James Jack with Kelab Alami
Ghosts of Khayalan, 2021

natural pigments, soy and beeswax on wall. dimensions variable.
Photos by Jing Kai


This work is woven from collective memories that resist epistemicide. Each of the threads within the net synergises to strengthen the bonds that nourish creative resilience today. People, places, things and spirits included in the work are part of the process of searching for Khayalan understood as realm of imagination. Ghosts help us remember the songs, poems, stories and traditions of our ancestors on the land and sea. The aim of gathering these voices now is to co-create a future with imagination, culture and nature at the centre of our thinking and praxis. During Tropical Lab 7, I listened to stories, touched land and began borrowing local pigments which nourished this fish net from Pulau Hantu (Keppel); Queenstown, Redhill, and Jalan Bahar.This work weaves relationships among people from the past within the realities of today.