Borneo Heart presents the work of Kota Kinabalu-born and based artist Yee I-Lann, made in collaboration with weavers, filmmakers, dancers, other fellow creative producers and friends.

Yee I-Lann’s practice has consistently spoken to urgencies in the contemporary world, from the vantage point of where she lives and comes from, mining personal story, Southeast Asian cultures and histories, local knowledge, critical theory, and mass aesthetics and experience.

Borneo Heart turns on two concepts: the tikar (woven mat) as a collective platform for community, storytelling and ritual, and the tamu (weekly market) as a meeting place for the exchange of goods, stories and ideas. It proposes ways of rethinking how space is made and shared, and ways in which art-making can activate systemic change.

“Traditionally in the Southeast Asia region, all communities sat on mats on the ground, had a tradition of making mats. The tikar, or mat, for me, is intrinsically feminist, representing a communal, egalitarian power that comes from old knowledges, heritage, culture.

The tamu is a traditional farmers’ market in Sabah, where people of different geographies, whether of the hills, plains, rivers or the sea meet to exchange their respective produce – rice for salt, woven cloth for woven ratan. It forms the foundation of a socio-political landscape. It is where you exchange news and stories, fight and fall in love, where you get to know who your neighbour is. It is a celebration of the other, and diversity.”

Since 2018, Yee I-Lann has been collaborating with DusunMurut weavers in the Keningau interior and with Bajau Sama Dilaut weavers from Pulau Omadal, Semporna to make tikar. In the process, a craft community bound to the tourist market has found opportunities for innovation, and a village community has turned from fishing to weaving, in turn reducing pressure on the Coral Triangle. A unique language of making has developed, bringing the weavers’ skills, knowledge and stories together with Yee’s ideas and propositions, often making strong statements calling for a politics of inclusion: “This body of work claims and celebrates communities and their geographies, often at the peripheries, that give shape to the center.”

Borneo Heart showcases these tikar, including TIKAR/MEJA, a 60- tikar installation, Tikar Reben, a 63m tikar created to stretch between the water village of the stateless weavers and the adjacent Malaysian village on Pulau Omadal, “karaoke mats” woven with song lyrics in English and KadazanDusun, and a giant emoji mat, among others, and a seven- headed Lalandau headdress, alongside Yee’s works involving performance, video and photomedia.

The exhibition also marks the first full presentation of Rasa Sayang, a 488-piece “essay” on love andcountry in photomedia begun in 2012 and completed in 2021, where the alphabet is created from images of human hugs.

Many languages meet in the exhibition – the digital pixel and the tikar weave, traditional and contemporary motifs, popular song, bodily gesture and sound, photographic image, script, positioning art-making and aesthetics as a means of bridging and understanding diverse experiences and stories.

Borneo Heart offers a shared platform and a site of exchange for the peoples of tanah (land) and air (water/sea), and for traditional and contemporary art practices, prompting us to reflect on home and distance, power, agency and representation, love and community.

The spirit of exchange comes alive in a physical tamu, an art, craft and sustainable produce market by vendors from across Sabah communities, to be held on the weekend of 8 and 9 May, curated and organized by KeTAMU. Within the exhibition, a Kerbauworks exhibition shop will be selling tikar woven by the artist’s collaborators and merchandise designed by Yee I-Lann and friends. Workshops, discussions and performances are also scheduled as part of the exhibition programme.

Borneo Heart is held across three spaces at Annexe A & B, Jesselton Plaza, Sabah International Convention Centre, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, 2 to 31 May 2021. Open daily, Mon-Fri 11am-5pm, Sat/Sun 10am-6pm. 

Born in Kota Kinabalu in 1971, Yee I-Lann currently lives and works in Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian Borneo state of Sabah. Her primarily photomedia-based practice engages with archipelagic Southeast Asia’s turbulent history with works addressing issues of colonialism and neo-colonialism, power, and the impact of historical memory in social experience, often with particular focus on counter-narrative “histories from below”. She employs a complex, multi-layered visual vocabulary drawn from historical references, popular culture, archives, and everyday objects. She has in recent years started working collaboratively with sea-based and land-based communities and indigenous mediums in Sabah. She is a co-founding associate of The Ricecooker Archives: Southeast Asian Rock ’n’ Roll Treasury with her partner Joe Kidd and has worked as a production designer in the Malaysian film industry. She is currently a Board member for Forever Sabah and Tamparuli Living Arts Center (TaLAC), both based in Sabah

I-Lann has worked in art department and as a production designer in the Malaysian film industry since 1994 and between 2003-2008 established the production design department and lectured at Akademi Seni Budaya dan Warisan Kebangsaan (ASWARA). With her partner, rock n roll subculture archivist, musician and designer Joe Kidd they share KerbauWorks a cross-discipline project label and space. She is currently a Board member for Forever Sabah and Tamparuli Living Arts Center (TaLAC), both based in Sabah and a co-founding partner of KOTA-K Studio in Tanjung Aru Old Town, Kota Kinabalu.