Five Arts Centre would like to congratulate, tahniah, high-five and woohoooooo Fahmi Fadzil upon his appointment as the new Minister of Communications & Digital, Malaysia. While this is a fantastic achievement for Fahmi in his role as a public servant, it is also a bittersweet moment for the collective.
For 21 years, since 2001 - when he became a member of Five Arts at the age of 20 - Fahmi has participated in and led many projects with the collective. As a performer, a director, a workshop facilitator, an emcee, a graphic designer, a front of house crew, and much more. As a young artist who was able to combine poetry, performativity and politics deftly in his work, Fahmi was an electric presence on the Malaysian stage.
Since Fahmi became a Member of Parliament in 2018 for Lembah Pantai, he has taken a non-active role in Five Arts as his time, focus and energy has been dedicated to his work in Parliament and his constituency. However given his new role - as well as for the purposes of accountability, transparency, and to avoid any conflict of interest - Five Arts Centre and Fahmi have come to a mutual agreement that he will officially withdraw from the collective, with immediate effect. This is a rare and unique situation for an arts organisation in Malaysia.
We would like to register our heartfelt gratitude to Fahmi for his work and contribution to the collective over the past two decades - for being part of the change within Five Arts Centre as well. We know from direct experience that he will bring empathy, commitment, cosmopolitanism, intelligence, imagination, idealism, humour, stamina, and an appetite for hard work to his responsibilities as a Minister - at a most critical juncture in Malaysian history.
We wish Fahmi all the very best in his work to menjalankan dan menunaikan tugas untuk negara - there is a lot
of work ahead. We will miss you in the studio, on the rehearsal floor, backstage, onstage, and at meetings -
but we look forward to welcome you to the theatre as a member of the audience :)
Selamat menjalankan
tugas!
Anne James, Chee Sek Thim, Chew Kin Wah, Faiq Syazwan Kuhiri, Ivy N. Josiah, Janet Pillai, June
Tan, Kubhaer T. Jethwani, Lee Ren Xin, Mac Chan, Marion D’Cruz, Mark Teh, Ravi Navaratnam, Suhaila Merican,
and Syamsul Azhar.
