 계급에 해당한다. 자위(Jawi, 아랍식 말레이 문자)를 읽을 때처럼 오른쪽에서 왼쪽으로 읽도록 되어 있으며 입회식에서 지원자를 문화적 발견과 정치적 깨달음이라는 여정으로 인도하는 교구 역할을 한다. 또한, 프리메이슨의 트레이싱 보드와 유사하게 빈존스의 비전과 연관된 상징과 개념을 담고 있으며 밀교 지식을 전달하는 데 도움이 되는 실물 교육을 제공한다. 주로 말레이 세계의 예술사적, 시각 문화적 문헌을 기반으로 그려진 트레이싱 보드는 말레이인들의 기억술이 담긴 지도를 상상하고 말레이 세계의 자원을 탐색할 뿐만 아니라 새로운 오컬트 지식으로 재조합되어 그러한 자원에 대한 젠더적 해석을 제공한다.
The papan soerih are illustrations of the various symbols and emblems that make up the three levels in this exercise to reimagine an archive of the Perhempoenan Orang Melayoe. This Masonic organization was founded sometime in the early 1930s by Wenceslao Q. Vinzons following a speech that he delivered on February 12, 1932 at the 20th Annual Oratorical Contest of the College of Law, University of Philippines. In his speech, he appealed for a pan-Malayan unity spanning the Malay Archipelago and the Pacific islands, arguing for “the vision of a united state working in concert to adopt a common language and overcome our frailties, so by our renewed radical vitality, [we] may give birth to a new nationalism, that of Malaysia redeemed.” Inspired by Masonic tracing boards, each of the three papan soerih corresponds to a rank in the graded hierarchies of the Perhimpoenan. Meant to be read from right to left like a Jawi manuscript, they serve as teaching aids during the initiation rituals of the Perhimpoenan, taking the postulant on a journey of cultural discovery and political awakening. Like Masonic tracing boards, they contain symbols and concepts related to Vinzons’s vision, serving as object lessons to help impart esoteric knowledge. Drawn primarily from art historical and visual cultural references of the Malay world, the tracing boards imagine a mnemonic atlas of Melayoe, exploring not only its cosmopolitan resources but also offering a new gendered reading into these resources as they are reassembled into a new body of occult knowledge.
Simon Soon (b. 1983) is an artist, art historian and curator based in Kuala Lumpur. He is a senior lecturer at the University of Malaya and a team member of Malaysia Design Archive. In his artistic practice, Simon extends his research into open-access knowledge sharing, digital sources for histories from below, and global flows in the art and visual cultures of Asia. His artworks have been exhibited at Dhaka Art Summit (Bangladesh), Para/Site (Hong Kong), and The Back Room (Malaysia). Simon works chiefly in collaboration. The design of the tracing boards for this exhibition emerges from a three-month long period of conversation, archive diving, and imagination between Soon and Munirah Mansoor on the visual history of the Malay world.
Munirah Mansoor (b. 1994, Singapore) is a visual designer who is exploring areas of her cultural roots from a Malay-archipelago perspective. Her focus is on observing and rethinking historical stories after a personal revelation on what could have been or what have not been unearthed archeologically, which makes current narratives remain that as a myth. For her final university project she worked on Hikayat Nusantara, which imagines a legend from a non-fictional fact that all of the archipelago lands were once geographically united. She began working on relevant projects after joining Studio Vanessa Ban for a period, where she also assisted in designing the identity of the exhibition As The West Slept (2019).
Munirah Mansoor (b. 1994, Singapore) is a visual designer who is exploring areas of her cultural roots from a Malay-archipelago perspective. Her focus is on observing and rethinking historical stories after a personal revelation on what could have been or what have not been unearthed archeologically, which makes current narratives remain that as a myth. For her final university project she worked on Hikayat Nusantara, which imagines a legend from a non-fictional fact that all of the archipelago lands were once geographically united. She began working on relevant projects after joining Studio Vanessa Ban for a period, where she also assisted in designing the identity of the exhibition As The West Slept (2019).
Simon Soon and Munirah Mansoor, Papan Soerih Perhimpoenan Orang Melayoe, 2021. Courtesy of the artists and ADM Gallery.