PETALING JAYA, Sept 9 — This weekend, head on over to the Art for Grabs art bazaar at The School in Jaya One here.
Not only will you have a chance to score some great arts and craft — there will be more than 80 local arts, crafts and NGO booths including 13 events — but you will also be helping to give voice to women on various issues as this edition of Art for Grabs is a collaboration with Sisters in Islam.
This is the second time the art bazaar is collaborating with Sisters in Islam, the first time was in August last year.
Art for Grabs is held four times a year.
“It just happens the third one always falls some time around Merdeka and Malaysia Day. So we take the opportunity to think deeper about what it means to belong together. Hence the drawing by Caryn Koh depicts children trying to put their pieces of the puzzle together. And looking uncertain, yet hopeful. Will our pieces fit together?,” said Pang Khee Teik, founder of Art for Grabs, referring to the poster for the event.
At this weekend’s event, there will be a photo contest called Mom’s Secret Ambition. Participants are invited to find out their mother’s secret ambition, pose in a photograph and win prizes worth RM500 courtesy of The Body Shop.
There is also the Very Bad Film School Challenge where participants make a short film within a day and there will be a screening of previous short films from the VBFS Challenge.
Besides competitions, you can also look forward to performances such as Poetically Correct, a poetry open mic presented by If Walls Could Talk.
To learn more about parenting and working, there will be a forum where women entrepreneurs share their experiences at the Work-Life Balance for Mothers forum.
“I think of Art For Grabs as a platform for Malaysians to express their creativity. I see creativity in everything from printing a T-shirt to resisting oppression.
“By celebrating creativity in this way, we hope to get people to think that everything from drawing to speaking at a forum to championing feminism is part of our right to expression.
“Creative citizenship is the process by which we enlarge the spaces for each other, for marginalised subjects, for people regarded as lesser citizens, through creative means beyond the official and the legal.
“And what better way to do it than by collaborating with people who share the same vision for a better Malaysia for all?
“So that is why we have always collaborated with NGOs or anybody interested to sponsor Art For Grabs. In the past. we have collaborated with Amnesty International, UNHCR, KL Alternative Bookfest, International Planned Parenthood Federation, etc. We aim to bring our vision of merging arts and activism into various parts of KL with the hope of creating more creative and democratic spaces in the city,” said Pang.
Find out more about the event from the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/719657801497843/.
For more information about Art for Grabs and Sisters in Islam, check out their Facebook pages at www.facebook.com/artforgrabs and www.facebook.com/officialSIS.
