Malaysia Part 7 - Visual Arts Museum & Palace of Culture

Saturday 14th July

Decided to go visit the Visual Arts Museum (Balai Seni Visual Negara) and Palace of Culture (Istana Budaya).

I wasnt allowed to take photos inside the exhibitions in the museum. One exhibition I really really enjoyed was called "Sulatatus Salatin" by a man named Ismail Embong.

Mum tried to explain a bit of Malaysian history to me. I read a bit more later. In short, around the 14-15th century, Muslim occupation brought Islam to Malaysia which led to the establishment of sultanates. The sultans were rulers of their provinces and reign was passed on to sons just like a monarchy.

The exhibition was a series of paintings about the sultanates. There was accompanying text but it was all in Malay and it would take Dad a whole week to probably translate it all. But the paintings were intricate and really interesting. It showed Malaysia's history through Portuguese and British occupation. I'm sure there is much to learn about Malaysia's history that I should read about at a later date.

I also really enjoyed an exhibition about film photography and photographic processing. In the world of digital cameras and digital processing we take a lot for granted. It's so easy these days to even print a photo on a personal inkjet printer.
These days there are no messy chemicals or the need for dark rooms. We can manipulate images with computer programs but I enjoyed seeing some funky pictures made by superimposing films and then processing them.

 

Istana Budaya

The Palace of Culture (Istana Budaya) is like Sydney's Opera House. Here is where musicals, operas and ballet productions are staged. The building looks impressive from afar but closeup the green tiles are a bit discoloured and the building looks a little run down.