Needcompany | Malam / Night

Malam / Night

Performative installation MALAM / NIGHT by Grace Tjang

Installation, drawings, costumes and performance Grace Tjang
Videos Grace Tjang (except 'Deer' in collaboration with Emma van der Put)
Sound installation, ‘Imaginary landscapes’ Rombout Willems
Technical direction Ken Hioco
Technical development Tijs Michiels
Technician Koen De Saeger
Production management Marjolein Demey
Outside eye Emma van der Put
Artistic assistance Kasia Tórz

Production Needcompany
Coproduction Théâtre Garonne, scène européenne – Toulouse, Das Internationale Figurentheaterfestival Erlangen, MA Scène nationale – Pays de Montbéliard
Tax Shelter funding BNP Paribas Fortis Film Finance NV/SA
With support of the Belgian Federal Government’s Tax Shelter and the Flemish authorities

Haunted by the night and inspired both by her ancestors and the Javanese theatre of shadows Wayang, Grace Ellen Barkey, who was born in Surabaya, Indonesia, enters into a dialogue with the obscure and searches for forms of re-imagination in her installative performance MALAM / NIGHT.

'For years, I’ve been looking at the plants in my garden at night. The structures, the light of the street lantern or the moon, the shadows, the mysterious glittering when it has rained. I looked so much that the structures became mine. In the Wayang puppet play, you can see the same organic forms and the play with light and shadow. I am the Wayang player, the Dhalang. I am creating the night of my observation and imagination but also the night from my memories and my parental heritage. Going deeper in the layers of the night, I honour my history, the stories of my parents, grandparents, ancestors. Every story in my family hides the whole colonial history and its wounds. It is striking that in the colonial history women are used and then put aside, forgotten. I decided that, for this project, I will decolonize my name and use the name of my grandmother.'

- Grace Tjang, May 2021

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Performative installation MALAM / NIGHT by Grace Tjang