Au Sow-Yee: Film in Sound Series: Collected Stories of Malay and the Empire

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3 episodes in total. (Duration: 15 to 20 minutes per episode)

Film in Sound Series: Collected Stories of Malay and the Empireis a series of invisible fractured “film”. Each episode of the series utilizes texts of related characters of the colonial past in Malaysia. This series is an attempt to re-construct “film of the consciousness” that stands in between the vague territory of politics and history through sound. By the deconstruction and re-construction of sound, ruptures of history will be opened up, and hence further agitate the immediate concept of subjectivity and non-conscious image. The series begins with 3 episodes, using texts such as a letter written by the then Sultan of Johor to Yoshichika Tokugawa in 1929 (as part of the Learning Bahasa Melayu in Four Weeks), Malay Sketcheswritten by Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham (1850-1946), the first Resident General of the Federated Malay States during late 19thcentury to early 20th century, and story from Ah Kingor The Casuarina Tree, collected stories with a Malayan background, written after William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) trip to the now Southeast Asia region in the 1920s.

Au Sow-Yee

Born 1978 in Malaysia. Now lives and works in Taipei. Sow-Yee’s works focus mainly in questioning, exploring as well as expanding the relation between images, image making, history, politics and power, through video installation and other mediums. Herrecent works focus on re-imagined history of Malaysia, South-east Asia and its related region from perceptions and ideologies bounded by the Cold War. Meanwhile, she also continues her interest in image making mechanism, creating live cinema performance using self-made mechanism and mechanical film projectors. A finalist for the 2018 Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Signature Art Prize, Sow-Yee’s works were exhibited in MMCA (Seoul), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), HKW (Berlin), Shanghai Rockbund Art Museum, Singapore Film Festival, official selection of Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul (ExiS), BACC (Bangkok) and various other exhibitions and screenings. Sow-Yee is also one of the guest writers for online magazine No Man’s Landand co-founded Kuala Lumpur’s Rumah Attap Library and Collective in 2017.