Met Mr. Eddin Khoo, the founder of the Malaysian Cultural Organisation, Pusaka at their enlightening Cultural Festival this weekend at the Godown Arts Centre in Kuala Lumpur today. Have been following the organisation’s work since 2015 and it’s such a delight to hear about a generation long initiative to support cultural initiatives across Malaysia, beyond the UN nomenclature of heritage and dying. His talk on the politics of heritage conservation and the power of ideology and ideas was a master class. As a person who is at best at the periphery of academia and is an intellectual flaneur such talks are an insight into subversive and inventive institution building.
The secular angle of the Kelantan Ramayana was a disruptive insight into the role of the transitional epic in SE Asia. The discussion on the evolution of the Malay Language was fascinating with words such as Puja being a part of the Malay vocabulary, albeit in an older iteration.
The beautiful festival has book stalls, a cafe, a Syrian woman selling Shwarma in a stall where her Husband is the chef was heart warming.
The takeaway from his talk was doing something authentic without thinking of the audience. The power of the work itself will speak in the long run.
Change Thinker 