The muddy estuary where the Klang and Gombak rivers converge is a place of deep historical significance – it’s where Kuala Lumpur was first founded as a tin mining settlement in the 19th century, way before it grew into the bustling city we know today.
Now it bears witness to another new beginning with the recent launch of Muara Arts Gallery on Nov 1 at Medan Pasar, the old market square that used to be the city’s centre of commerce.
Behind Muara Arts Gallery are Masjid Jamek and the newly refurbished Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad, together forming a distinctive cluster of historic landmarks in the area.
With floor-to-ceiling windows offering views overlooking the river, Muara Arts Gallery – which takes its name from the Malay word for estuary – is part of a wider cultural revitalisation project in Medan Pasar. Alongside the gallery, a theatre, outdoor event space, cafes, restaurants, shops and other cultural amenities are in the works.
For the masses, the gallery is easily accessible via public transportation – it’s a 10-minute walk from the Pasar Seni MRT/LRT stations, and 5 minutes from Masjid Jamek LRT station.
The not-for-profit gallery, supported by Creador Foundation, involves the adaptive reuse of six three-storey Art Deco shophouses dating from the 1930s and spans 1,858sq m.
The Shanghai plaster exterior facade lends the buildings a vintage appearance as you view them from the outside, but once you enter, the wood-panelled floors and white walls give that familiar minimalist aesthetic found in most contemporary art spaces.
“Muara Arts is born of a desire to nurture Malaysia’s arts community and to foster cultural expression and dialogue, both at home and across borders,” said Shanthi Kandiah, who is co-founder of Muara Arts Gallery alongside her husband, Brahmal Vasudevan, the founder and CEO of Creador.
“We revitalised these buildings at the place where KL began – a square once occupied by banks and finance houses. It is a fitting transformation: spaces that once held the city’s financial capital – now given over to its cultural capital. Our hope is that Medan Pasar becomes a true hub for regional artistic life,” she shared.
Lydia Yee, former chief curator of London’s Whitechapel Gallery in England, was brought on board as Muara Arts’ consultant artistic director to help bring this vision into reality.
Yee’s curatorial career spans three decades and includes senior roles in museums and public galleries in London and New York and is marked by a longstanding commitment to artists with roots in Asia.
At the recent media preview prior to the gallery’s opening, Yee said that the gallery will offer a varied and inclusive programme of rotating exhibitions, learning sessions and publications that celebrate modern and contemporary art from across South-East Asia.
“We’re planning to start at a scale of two exhibitions a year, but beyond the usual programming, we also wanted to try some new things, like creating an art viewing guide for families and a scholarly catalogue.
“We’ve also made an app with Bloomberg Connects, which is a well-known platform for interpretation, so we’re looking to make art as accessible as possible to everyone,” said Yee.
“We want to present South-East Asian art in a way that is both engaging and thought-provoking, no matter your level of knowledge in art, so we look forward to welcoming visitors of all ages and backgrounds,” she added.
Chris Lee, the assistant chief executive at National Gallery Singapore, has recently been announced as the new chief executive officer of Muara Arts Gallery and Medan Pasar Realty (starting Dec 16) to oversee the strategic development, operations and long-term sustainability of both organisations.
From A to Z
Muara Arts’ inaugural exhibition is an ambitious one: A-Z of South-East Asian Art: A Critical Dictionary runs through April 4 2027, bringing together painting, sculpture, textile, installation, video and works on paper from over 40 artists across the region, including Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam.
Curated by Yee and Zhen Feng Ang, the exhibition takes inspiration from renowned Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen’s ongoing project, The Critical Dictionary Of South-East Asia (from 2017).
As you make your way around the gallery, you will find familiar Malaysian contemporary artists such as Wong Hoy Cheong, Yee I-Lann, Pangrok Sulap, Izat Arif, Anne Samat, Marcos Kueh, Nadiah Bamadhaj, Sharon Chin, Tan Zi Hao and the late Nirmala Dutt (1941-2016).
Many have established international careers, yet their work and standing beyond Malaysia may be less familiar to local audiences.
This is a rare opportunity to see homegrown contemporary art in a wider regional and international context, and to consider how our artists are contributing to conversations beyond our borders.
