Academics and practitioners in art and design often struggle with creating a theoretical premise or framework for their practice to fulfil the academic definitions of research. As stated as early as 1993 by Prof. Elliot Eisner, the notion of art-based research is still relatively new and has yet to be established among the ‘conventional’ academic research, especially within the local context, even though this type of research has been discussed among many as a form of accumulation of knowledge and a method of formal qualitative research that employs creative processes to comprehend and communicate the subjectivity of human experience.

Ms. Helen Guek, who has a fine art background, is an award-winning artist who has held solo exhibitions in Malaysia and has participated in over 60 group exhibitions in Malaysia and overseas. As a visual-oriented person, she has always felt more at ease articulating and communicating her ideas via visuals instead of words. In her most recent attempt to convert her creative practices into a 'conventional' academic journal, she challenged herself with a fresh approach to presenting ideas and expression visually and in writing.

Helen's artistic expression focuses on the experiential and expresses it visually. Her works strive to engage the viewer in a deeper understanding of their experiences. Her ongoing interest in the issue of identity attempts to address the underlying complexities of the human experience, as well as her recent series of works addressing issues of cultural difference, race, and ethnicity about migration history, individually and collectively. She uses juxtaposition, overlapping, and layering visual elements to present the shifting nature of her identity and explore the coexistence of different layers she has observed in life. In conveying this inner landscape, she incorporates cultural and societal influences on personal perceptions, experiences, memories, and collective histories.

In her journal publication, "Examining Intersecting Cultural Identities: The Malaysian Chinese Experience,” which she submitted for Junctures, she examines Malaysian Chinese cultural identity, focusing on how migration and settlement experiences have affected their identity via personal and family history. Using microhistory as a research framework, she created artwork that visually portrays the overlapping and intersecting layers of identity, emphasising the multicultural, multi-religious, multilingual, and multiracial experiences that shape identity.  

The paper and artworks aim to question the concept of a fixed and unique national identity by exposing the complexity and variety of the migratory experience in a multicultural country with ambiguous ethnic categorisation borders, specifically in the context of Malaysian Chinese expertise. It features five of her artworks, one of which is featured on the cover of this edition. The artworks attempt to reflect the evolving inner realities of Malaysian Chinese through visual assemblage using printing, painting, photography, and digital modification. The artworks suggest and depict the mutable nature of ethnic identity, considering aspects such as geography, interaction, and generation.

Helen Guek Yee Mei
School of Arts
[email protected]