Making Malaysia - vol. 1 Navigating Narratives
- publisher: R Plus Projects
- published in: 2024
- language: English
About Making Malaysia
‘Making Malaysia’, as an ongoing publication, is a seemingly ambitious title for a conceptually simple quest: to measure and map the progress of Malaysians who are making an impact on our ever-evolving social landscape. Each thematic volume documents the efforts of several makers of Malaysia who instigate varying notions of progress.
About Volume 1 — Navigating Narratives
‘Navigating Narratives’, which is the title for the first volume of ‘Making Malaysia’, unpacks the efforts of several makers and how they navigate through complex layers of societal narratives through their own fields of operations. The makers featured in this volume are BEHATI, a fashion label; Layar Lucida, a film production studio; Ejin Sha, a graphic designer and visual artist; 33.3, a creative and branding agency; No-To-Scale*, an art and spatial design agency; and Sharmin Parameswaran, an independent curator.
Why narratives
Narratives form the fundamental understanding of our being. Together, they form a huge part of the social norms and nuances of our societies, acting as invisible indicators of do’s and don’ts. Narratives are rarely neutral nor singular, however. They evolve through time and geography, and differ across persons, generations, cultures, religions and regions, and thus result in intertwined, overlapping or contradicting perspectives.
‘Navigating Narratives’ features these select makers not to indoctrinate readers with the narratives they put forth nor their method of delivery. But instead, to acknowledge that by reflecting upon the relevance of already-existing narratives, we too can perhaps nudge ourselves to make conscious and critical decisions on why we create narratives, how we deliver narratives, and why we choose which narratives to embrace.
About R+
Where design, research and identity intersect, R+ dissects — that is, all the time.
Out of a background of cultural nuances and changing statistics, our practice foregrounds the relatable, the relevant and the real. We bridge gaps with a discourse delivered by multiple means of dialogue; Events. Exhibitions. Publications. And to do it all while being sensitive and clear-cut? Sounds like an R+ strategy.
R+ is a strategic design and research unit of GDP Architects.