Saturday, January 30, 2016

Field Trip to Gallery Petronas

Date: 20-01-2016
Time: 10:00am - 03:30pm

We have visited KLCC Gallery Petronas with the tittle of #tanahairku which translate as "my mother land" in English. Gallery Petronas is a non-profit visual arts gallery primary dedicated to documenting and promoting works created by Malaysian artists such as Yasmid Ahmad, Quek Shio Chuan, etc. The current exhibition with the theme of TanahairKu is to bring out the story of how Malaysian build the nation together with different culture, language and most importantly how we live happily, peaceful together as Malaysian through their Petronas TV commercials, web films, print ads and street arts.

There is few section of the exhibition in related to different meaning and theme. I am going to discuss a few section that i impress the most. The theme Proud to be Malaysian as the first section of the exhibition. "Sometimes we forget how it all started...", I am totally agree with this. As a Malaysian, do we really appreciate what we have today in our country? Do we really understand how we able to get through so far until today with peace and harmonic? Most of us don't. No matter what have happen to our politic or economy in our country, as a Malaysian, we have the right to protect our people and we should appreciate what we have today. As what we have today is what people sacrificed in the past, we have to be grateful on everything and everyone that help in building the Malaysia today.

"Sometimes we forget how it all started..."
Following by the section 2 with theme of Our Diversity Makes Us Beautiful is to tell the world that we Malaysian will always have faith in our similarities even though we have our own different beliefs. "I want to pray for his safe return...", Prayer 2001, this a story which a boy praying for his daddy's safe return as his father is a fisherman and his daddy is out there in the south-east china sea in monsoon season. Besides, the one things that reflect the grateful moment is the boy praying for other unfortunate children around the world when he watched the TV program about the people suffering from diseases, war and nature disaster. We have to learn from the boy that different belief or races doesn't makes us become a different human. Even a boy knows better than a man.


All of the sections of the exhibition have its own meaning and purpose, I do enjoy to visit most of the section such as section one and two. But I found more interest and common feeling on the theme "What's life without love?" in section 3. In my opinions and experiences, I believe that love is the key to achieve peacefulness, love is the key to achieve unity, love is the key to bring the people all together. What is the meaning of life if we live in a world without love? In the exhibition, I learned that love is what brings us together after those sacrifices, resilience, perseverance and determination. The video commercial Man Gyver 2008 is the video that shows how me the gratefulness of love in a family. This is a story about a father's enduring love and sacrifice himself in order to send his son to university. Aiman, is the boy in the story character who is the son. He is a talented kid. He always ask for his daddy to buy something for him when he saw something that he want. Although he get rejected, he will find his way to build his own prototype of the item that he want. 8 years later, he becomes the famous Man Gyver in his kampung. One day, he received the invitation letter from the university for further study. Once again he go and ask his father about this to get the permission from his father. Then the moment his father took his saving book that his father has prepared for him, Aiman saw his name in the saving book with huge amount of money. That money is enough to fulfill his father dream. Yet, his father willing to sacrifice his dream to buy a super-bike in order to prepare for his son's future. This scene shows the sacrifice of a father for a son because of the power of love in between the family. In my opinion, love doesn't only happen between family, couple relationship or wife and husband, it can also happen in between friends, people around us. Sometimes, we just don't have to be shy to show our love to the others, because we are born to do spread love not hate, so don't let the society change what you are, be the one who change the society. As a simple act of love and kindness can lead a step forward to the world with peace. Therefore, I enjoy and love the way how Petronas use TV commercial to promote their brand yet it can still promote the Malaysian culture in the society.

Man Gyver (2008)




Next, A lifetime of Friendships is the theme for the section 4 in the exhibition. As a friendship, we know that friends are the one who share a connection with you to been through all the difficulties, hardship, sadness or happiness. In this section, Petronas has referenced a historical event in Malaysia that happened in 13 May, 1969 to convey the message of the friendship between different races of Malaysian. As you all know, 13 May 1969 is the Sino-Malay sectarian violence in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia due to the racial issues between Malay and Chinese. When the first time I heard that Petronas has chosen this topic as their TV commercial in 1997, I am shock and wondering, why they want to choose this sensitive issues that most of the Malaysian don't even want to talk about it anymore yet it is a bad memories for all of the Malaysians. But they do change my perception toward the outcome of the video after i watched it. Lee Yen's Best Friend (1997), it is a story that happened during the state of emergency, due to the racial issues Chinese people was murdered by Malay people around Kuala Lumpur area. Lee Yen, the girl in the video is too young to know what was happened at the moment. She saw her mother received a call and told them to take refuge in Sabah as quick as possible. Her panic-stricken mother packed their package quickly and they were about to leave their house. Their Malay neighbors saw what happened and they came out to appease Lee Yen and her mother. The Malay neighbors told them they would be safe in their house. Throughout the whole story, the emotion flow is very worrying as we all know the feeling during the moment of 13 May 1969, but in the end, the aid from the Malays neighbors gave a sources of warmth feeling to the Lee Yen's family during that incidents. It gives a senses satisfaction to the Malaysian audiences who watched this as we Malaysian are agree and wanted this scene to be happened in Malaysia all the time, which all races helping each other. This is what makes Malaysian proud to be a Malaysian. I agree and love the way how Petronas successfully creating a commercial to draw attention to this dark period of our nation's history yet it still can change the perception of Malaysian toward the incidents as we know we will stand out together again if anything happens between the Malaysian.

Lee Yen's Best Friend (1997)


"I was too young to know what the panic was all about..."


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