Salina Christmas

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MNCU event: Pop culture can preserve traditional heritage

Salina Christmas moderates a panel of pop art experts at an event organised by the Malaysian National Commission for UNESCO (MNCU).

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – On 8 August 2024, author Salina Christmas moderated a session on the preservation of traditional arts through contemporary culture, for a UNESCO event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The session, Creative Approaches to Culture: Safeguarding Heritage in Style, was one of the three panel discussions featured at the Malaysian National Commission UNESCO (MNCU) Network Dialogue 2024. The event took place at the Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The theme for 2024 was Cultivating Peace, Celebrating Diversity.

Watch the video playbacks:

Adding pop to traditional culture

Copyright and IP touched upon at the talk.
Preserving culture isn’t without challenges.
Tradition can be preserved in style.
Gangsapura, OPPO and Fusion Wayang Kulit take culture to the future with digitality.
Adik Youssef (pictured, second from left) shows off his shadow puppetry skills.
Audience at the MNCU event on 8 August 2024 heard how Fusion Wayang Kulit, OPPO and Gangsapura update and hybridise Malaysia’s traditional cultures through social and technological innovations. Images and screenshots courtesy of MNCU, Ministry of Education Malaysia and Tintoy Chuo of Fusion Wayang Kulit.
PPO Malaysia’s campaign featuring the Kelantanese shadow puppetry, starring Fusion Wayang Kulit and Pak Dain, the master puppeteer. The mobile phone brand has launched a series of short videos on the Malaysian cultural heritage under the Malaysia Through The Lens campaign.

The session saw speakers Tintoy Chuo, co-founder, Fusion Wayang Kulit; Bryan Tan, Head of Digital Marketing, OPPO Malaysia, and Nur Diyana Nadirah, co-founder, Gangsapura, discussing the hybridisation of the old and new needed in taking the traditional arts into the digital age.

Through modern epics such as Star Wars, Fusion Wayang Kulit keeps the millennia-old storytelling craft of shadow puppetry relevant and exciting to the young audience. Chuo explained the potential and risks in digitising shadow puppetry, and the warm response received from the public, and from the likes of Disney and Pixar Animation Studio.

A year-long festivities in multicultural Malaysia provided Bryan Tan of OPPO with a rich diary for the smartphone company’s viral campaign, Malaysia Through The Lens. It equates the brand with Malaysian-ness, and its technology as the mode of capture that helps to preserve Malaysia’s cultural heritage.

Anybody likes Star Wars? Image courtesy of MNCU and the Ministry of Education Malaysia.

The conversation on digitality also extended to topics within the creative economy – copyright and intellectual property (IP) – and royalty-based platforms such as Spotify, Instagram and Tiktok.

Gangsapura, a contemporary gamelan musical ensemble, capitalises on the ubiquitousness of digital media to reach out to the global audience. Similar to Fusion Wayang Kulit, Gangsapura’s digital interaction with fans resulted in the audienceship of its live performances, and physical interaction with its musical instruments.

The conversation on digitality also extended to topics within the creative economy – copyright and intellectual property (IP) – and royalty-based platforms such as Spotify, Instagram and Tiktok.

Scaling up culture: promises and challenges

Fusion Wayang Kulit and Pak Dain answering questions at the Star Wars Episode IV show.
Post-recital, members of the audience get to inspect the gamelan instruments.
The modern shadow puppetry employs up-to-date screen and sound technologies to convey a modern epic to the audience.
Good vibration. Gangsapura’s Gong in the Dark is an unforgettable immersive experience.
3 August 2024: an evening of culture at GMBB, Kuala Lumpur. To prepare for the MNCU event, Studio GLUE witnesses live performances by Fusion Wayang Kulit and Gangsapura. On the programme are the shadow play Star Wars Episode IV, and Gong in the Dark recital by Gangsapura. Images: ©Studio GLUE.

In connecting culture to the masses, mobile tech companies such as OPPO use the medium to educate, create, memorise and distribute the message at scale. Digitisation also enables Gangsapura to make their music discoverable globally via royalty-paying platforms such as Spotify and Instagram.

Preserving cultural heritage isn’t without challenges.

