RM33,000 for their artistic ventures

The recipients of the Krishen Jit – Astro Fund this year posing for a group photo after receiving their ‘survival kits’ at the grant presentation. (From right) Sunitha, Fasyali Fadzly, Muhammad Zikri, Liew, Koe and Amy Lim, who represented Manesh Nesaratnam. — Photos: AZMAN GHANI/The Star

THE Little Door Festival is set to be an arts and culture festival with an experiential learning focus for children.

The event, which will have workshops, theatre, music as well as arts and crafts sessions for children aged four to 14, is a project by Liew Kungyu and Koe Gaik Cheng.

The duo were among the recipients of the Krishen Jit – Astro Fund this year.

“We want children to be able to learn through hands-on activities. It will be a medium-sized event that we hope to kick off by the end of next year in Penang,” said Liew.

Koe said the RM5,000 grant they received would be used to conduct research for the festival, including making a trip to the Wei Wu Ying Children’s Festival in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

The Krishen Jit – Astro Fund was created by Astro and Five Arts Centre to encourage and support creative work in Malaysia.

The fund is dedicated to the late theatre legend Datuk Krishen Jit, whose pioneering work was about celebrating original Malaysian creativity in as varied and alternative ways as possible, in all the areas of the arts.

Past grant recipient Jeffrey Lim (right) demonstrating his Kanta Box Kamra project, which showcases the living form of photography.

It is used to assist recipients in achieving their artistic ambitions.

Grants are given for training, workshops, attachments or residencies, experimental productions, research and documentation, writing, and creating new work in music, dance, theatre, writing, film or performance art.

Six grants totalling RM33,000 were presented to eight Malaysian artists this year.

Muhammad Zikri Abdul Rahman will be using his RM7,000 grant for LiteraCity, the first literary mapping and arts exhibition project of Kuala Lumpur.

“The project documents selected prominent Malaysian literature text through their literary footprints, using a multi-disciplinary arts exhibition,” said the 26-year-old.

“Our focus is on Kuala Lumpur-based literary text such as short stories, poems, dramas and scripts, based on a 5km-radius from Masjid Jamek.

“For example, we mapped out the different locations mentioned in the Mat Som graphic novel by Lat,” said Muhammad Zikri, adding that the maps were available in print and via www.literacitykl.com

While the current materials are in English and Bahasa Malaysia, he hoped to expand the project to include Mandarin and Tamil to make it a multi-lingual and more representative bibliography.

The other fund recipients are: Harold Reagan Eswar for his documentary film (RM7,000), Fasyali Fadzly Saipul Bahri for theatre research and performance on the folklore of migrant communities in Kuala Lumpur (RM6,500), Sunitha Janamohanan and Janet Pillai for a series of workshops to cultivate a network of community-engaged arts practitioners in Malaysia (RM6,500), and Manesh Nesaratnam for his screenplay (RM1,000).

The selection panel for the fund comprised representatives from the Tourism and Culture Ministry’s Culture and Arts Department, Astro’s Community Affairs Department, Sunway University’s Performance and Media Department and Five Arts Centre.

“We are happy this year’s fund recipients, who are working on an interesting and diverse range of projects,” said Five Arts Centre founder member Datin Marion D’Cruz.

“While they comprise a mix of new and ongoing efforts, they are all in line with Krishen’s vision of creating experimental and groundbreaking works.”

D’Cruz, who oversees the project submissions and manages the fund disbursement, said what made the recipients stand out were their interesting projects and well-written proposals.