Friday 11 December 2009

Turner Prize 1993

Vong Phaophanit with Neon Rice Field at the 1993 exhibition
© Tate Photography

‘I am writing to say something about one of the pieces of art in your gallery, The Rice. Although it looks quite impressive, are you thinking about the meaning? There are people starving. I know it’s not your fault but wouldn’t it be possible to take some of the rice and do something about what it is expressing. Try sending some to the starving people.’

– Letter from a member of the public (aged 9) to Tate, November 1993

Friday 4 December 2009

On Pudu

In response to X no longer marks the spot in Kuala Lumpur, by Rehman Rashid, NST 4 Dec 2009.

The murals outside the Pudu Jail, at least, cannot and should not be destroyed. They reflect a deep sense of compassion and respect for the rights of the prisoner, a sense which we seem to have lost over years since. There used to be football games played outside the grounds among the prisoners, the field where you now see overgrown weeds.

The significance of a jail that allowed its prisoners these expressions should be kept by at least preserving its gates and walls. Now we have modern white-washed facilities in remote areas, which drain the will of the prisoner. Gone is the face of the prisoner, the hope that they can be rehabilitated, returned to society as functional human beings; replaced by cost-per-prisoner accounting and the dehumanization of the criminal.

As Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. Attorney General and human rights advocate said, “There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals”. The Pudu Jail remains the last symbol of our lost sense of respect for human expression, the reality of crime and punishment, and our responsibility towards criminals.