What kind of city are we going to build through literature? LiteraCity, with the phrase “to build the city with words” is a Kuala Lumpur literature based text and cultural mapping project focusing from the period of 1970 to contemporary times in Malaysia. How then, the act of mapping the space and literature of Kuala Lumpur confronting the question of social, politics and economic surrounding Kuala Lumpur’s ideas of “development”? As a rapidly developing city, LiteraCity try to dissect the unconventional discussions in order to argue the developmental ideas of the city, which seems to always neglect its human dimension in shaping a more egalitarian city. The selected literature texts comprise of novel, short story, drama and poem indirectly dissects the logical structure of Kuala Lumpur development by interrogating human and nature as the idea and basis for urban development. Hence, through LiteraCity, we outline Kuala Lumpur’s development process not merely from the factor of time and space setting, but covering the many events and locations as a “maturing” factor for the city to be built with words.

SPEAKERS

Zikri Rahman consistently embarks in diverse interdisciplinary socio-political and various cultural activism projects. He is the co-founder of Buku Jalanan, a project co-founded as a cultural worker‘s collective and community based cultural literacy initiative focusing on decentralising the modes of knowledge production. The idea has now spread out to more than 90 different locations and been adopted by hundreds of autonomous cultural workers worldwide. Ｈe is also the festival director for the inaugural Idearaya Festival; a festival of ideas to celebrate progressive and dynamic discourses within vibrant and diverse grassroots community, intelligentsia, civil society and community organizer in Southeast Asia. Zikri is also a writer, independent researcher, translator and podcaster for various online portals such as Projek Dialog, Jalan Telawi and Roket Kini. Currently, he is doing a cultural and literary mapping project of Kuala Lumpur through the lenses of literature with LiteraCity Festival.

Alice Ko, Nien-pu, a curator and researcher working in various capacities on projects in Hong Kong, Japan and further afield around East Asia. Her curatorial practice consists of several interconnected strands linked to geocriticism, spatiality studies, artistic action, social movement, and colonial history in Asia. In 2013, she was the curator of Reverse Niche ‒ Dialogue and Rebuilding at the City’s Edge (Hong Kong, Osaka and Taiwan). In 2014, she participated in the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi- City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Hong Kong) and organized the symposium We Are Everywhere－Community Art in the mist of Proletarianized Spatial Production－A Critical Approach (Hong Kong). Recent curated exhibitions include Beyond the Borderline- Exiles from the Native Land (2015), Flags,Transnational – Migrants and Outlaw Territories in Tokyo Wonder Site (2016). In 2017, She participated in Asian Curatorial Forum in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is also invited to Bonn, Germany, by the international program of visits of the NRW KULTURsekretariat and VIDEONALE festival. She recently received a Curatorial Fellowship in residence at BRITTO Arts Trust and Bengal Foundation, Bangladesh, organized by Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan and Taipei National University of the Arts.

No Man’s Land Residency & Nusantara Archive project (The 1st Year): http://www.facebook.com/NusantaraArchive/
Organizer: No Man’s Land; Digital Art Foundation
Associate Organizer: ET@T, Open-Contemporary Art Center
Observation Team: Chen Hsiang-wen, Ho Yu Kuen, Lai Ying-tai (supported by National Culture and Arts Foundation)