Merdeka ! | Lam Shun Hui

2017

Merdeka !

1min 59s

Site-specific performance

Merdeka means ‘’Independence'' in Malay.
It is a performance to:

i) stand as a commemoration to Glasgow's history of revolutions and its many struggles, including that of having Scotland becoming an independent nation.

ii) draw out parallels and contrasts between Malaya (a former colony of the British Empire which gained independence in 1957, subsequently forming Malaysia in 1963 with Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore, who pulled out in 1965) and Glasgow, a Yes city during the 2014 Referendum.

Part of Tour de Force, GSA Sculpture and Environmental Art 3rd year's Public Art Tour.

The tour was the culmination of the public art project in the Queens Cross area, with various pieces working in conjunction to the context of different locations within the area.

The chosen site for this piece is Burnbank Gardens, where the Bakunin House used to be (marked as number 2 on the above map made for the public art tour).

13, Burnbank Gardens used to be the headquaters of the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation, once led by Guy Aldred, a prominent social reformer in Glasgow. The group disbanded in the 60's.

The speech was a compilation of quotes from speeches and books, full text and source of quotes as following:

When we struggle to integrate each of our cultural experiences, it would also be worthy to ask:

What does it mean to be a country?

I wish no harm to any human being, but I, as one man, am going to exercise my freedom of speech. No human being on the face of the earth, no government is going to take from me my right to speak, my right to protest against wrong, my right to do everything that is for the benefit of mankind.

-Speech from the Dock, John MacLean

Independence is indeed a milestone, but it is only the threshold to high ndeavor – the creation of a new and sovereign State. At this solemn moment therefore I call upon you all to dedicate yourselves to the service of the new Malaya: to work and strive with hand and brain to create a new nation, inspired by the ideals of justice and liberty-a beacon of light in a disturbed and distracted world.

-Proclaimation of Independence, Tunku Abdul Rahman

Nations are one of the most successful collective identities of all time, and all the cultural tools we have seen were used to create them: long historical narratives, shared printed languages, markets for disseminating newspapers and novels, sentimental paintings of landscapes and peasants, adapted folksongs – and of course artistic, political and military movements that fought to make “ the people ” and their government line up.

- Protest, A Cultural Introduction to Social Movements, James M. Jasper

Merdeka ! x 7