Cheong Kiet Cheng's 'Me And The Wolf (watercolours and acrylic on canvas, 2025), which is part of her 'Blue Bird' exhibition at Wei-Ling Gallery in KL. Photo: Wei-Ling Gallery
EXHIBITION: CHEONG KIET CHENG'S 'BLUE BIRD'
Venue: Wei-Ling Gallery, Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur
Date: ends Sept 27
When it comes to Cheong Kiet Cheng, art and reflection are inseparable. Her new exhibition, Blue Bird, traces a two-decade journey marked by illness, inner struggle, and the quiet work of renewal.
Drawing inspiration from Maurice Maeterlinck’s play The Blue Bird, Cheong reshapes the allegory through the eyes of a guide leading her children toward light and safety - a deeply personal reimagining of the search for hope.
Her intricate ink and pen drawings, built from patient layers of repeated line-work, form organic fields that mirror the entanglements of life itself. Within these webs of connection, hardship becomes transformed into an intimate image-language - one that charts vulnerability, persistence, and the slow act of healing.
Through these works at Wei-Ling Gallery, Cheong makes visible the way art can carry reflection forward, serving both as record and as refuge.
Blue Bird is open to walk-ins and by appointment.
More info here.
A view of the 'Coolies Chorus' video installation at the 'Plantation Plot' exhibition at Ilham Gallery in KL. Photo: Low Lay Phon/The Star
EXHIBITION: 'THE PLANTATION PLOT'
Venue: Ilham Gallery, KL
Date: ends Sept 28
Good news for those who have yet to catch The Plantation Plot at Ilham Gallery - it has been extended for another week.
A collaboration with global arts organisation Kadist, the exhibition gathers 28 artists and collectives from South-East Asia and the Americas to examine the plantation as both a site of imperial profit and a framework that continues to shape lives and landscapes today.
Thoughtfully put together by Malaysian curator Lim Sheau Yun, the show features over 60 works from Kadist, Ilham, and various collections, alongside new commissions.
Highlights include Coolies Chorus, an archive project reviving Tamil folk songs of indentured labour; evocative moralistic paintings by the late Sabahan artist Inauk S. Gullah; and Pagar & Padi, a video and installation exploring community life in Sabah through themes of land autonomy, freedom of religion, and the fragile notion of “guarantee.”
These works underscore how Malaysian artists confront the plantation’s legacy while reclaiming voices, histories, and visions of resilience.
On Sept 20, Ilham Gallery's level 5 space will be closed from 1pm to 5pm for the Coolies’ Chorus live performance from India.
More info here.
In 'After Hour - Breathe', Euseng Seto revisits his electronic roots, weaving cinematic ambience with experimental sound. Photo: Liew Chee Heai
MUSIC/INSTALLATION: 'AFTER HOUR: BREATHE'
Venue: KongsiKL, Jalan Klang Lama, Kuala Lumpur
Date: Sept 20, 8.30pm
The After Hour: Breathe live showcase by Malaysian producer/electronica musician Euseng Seto (flica) transforms Kongsi KL into an immersive sound-and-light experience for the Klang River Festival. Blending ambient piano, glitch beats, post rock synths and techno rhythms, Euseng Seto returns to his electronic roots, using breath as a metaphor for tension, release and renewal.
With scenography by Liew Chee Heai and visuals by iwaz, the 60-minute performance invites audiences into a multi-sensory journey of stillness and momentum, vulnerability and power.
The evening continues with deejay sets in the same industrial space by Zaxk & Mrbacksounds.
Presented by Harum Kasturi Studio and Dadadada Studio, in collaboration with Kongsi KL.
More info here.
Kwai Chai Hong in Chinatown, KL - also known as Ghost Lane or ‘Lorong Hantu’ - once again brings timeless folklore to life through 'Moonlit Blossom', an immersive art installation. Photo: Bernama
PUBLIC ART INSTALLATION: 'MOONLIT BLOSSOM'
Venue: Kwai Chai Hong, Lorong Panggung, Chinatown, KL
Date: ends Oct 12
As the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches on Oct 6, the heritage alley of Kwai Chai Hong in KL’s Chinatown once again transforms into a lantern-lit stage of folklore and imagination.
This year’s immersive installation, Moonlit Blossom, curated by Kwai Chai Hong co-founder Javier Chor, reimagines the ancient legend of Wu Gang, the woodcutter sentenced to an endless task of felling the moon’s self-healing osmanthus tree.
Running daily until Oct 12, the installation - free admission - fuses heritage and technology to celebrate the festival - second only to Chinese New Year in significance - as a time of harvest, thanksgiving, and reunion.
The installation is best experienced at night, when the lights lend it a dreamlike glow.
More info here.
Anas Affadi's acrylic and digital print on paper titled'Landscape Of Contradiction I Love Taiping'. Photo Harta Space
EXHIBITION: 'REFRAME & RESIST: DECOLONISE HERE AND NOW!'
Venue: Harta Space, Ampang, Selangor
Date: ends Sept 28
At Harta Space, Reframe & Resist: Decolonise Here And Now! invites visitors to reflect on the unfinished legacies of colonialism through art, ecology, and cultural memory. The exhibition is part of a wider collaboration supported by the British Council’s "Connections Through Culture" programme.
Co-curated by Malaysian lecturer-curator Rebecca Yeoh and Britain-based art historian Leon Wainwright, the show brings a sharp curatorial lens to how art can spark conversations about power, land, and knowledge systems.
Five artists anchor the exhibition: dancer-choreographer Aida Redza, visual artist Anas Afandi, the art-tech duo Koh Kai Ting and Aw Boon Xin, multidisciplinary artist Jakob Van Klang, and theorist-artist Roopesh Sitharan. Their works tackle colonial inheritances in distinct ways – from rethinking monuments and branding to revisiting folklore, waterways, and even the notion of academic “qualifications.”
Spanning performance, painting, installation, marbling, and conceptual practice, the exhibition offers multiple points of entry into its central theme. From movement and myth to rivers, monuments, and text, each medium opens a new path into the conversation.
More info here.
Nadirah Zakariya's 'Air Mata Air' exhibition at The Back Room gallery in KL. Photo: All Is Amazing
EXHIBITION: NADIRAH ZAKARIYA'S 'AIR MATA AIR'
Venue: The Back Room, Zhongshan building, KL
Date: ends Oct 5
Photographer-artist Nadirah Zakariya presents Air Mata Air, a contemplative exhibition, curated by Eva McGovern, that maps a return to self through two primal sources: the body and water.
When the world overwhelms, Nadirah turns instinctively to water - lakes, rivers, oceans - as places of refuge and renewal. This intimate connection takes shape in the Back Room gallery through fabric panels paired with backlit lightboxes, where image and text merge in a play of shadow, translucence, and memory.
The title itself holds a double resonance in Bahasa Malaysia: air mata means “tears,” while mata air refers to natural springs. Tears carry both joy and sorrow, and Nadirah evokes this spectrum with words pinned to the lightboxes - phrases like hanyut in tears (“drowning in tears”) and rindu stings like saltwater (“missing someone stings like saltwater”). Each pairing becomes a meditation on fragility, resilience, and the emotional tides that shape us.
The result is a gallery transformed into an inner landscape - a space where grief and longing coexist with clarity and release, leading visitors to step quietly into their own reflections.
Free entry. Open Wednesday to Sunday, 12pm–6pm.
More info here.
