Celebrating the clan jetty community

FROM 28 to 30 Aug 2009, artist collective Lost Generation Space (Kuala Lumpur) collaborated with Anak-Anak Kota (Penang) to present Bangun: Penang Clan Jetties Community Arts Project. The multimedia arts festival was held on and around the clan jetties of Penang.

Among the project’s objectives was to involve the clan jetty community in the arts. Workshops were conducted with the community’s members to develop performances and artwork inspired by their histories and experiences. These works were then presented during the three-day festival.

The event also featured classic and contemporary photography, films, oral storytelling, installations, and music and drama performances by local and international artists.

“The Clan Jetties of Weld Quay are one of the very few communal sites that have stayed intact for over a century and survived the threat of urban development,  even though the cultural practices and social institutions that [attend] to their daily functioning … are fast disappearing,” says Lost Generation Space on its blog.

As such, the project was developed to examine and highlight the place, culture and traditions of the clan jetty people within 21st-century Georgetown, while imparting skills and ideas to further develop and energise the community.

Bangun is an ongoing series of contemporary site-specific art projects focusing on heritage, community and culture. Lost Generation Space is currently planning for the next project scheduled for 2010, involving the Sungai Buloh leprosy settlement.

For more information, visit the Lost Generation Space blog or e-mail lostgenspace@gmail.com.

All pics were taken by artist and photographer Tan Chee Hon and are courtesy of him.

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