Lakec means crossing the river. I initiated this project series because I felt strange about both the rivers and my own Pangcah culture. In the project, I imagined myself as someone who can not swim. I would try my best to explore the river’s surroundings and understand its neighboring inhabitants, events, and materiality. I would listen to their stories and learn through which path and in which method they crossed the river. I then also figured my way to the river in bits and pieces from their experiences.
Open Contemporary Art Center and the 2nd NML Residency & Nusantara Archive Project has co-curated PETAMU Project since 2018. During that time, Malaysian artist Jeffrey Lim and I both visited Indigenous communities in our respective creative work. Then in 2019, we embarked on a new journey, entering several Indigenous communities in Malaysia. We walked on their rivers and lands step by step. We interviewed the elders and the youngsters through various mediums such as photography, documentary, and soundscape collecting for their oral stories, myths, and songs.
The motivation behind was an eagerness to start our own path, exploring the concept of identity. We emphasized our work on the pathfinding process rather than just hoping to finish an art project. Such a motive was the North star of our creative path. With me carrying a camcorder, and Jeffrey holding a self-made camera, we embarked on these two projects across different Indigenous communities and countries. While the quest for the river was the starting point of both Lakec and Lakec: A Very Simple River, to draw a clear map was often a difficult task for me. Hence, I tried to knead the interviews, oral stories, myths, or songs together into my own path, to express and grope my way through.