But preserving cultural heritage isn’t without challenges. Fusion Wayang Kulit and Gangsapura have to work within the traditional confine of their arts to keep the art form pure. They also have to be creative in operating within the limitations of various technologies that they employ to make the arts happen. Tan’s main brief for OPPO is to market and sell OPPO devices. However, for the Malaysia Through The Lens campaign, the brand takes a softer stance to emphasise not only the features of its mobile devices, but also the social edge of its technology.

It’s not all about digital divide

Zakki Gunawan (pictured, left) moderates the session on education for sustainable development. Gunawan is the National Professional Officer, UNESCO Regional Office in Jakarta Representative to Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Timor-Leste. Image courtesy of MNCU and the Ministry of Education Malaysia.

Sustainability can’t happen in silos. The second panel session, Education For Sustainable Development in Malaysia: Best Practices For Successful Cooperation and Partnership, discussed the importance of stakeholder buy-in in sustainability efforts.

A national coalition is key in making it happen, according to Karen Chand, Director, Education Studies, UN-Sustainable Development Solutions Network Malaysia. Sustainability isn’t a performative action, Dr Balamurugan Ratha Krishnan, Chief Executive, Green Growth Asia Foundation, reminded the audience. Action must be informed with data. Direct action begins with oneself. Azlina Kamal, Education Specialist, UNICEF, revealed that our top-down assumption of what the poor needs can pose a problem. She told us that a beneficiary from a poor community in Kuching, Sarawak, spent the money donated to her on soap – something we easily take for granted – “so that her child can have friends”.

Azlina Kamal revealed that our top-down assumption of what the poor needs can pose a problem. A beneficiary from a poor community in Kuching, Sarawak, spent the money donated to her on soap – something we easily take for granted – “so that her child can have friends”.

Nature’s green is gold

Dr Wan Faridah Akmal Jusoh (pictured, second from right) relates to the audience how fireflies survive in the rural and urban environments of Malaysia. Image courtesy of MNCU and the Ministry of Education Malaysia.

For the session Malaysia’s Natural Wonders As Our Legacies, biodiversity and conservation scholar Dr Wan Faridah Akmal Jusoh related her effort to conserve endangered firefly species around the world. Dr Muhammad Firdaus Abdul Karim works and lives in the world’s oldest rainforest, Royal Belum State Park, situated in an area that’s 130 million years old. Mohd Noor Azam Ismail, Chief Assistant District Officer of Lenggong District in Perak, Malaysia, stated that the region needs support to preserve its archaeological heritage. Lenggong is the home of the Perak Man, Southeast Asia’s best preserved Stone Age skeletons dating 11,000 years.

Mohd Noor Azam Ismail, Chief Assistant District Officer of Lenggong District in Perak, Malaysia, stated that the region needs support to preserve its archaeological heritage.

About the MNCU Network Dialogue 2024

The 2024 event aims to highlight and share several best practices and significant initiatives implemented by UNESCO-affiliated institutions and partners. The learning gathered via the series of dialogue amongst policymakers, academicians, industry players, NGOs and others will inform the recommendations on the sustainable development goals (SDG). These will be used to support continuous learning to safeguard future generations.

The recording of the programme can be accessed here:

The event commences with a speech by Datuk Parmjit Singh, CEO, APIIT Education Group, followed by an opening remark by Soohyun Kim, Regional Director of the UNESCO Regional Office in Bangkok and Representative to Thailand, Myanmar, Lao PDR and Singapore. Her Excellency, Fadhlina Sidek, Minister of Education Malaysia and President of the Malaysian National Commission for UNESCO, officiates the event. Image courtesy of MNCU and the Ministry of Education Malaysia.
Seri Puteri students presents a case for sustainability in high schools.
Jerome Khou introduces the Green Educators’ Workgroup Penang to the audience.
Sultan Alam Shah students talk about their orphanage visits.

Zakki Gunawan explains the concept behind ASPnet Schools.
Jonathan JS Kovilpillai touches on innovations for teachers and quality learning.

More on the speakers of Session 1, Creative Approaches to Culture: Safeguarding Heritage in Style

This article originally appears on Studio GLUE’s website.