'I really hope the audience sees that self-expression doesn’t require one to use traditional art-making tools. It can be expressed in any form, whichever format, that fulfills your needs. Anything can be a tool to teach the young our history, heritage and stories of our daily lives,' says Egn. Photo: Mariah Doksil
Is it architectural plans? Is it art? Is it the story of his life? The answer is, all of the above.
Sabahan artist Harold Reagan Eswar, or just Egn, has a curious exhibition titled Dengan Chinta at the newly-opened Kota-K Art Gallery in Kota Kinabalu. It combines mapping and storytelling in a colourful format he calls "Spatial Biography Documentation".
In Dari Kali Ke Durian Tunjung, he shows us plans of his family homes and neighbourhoods he grew up in, places such as Kampung Kali (Keningau) and Durian Tunjung (Labuan). Embedded within this map are snippets from his younger days, like how his grandmother almost fainted when three horses gobbled up all the rice she was drying in the sun.
“We had to go to Babu Nuri’s kedai runcit to get Maggi Mee on loan,” he writes.
Outside the kitchen, Egn marks a spot while recollecting that his grandfather once told him to uproot a plant that was happily growing here because it compromised the feng shui of the adjacent door.
A close-up of an artwork from Egn titled 'The Sin Lian Huat Documentation' about his youthful days in Keningau, Sabah in the 1990s. Photo: Harold Egn Eswar
He also highlights the shortcut he took as a kid, from the playground to home, so he could be freshly showered and pretending to be studiously reading a book by the time his father got home from work on the Sabah Gas Industries company bus, smelling strongly like oil.
Egn is just skimming the surface of his story stockpile with these works. The 43-year-old was born in Keningau, spent his formative years in Keningau and Labuan, and is now based in Kota Kinabalu, where he works as an architect with Kota Kinabalu City Hall.
“I was a weird child who remembered a lot of things. Since I was young, I would have memories of events that I sometimes felt were useless, like my sister salvaging gum from the drain to eat it. When I was 16, I decided that my life was probably something worth writing about, so I started journalling. I have always dreamt about writing a book, but I guess I didn’t want it as badly as drawing a book. My journal entries always had sketches because I couldn’t describe my thoughts in words,” he says.
A close-up of Egn's 'Dari Pagalan Ke Motoyasu' at his 'Dengan Chinta' exhibition in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Photo: Harold Egn Eswar
These journals came in helpful when embarking on his art projects, but it is obvious that he also has a flair for storytelling and a curious and observant perspective on life.
Egn has three artworks in this exhibition, all previously exhibited before but this is the first time they are presented under one roof.
Besides Dari Kali Ke Durian Tunjung, which was shown at the Julius Baer Next Generation Art Prize exhibition in 2021, The Sin Lian Huat Documentation - a participatory piece where the stories are told by his skateboarding friends from the 1990s in Keningau - was featured at the George Town Festival in Penang in 2021.
His more recent work, Dari Pagalan Ke Motoyasu, which is named after the Pagalan river in Keningau and the Motoyasu river in Hiroshima, Japan, was part of the Kaleidoscope Japan show in 2022.
“The idea of putting these three artworks came during the Covid lockdowns where I had some kind of an anxiety attack late one night where I became convinced that I was going to die if I were to go to bed. This made me think about my kids, about how I would want them to remember me. The artworks you see today is my attempt to tell my girls (two daughters) my story, presented this way so it would be like hunting for stories in a house,” he says.
A view of Egn's 'Dengan Chinta' exhibition at the Kota-K Art Gallery. It is the new gallery's inaugural art show. Photo: Chris Pereira
Egn has at least three skills which he considers central to creating such work: his expertise in drawing and plan drafting, his artistic outlook and his love for talking to people. His works, like The Sin Lian Huat Documentation also embraces community spirit and celebrates the little things that matter in life.
There are people, he says, who call this work a participatory mapping project, because some of the stories come from his skateboarding friends from the 1990s.
“We are around 15 people or so and this group was very special to me because I felt accepted in this circle. I was bullied in school and had a family with a lot of struggles, so I found refuge with the Sin Lian Huat boys. I was not good at skateboarding, I was terrible at it, but the group didn’t care and accepted me for who I am.
"When I was 16 to 18 years old, I spent a lot of time with these boys at our ‘skatepark’ and ate good, cheap food from the night market next to it. We also watched movies at a laser disc/mini theatre next door. We are friends till today, we still have aramaiti (merrymaking and drinking) sessions. Even though we don’t see each other so often these days, thanks to social media, we are in each other’s faces almost every day,” he adds with a laugh.
A detailed view of Egn's 'The Sin Lian Huat Documentation' artwork, where he rounds up stories from his skateboarding friends in Keningau from the 1990s. Photo: Harold Egn Eswar
Dengan Chinta is the first exhibition held at Kota-K Art Gallery, a shared space between Yee I-Lann Studio and Kerbau Works, and architectural design firms Arkitrek and Phyllisophy Creatives. The space operates as an office during office hours and as an arts space all other times, with the aim of building a community of cross-disciplinary makers, artists and thinkers.
“It is a great way to start my 2023 journey. I really hope the audience sees that self-expression doesn’t require one to use traditional art-making tools. It can be expressed in any form, whichever format, that fulfills your needs. Anything can be a tool to teach the young our history, heritage and stories of our daily lives,” says Egn.
He hopes to involve more of the community in his project expansion, through a compilation of drawings and personal stories from the public. The idea of taking the exhibition to Kuala Lumpur is also on his to-do list.
“I hope to show the real Kota Kinabalu to my audience, through shared stories of ‘What KK is to me’,” he concludes.
Dengan Chinta is on at Kota-K Art Gallery at Laman Seni in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah till Feb 15.
