A vibrant showcase of 36 Malaysian artists, where established icons, mid-career innovators and emerging voices converge to reflect the evolving pulse of Malaysia’s visual culture.
THE two-week RIUH x ASEAN 2025 festival has been a bold celebration of creative voices where communities across Malaysia and the Asean region connect and flourish.
Featuring electrifying performances, showcases and artistic dialogue, the festival concluded on Oct 31 with ‘Suara Belacu’, the visual heartbeat of the festival that brought together the works of 36 Malaysian artists, celebrating cultural expression and regional connectivity.
Running from Oct 17 to Oct 31, the exhibition served as a cultural anchor within RIUH x ASEAN’s city-wide programming.
Loosely translated as ‘the voice of raw cloth’, the exhibition’s name is a metaphor for Malaysian artistic voices in its rawest, unadulterated form – cultural expression before it’s shaped by external expectations.
Within the Asean context, ‘Suara Belacu’ reflects a desire to speak from the ground up, rooted in local textures, yet open to regional resonance.
The exhibition featured the works of 36 Malaysian artists selected from over 140 submissions, many of whom are both emerging and established. The lineup included Ahmad M, Tiffaniy Choong, Izzat Azman, Hilton Moore, Foong Yeng Yeng, Zaki Hadri, Sandru, Reena M and Carabelle Cheong, among others.
Championing Malaysia’s creative voice, Fahmi explores the immersive Suara Belacu exhibition, which blends contemporary art, soundscapes, and digital visuals
Artworks were selected based on how they explore Malaysian heritage and identity while also speaking to broader Asean themes.
“A lot of the artworks tell a story about Asean and not to forget the togetherness here in Malaysia,” said Intan Rafiza, a senior curator at the National Art Gallery and one of the exhibition’s three curators.
Fellow curator Bingley Sim who founded the Malaysian Art Friends added on the curatorial challenge: “Instead of just thinking about ‘what is there in my kampung’, the artists actually have to think really hard about and to see how that will adapt to Asean,” said Sim.
Located at Odeon KL, the exhibition pairs traditional visual works in the corridors with Tiang Seri, a large-scale immersive installation by Iwaz. Inspired by the central pillar in traditional Malay homes, it represents grounding, ancestry and spiritual resonance.
The curators crafted the exhibition as an immersive journey with a multi-sensory format, designed to break passive viewing habits and invite physical engagement. This bridges tradition and technology, echoing Malaysia’s cultural evolution while creating space for artistic voices.
“If you actually look at the different corners, different walls, the artwork is not a single piece,” Sim explained. “The artworks actually speak to themselves, speak among themselves.”
Throughout the two-week run, visitors and art enthusiasts alike were seen deep in conversations, flowing between venues, photographing works, and discovering connections through intimate encounters with individual pieces.
Art works shown at the gallery were also available for sale.
As RIUH x ASEAN 2025 draws to a close, ‘Suara Belacu’ leaves behind a testament to Malaysian contemporary art’s growing role in shaping Asean’s cultural conversation – one raw, honest voice at a time.