The regional line-up includes Indonesia’s Agus Suwage, Thailand’s Navin Rawanchaikul, Singapore’s Ho Tzu Nyen, Philippines-born Pacita Abad, who later settled in the United States, and Filipino artists Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan. Beyond these established names, there is plenty more to discover, making the exhibition one worth returning to.
“When we started to think about what would be an appropriate exhibition to launch a space dedicated to modern and contemporary South-East Asian art, Ho’s work and his ideas about the region were very important to our early thinking and eventually gave us the A to Z structure for the exhibition,” said Yee.
“We also wanted to open with an exhibition that could provide a comprehensive survey of the region that took into account the diverse perspectives that can be found here and would allow us to include artists from all of the countries.
“So we felt that this dictionary structure was the perfect introduction, both for Muara Arts and for South-East Asian art,” she added.
For context, KL has seen relatively few major art institution openings over the past three decades. Galeri PETRONAS opened at KLCC in September 1998 with Rimba, an exhibition by the legendary Latiff Mohidin, while Ilham Gallery made its debut in August 2015 with Picturing The Nation, a show celebrating the legacy of Datuk Hoessein Enas.
Muara Arts Gallery’s inaugural exhibition takes a fresh approach, exploring the region’s shared histories, identities, cultures and politics. Through art, it draws connections between places and people, showing how much South-East Asian countries have in common, while recognising the differences that make each distinct.
With the region now just a short, affordable flight away, and weekend trips to its cities becoming commonplace, art offers another way to get to know our neighbours – one that goes beyond familiar sights and tourist experiences to explore the stories, ideas and experiences we share.
Rather than offering a definitive account, the exhibition – running from A to Z – embraces the dictionary as a space for multiple perspectives. From “A for Animism” and “A for Archipelago” to “B for Buffalo”, “C for Corruption” and ultimately “Z for Zoomorphism”, the exhibition moves across the alphabet to reveal the many ways South-East Asia can be understood, questioned and imagined.
Highlights include Zarina Muhammad’s mixed-media installation Moving Earth, Crossing Water, Eating Soil (2022-2026) under “A for Animism”, Martha Atienza’s video installation Our Islands, 11°16’58.4 N 123°45’07.0 E (2017) under “A for Archipelago”, works by Nadiah and Kueh under “B for Buffalo”, a new sculptural work by Pio Abad and Frances Wadsworth Jones under “C for Corruption” and Paul Pfeiffer’s Live Evil (Kuala Lumpur) under “Z for Zoomorphism”.
Malaysian artists Izat and Anne were also at the media preview, offering background and insights into their featured works.
Part of Izat’s Taman Kenangan series is displayed under “F for Fiction”. The made-up Taman Kenangan is a critique of mega development projects funded by state and private sectors, which claim to preserve local culture, heritage and the environment, yet is often to its detriment.
“In the first part of the series, which is shown here, I chose a plot of land near Gunung Ledang in Johor and pretended to be a developer to create this development plan.
“In the second part, I became a real estate showroom designer to sell property in Taman Kenangan and in the third part, Taman Kenangan has become a failed project and I’m an archaeologist digging up its remnants many years later,” said Izat, recipient of the ACME–Khazanah Artist Residency in London in 2022.
Installation artist Anne, who is based in New York, spoke about how her piece, Cannot Be Broken And Won’t Live Unspoken (2022) which represents the deep connection she had with her late mother. Aptly, the work comes under “K for Kinship”.
“Instead of using yarn, I used unconventional materials, namely items we use in our daily life, like garden rakes. I wanted to give them a second life and elevate the status of these ‘mundane’ objects by turning them into works of art, just like how my mother uplifted me with her love,” concluded Anne.
Besides the exhibition spaces, there’s also a gallery shop selling Muara Arts merchandise, as well as Ono, a specialty coffee and matcha cafe, and Remedy, a sustainable health and skincare concept store.
Muara Arts Gallery is located at 18, Medan Pasar in Kuala Lumpur. Open 10am to 6pm, closed Tuesdays. Ticketed entry. More info: muaraarts.org.
