In 1986, Nirmala Dutt's two artworks Friends in Need and Save the Seed
that will Save the Black People were removed from the exhibition Side by Side, a
British-Malaysian contemporary art exhibition held at the National Art Gallery Malaysia. The removal of
both works by an overzealous official from the Malaysian-British Society before the opening ceremony was
condemned by the arts community before Syed Ahmad Jamal, the then-Director of National Art Gallery
ordered the works to be reinstated.
Using this incident as an entry point, panelists Kathy Rowland, Katrina Stuart Santiago and Linh Lê discuss a number of significant cases of visual arts censorship in Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. How are violations against freedom of expression in the arts framed and justified? What journey takes the same work from acceptable to controversial? What are some of the responses from the different arts stakeholders when art is attacked?
This panel is organised as part of the Southeast Asian Arts Censorship Database project to research and document arts and culture censorship in the region. Launched in 2022 by ArtsEquator in partnership with Five Arts Centre, the pilot covers incidents occurring from 2010 to 2022, in six Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
Read all the Southeast Asian Arts Censorship Database project country reports over at ArtsEquator, as well arts and cultural freedoms-related articles, videos, podcasts, quizzes and other content produced by the research fellows.
Video
Photo Gallery
