AIR 2014

Susanne Bosch

Residency Duration: 23 March – 17 June 2014

Susanne Bosch is a German artist who recently returned to German after living in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for 7 years. She works predominantly with and in public. Her work addresses long-term questions around ideas of democracy. Bosch has taken on issues of money, migration, survival, work, societal visions, and models of participation. She formally uses site- and situation-specific interventions, installations, video, drawing, audio, dialogical work, but also writing, speaking, workshops and seminars. 

In recent years, Susanne worked internationally on exhibitions and projects, e.g. City(Re)Searches in Cork, Belfast, Kaunas, Rotterdam (2012-2014), City Exhibitions, Birzeit Museum, West Bank, Palestine (2012/13), art-based research/research-based art including 3 residencies in Ramallah, Palestine (2010/11), a public art work for Madrid Abierto 2009/10, Berlin/Istanbul (2009, with exhibitions in Berlin and Istanbul), The Pre-History of Crisis (II), Project Arts Centre Dublin and Belfast Exposed (2009), THE COMMON GOOD: The Enterprise of Art, PAN, Naples, Italy (2008). From 2007-2012, she developed and led the Art in Public master programme together with Dan Shipsides.

During the residency, Susanne held an artist sharing on the 30 April where she shared her artistic practice and previous works. Her final residency presentation was a solo exhibition What We Believe In (12 – 29 June), a multi-media installation with newspaper prints, drawings, music and video of “alternativists”. The work was a multi-layered response to Susanne’s first encounter with Malaysia and its context. 

Susanne also collaborated with writer-singer Anna Chong who composed a new song called Turtle Tame Chaos inspired from interview transcripts that Susanne recorded around the Petaling Street area which comprised feelings, responses, thoughts and visions regarding the vanishing moments caused by consumption, exploitation and destruction.     

It was also during her residency that she started various intensive meetings and research discussions with Lostgens’ and the Goethe-Institut Malaysia on a future collaboration addressing the many issues she confronted. This carved way to the project TransActions in the Field a year later where it involved over 22 artists all over Asia and Germany coming to Malaysia on a series of masterclass in public arts.  

Earlier this year in May 2020, as part of the Home Work program, she invited 51 artists to create a short piece of artwork in any format, responding to the theme of “care” that could be created and shared from their own home during the Covid-19 season. She is currently on a research residency in Palestine. 

A German Artist Residency Project Collaboration of Lostgens’ and Goethe-Institute Malaysia

Carlos Llavata

Residency Duration: July- September 2014

Carlos Llavata (b.1964 Valencia, Spain) is a visual and performance independent artist who works in Madrid, Spain and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). A graduate of Fine Arts University in Valencia, Spain and later, The Gerrit Rietveld Academie of Amsterdam. He took part in around 90 collective events, mostly performances, and had 6 solo shows. 

He has been working with galleries around the world in various projects, such as Mirta Demare (ARCO 2010, Rotterdam); Art Amsterdam 2011 (Artkitchen Gallery), “Splattered” Golden Thread Gallery (Belfast); Sign Gallery (Groningen); Zé dos Bois (Lisbon); La Pieza, Pensart (Madrid); Artpotheek (Brussels); Lost Generation Space (Kuala Lumpur). Since 2006 he has been a regular guest teacher at Multimedia University CyberJaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Concluding his residency at Lostgens’, Carlos held a solo exhibition entitled There Is Nothing Outside The Text which was curated by Lostgens’ artistic director Yeoh Lian Heng with the collaboration of local artists Liew Kwei Fei, Minstrel Kuik, Arson Ong, Tey Beng Tze, Jeffrey Loh and Goh Lee Kwang. 

In the exhibition, Carlos painted texts on the canvas. He wanted to put back the emphasis on writing, which in his view, is still the main form of communication and the real experience of communicating. As the world is in frenzy mode going into digitalization, we are constantly inventing new forms of texts. He puts text on the canvas as the main subject of the paintings as part of a visual imaginary and aesthetics. He believes art does not need any legitimization but the industrialists need textual parameters to articulate a way of production or evaluation like a piece of label sticker for a painting where it provides codex for the artist name, medium used, size of canvas etc but at the same time, interrupts the pure communication between the art and viewers. Carlos somehow convinced that many of the “art consumers” are probably more contemplated with the label than the artwork itself.

Lostgens’ Artist Residency Project 2014

Chong Yi Lin

Residency Duration: July – September 2014

Chong Yi Lin (b. 1992, Kuala Lumpur) obtained her Diploma in Fine Art at the Dasein Academy of Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur in 2013 where she received a top student award. She has been actively exhibiting her works in various group exhibitions before she was invited for a 3-month residency program with Lostgens’. As a final presentation of her residency, she presented her first solo exhibition called Ashes of Time 12 – 26 July 2015 which was curated by Lostgens’ artistic director Yeoh Lian Heng. The exhibition won rave reviews from the local art community. 

In the exhibition Yi Lin burns photographs and baby singlets as arresting visual metaphors of dealing with her scarred past. She is able to translate her deep personal emotions into aggressive yet abstract visual representation which she attempted to bid farewell to the old self. And that she could rise again from the ashes and starts anew. 

In 2015, she furthered her study in BA in Fine Arts at the Taipei National University of Arts in Taiwan. Upon graduation, she returns to Kuala Lumpur and works as a freelance visual artist. She continues to use her life events as inspiration on her artworks to explore personal states and ideas of self-representation between figuration and abstraction.

She is currently a regular at Lostgens’ where she is involved in various community art projects management and development.

Lostgens’ Artist Residency Project 2014

photo credits to Chong Yi Lin

Arson Ong

Residency Duration: July – September 2014

Arson Ong (b. 1990) graduated from Dasein Academy of Art in 2012, is an emerging visual artist who is always passionate about multi-disciplinary approaches to art-making. Apart from painting, installation and drawing, Arson also dabbles in performing arts where he performed with many established dance companies and participated in various site-specific performances.

He exhibited his works at various group shows while at Lostgens’ he held his first solo exhibition called “Our World” (10 – 24 Oct, 2014) which was a result of his three-month residency program.

Arson’s vulnerable health condition has constantly prodded him on the meaning of bodily existence and how he also observed the conscious and subconscious body languages that are connected with social and political issues.

Today Arson is a successful entrepreneur running a zero-waste initiative called “A Bit Less Bulk Store” situated in Kepong Baru, Kuala Lumpur.

Lostgens’ Artist Residency Project 2014

photo credits to Arson Ong