“Wawasan 2020, at the moment it announced itself to the world, marked two distinct points in time as history: the point of its inception, like the firing of a gun at the beginning of a race, and a mad, uncoordinated rush to the deadline.”
~Lim Sheau Yun ~
2020 is over. Throughout the last year, and one tremendously nerve-wracking, the art world did not back down. In fact, in a way, it thrived.
Exhibitions were held in record numbers, art auction houses recorded better sales than previous years, and viewers began to take in and relish in the idea of virtual exhibitions.
We were ‘forced’ to educate ourselves in mastering technology, so we could watch discourses via Zoom, webinars and listen to podcasts. There was no other choice: either learn or be left behind.
To ‘close’ the year, Wawasan 2020:Townhall gave us an off-site exhibition devoted to our ex-Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Vision 2020, which he declared in 1991 with the objective of propeling Malaysia as a matured country with a single Bangsa Malaysia.
Revealing and investigating the narrative of Wawasan 2020 is to fully immerse ourselves in the ideas of disconnection, misplacement and surcease.
Wawasan 2020: Townhall permits us to look back and gain understanding, or at the very least, question the meaning of Vision 2020 seen through the eyes of performers, painters and writers through the setup of a town hall: an egalitarian location where artists are free to express their disparate thoughts.
There is no judgement here; the premise, akin to Vision 2020 “lives" in the form of a Shangri-La, a kind of Promised Land but with more attainable objectives.
2020 is no more, but it is by no means the demise of Vision 2020. With participants such as Azizan Paiman and Hamzah Yazd, Chang Fee Ming, Liew Kung Yu, Pangkrok Sulap, Lim Sheau Yun, Yee I-Lann, Sharon Chin, L!pas, Kenneth Chan and Nelson Dino, these creators present a shared summation which is thought-provoking, tender at times, and brimmed with symbolic representations.
Lim Sheau Yun, Research Lead at Malaysia Design Archive, and co-editor of O For Other, a blog on object histories says, “Wawasan 2020 was announced to great fanfare in 1991.
“Then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had been presiding for 10 years over an economically robust nation in its youthful prime, touted as a model for developing countries.
“Yet to ascend to the ranks of other developed nations, Mahathir deemed that acceleration was necessary. Growth wasn’t moving fast enough; the process needed to be sped up.
“Wawasan 2020, at the moment it announced itself to the world, marked two distinct points in time as history: the point of its inception, like the firing of a gun at the beginning of a race, and a mad, uncoordinated rush to the deadline.
“The Vision, as it came to be known, set out nine “central strategic challenges” to make Malaysia a developed nation.
“Its postures read like mad-libs for early twentieth century utopianists – here are some choice descriptions: ‘liberal’ and ‘psychologically liberated,’ ‘secure,’ ‘democratic,’ ‘moral and ethical,’ ‘tolerant,’ ‘scientific,’ ‘progressive,’ ‘prosperous,’ and ‘fully caring.’
Lim continues, “Behind the singular figure of Mahathir in fact lay three Malay intellectuals at Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) who staked out the intellectual aspirations of the Vision, Director-General Noordin Sopiee, economist Ismail Salleh and the sociologist Rustam Sani. Notably, the latter two were known to have left-leaning sympathies, far from the neo-liberal.
“Malaysia Incorporated is what the 1990s are now remembered for. Unsurprisingly, interest in Wawasan 2020 declined after Mahathir stepped down as Prime Minister in 2003.
“A slate of other national ideals came to take its place, all coded in the blueprint of Wawasan 2020: Badawi’s short-lived Misi 2057, Najib’s infamous TN50 and the Pakatan government’s Social Development Vision 2030.
“In the lead-up to the year 2020, there has been a resurgence of interest in Wawasan 2020.
“Politicians in Malaysia don’t hold townhalls: their outreach is monodirectional. Instead, we have speeches, press conferences – at best, one shows up to a kenduri or a funeral.
“Ironically, in the era of Wawasan 2020, one of the few dialogues occurred in 2002, when Mahathir tearfully announced his resignation in the Umno General Assembly. As he made his speech, the assembled Umno delegates shouted back at him from the floor, calling on him to stay on.
He stayed on, and eventually retired in 2003. Of course, he would return in 2018, only to step down again in 2020. No tears were shed. It meant everything; it meant nothing. The spectre of Mahathir, of Wawasan, remains.”
I quoted her word for word, (not her whole essay) because it is all so absorbing and bittersweet, and though I do not necessarily agree with everything (I am quite the ‘Bapak’ fan) Lim said, she does explain the exhibition’s intentions carefully, sensitively and sensibly, and that is what it is all about – where exhibitions like Wawasan 2020:Townhall could pave the way for a more thorough investigation into how art plays a pivotal role in the quest or desire for a more poised and interconnected structure.
All the works are outstanding and we expect no less than deeply personal details; artists with dignified minds and sensibilities.
Take Sharon Chin’s & Hoo Siew Teck's Asal, Usul, Lama, Baharu (Origins, Proposition; Old, New) 2020 for example. It was first pieced together from discarded material by Madam Hoo Siew Teck (1920s –1987, who lived in Melaka and Johor); Sharon Chin overhauled and added her own touch to the work, using remnants salvaged from election campaign flags.
This is not a beautiful piece of work – it is savage, a work which attempts to discern between what is genuine and ‘false’.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Azizan Paiman on his collaborative work with poet Hamzah Yazd. ‘Selamat Pagi Tuan Presiden’ is a work of an array of toothbrushes, arranged in a line, each one with its own excerpt from Yazd’s poem.
Azizan was invited to participate in Wawasan 2020: Townhall, to shape a work based on Wawasan 2020.
At around the same time, the artist was investigating the question of Manifestasi Dua Seni, (The Manifestation of Two Arts) which interrogates literature and art. This topic intrigued him; the works and responses to the works of Usman Awang, Kassim Ahmad and Ismail Zain’s reaction to the poem Ku Bunuh Chinta Ku.
Azizan, in the spirit of these poems, created Selamat Pagi Tuan Presiden. He did not want to incorporate ones which are already well-known into his work, preferring to team up with new talent.
Azizan says, “I prefer to use ‘local knowledge’, as in people I know to have discourses with and eventually come up with an alliance. So, I approached Hamzah, and our conversation began with the question of the word ‘2020’.
“We agreed that ‘2020’ is not a word, but segregated to four words – 2 I 0 I 2 I 0. To us, the vision is about 22 years of Tun governing the country and 22 months as Prime Minister for the second time. The discussion intensified, we interrogated political, economic, culture, religion and geographical issues, and it resulted in a poem with 22 stories.
“Hamzah’s poem is acerbic, and it was my responsibility to select the right objects to locomote his words. I went through my archives and decided on a set of toothbrushes which I began collecting 4 years ago.
“Why the toothbrush? I interpret it as a tool which can be savage; it mercilessly scrapes, scours and ‘pressures’ us to do things in the quest for ambition.
“The toothbrush is a metaphor; my way of saying it stands as a figure which has been utilised by the power to build up this vision. But then again, we must remember; Wawasan 2020:Townhall is only over 40 days old. The narrative is not perfect – we need to discuss it on many levels.”
The works shown at Wawasan 2020:Townhall and the selection of artists are formidable in their own unusual and paradoxical ways. There is no sin here, but there is ‘ugliness’, there is beauty, there are psychological intentions, some wildly outstanding/enthusiastic works, and there are emotional complexities. Tun’s Vision 2020 was not perfect, nothing is.
It is time we come to terms with that. – The Vibes, January 24, 2021
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