The Out of the Archives is part of the preview exhibition in the Waye Kito Wayang Kulit Kelantan Festival 2025 and is being curated in two parts.
Out of the Archives - Wayang Gedek
Dr. David J. Banks, a well-known anthropologist of Malaysia, donated a collection of shadow puppets he acquired in Malaysia in 1974 to Hofstra University in 2017. Dr. Bank’s work in the northeast district of Sik during the 1970s describes wayang kulit as a syncretistic art form that expressed a Hindu-Buddhist cultural complex. Similarly, work in the northwest district of Kubang Pasu during this period also exhibited similar syncretistic elements. According to Banks' field notes, he and his wife met a dalang in a village near the Thai border who traveled to southern Thailand to purchase this collection of puppets for them. Many residents living on the western side of the southern border were Muslims who spoke Malay and Thai. Shadow puppet performances were a mixture of both languages. Today, there are few performances of wayang kulit in the northeastern villages of Kedah. The last dalang (puppeteer), Pak Majid, from the northwestern village of Asun, died in 2016. Pak Majid's performances of wayang kulit had long removed the Hindu-Buddhist elements of earlier decades. The photos of the David Banks wayang kulit collection in this exhibit were taken by Dr. Patricia Ann Hardwick at Hofstra University in 9-11 November 2017.
Out of the Archives - Wayang Melayu & Buka Panggung Wayang Kulit Kelantan
More info of the displays can be found in this document:
Patricia Ann Hardwick is the Head of the Sunway Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage and a Senior Lecturer in the School of the Arts, Sunway University. Her Ph.D. is in Folklore & Ethnomusicology and Anthropology from Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research interests include performance, anthropology, ethnomusicology, Intangible Cultural Heritage, and cultural resilience. Patricia has published in Folklore Forum, Midwestern Folklore, JMBRAS, Music and Medicine, and Asian Ethnology. Her research has been supported by the Institute of Sacred Music (Yale), Fulbright (MACEE, AMINEF), AIFIS, the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship Program (U.S. Department of Education), the Malaysian National Heritage Department (JWN), the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (KPT) and Sunway University.
The Out of the Archives exhibit is a part of the Waye Kito: Wayang Kulit Kelantan Festival 2025 and Wayang Kulit A Living Legacy Exhibition
