The Hai-O Arts & Culture Grants 2024

The 2024 Hai-O Arts & Culture Grants

The Hai-O Arts and Culture Grants is created under the patronage of Hai-O Foundation, to encourage and support Malaysian arts and culture with the view to promote participation by all ethnicities in Malaysia, celebrating the rich diversity in Malaysian arts. Social justice, multi-ethnic unity and harmony form the spirit of the Hai-O Arts and Culture Grants.

A total of RM 45,000 (ranging from RM 5,000 to RM8,000) was awarded for the 2024 Hai-O Arts and Culture Grants applications that create new work in music, dance, theatre, film and visual art, Experimental productions, Research and documentation, Training, Workshops & Residencies.

A "Lifetime Achievement Award" is also created to  recognize outstanding artists who have worked hard and contributed to arts and culture. The winner will receive RM5,000 and a trophy. It is hoped that this award will serve as an inspiration to young artists.

For 2024, applications of different genre that bring together a wide range of contrasting spheres, through inter-disciplinary, multicultural and experimental approaches, articulating Malaysian identity were received. Applicants cover a span of multi-ethicity and across east and west Malaysia.

The Panel of Selection finally selected 8 grantees from a total of 72 applications and a winner for Lifetime Achievement Award for the year 2024.                .

Panel of Selection

• YBrs Encik Rosnan Bin Nordin (JKKN)

              Timbalan Ketua Pengarah (Kebudayaan & Kesenian),

             Jabatan Kebudayaan dan Kesenian Negara.

• Bilqis Hijjas

Bilqis Hijjas writes about dance, produces, performs and teaches in Malaysia. Currently the Secretary of MyDance Alliance, a membership organisation supporting dance in Malaysia, she has produced the popular Dancebox performance series, and was artistic director of MyDance Festival 2011 and 2013, and co-curator and producer of Tepak Tari in DiverseCity KL International Arts Festival in 2015. Bilqis lectures in dance criticism and performance theory at University of Malaya, and is editor of the Malaysian arts criticism platform Critics Republic.

Bilqis also directs the dance program at private arts centre Rimbun Dahan, which offers residencies for contemporary dance choreographers. Since 2006, she has produced numerous dance performances in theatres all over the Klang Valley, as well as the occasional Dancing in Place weekend of site-specific works at Rimbun Dahan and elsewhere. Bilqis is also the Southeast Asia vice president of World Dance Alliance Asia-Pacific, for which she edits the biannual magazine Asia Pacific Channels.

Bilqis holds a Bachelor of Arts in Social Studies from Harvard University, and post-graduate degrees in anthropology, dance and arts politics from Victorian College of the Arts, Australian National University and New York University.

• Sharmilla Ganesan

Sharmilla Ganesan is a presenter/producer with BFM 89.9, where she hosts Front Row, the radio station's arts show. She is also a writer and critic, with in-depth experience covering and commenting on Malaysian arts and culture. She was a features journalist with The Star for over a decade, where she wrote extensively on the arts, books, and film. Her articles have been published in, among others, The Atlantic, South China Morning Post, NewNaratif, and ArtsEquator. She was runner-up for the Malaysian Press Institute's award for Best Column 2016, for her literary column. Sharmilla also writes fiction, and has been published in several Malaysian and regional anthologies/literary journals. She was an Asia Journalism Fellow with the National University of Singapore in 2017, and a Fulbright/Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow with the University of Maryland in 2015/2016.

• Yap Sau Bin

Sau Bin teaches at the Faculty of Creative Multimedia, Multimedia University and is a member of Rumah Air Panas [RAP], an artist initiative based in Kuala Lumpur. His art practice encompasses conceptual work, installation, performance, mapping and curation. Yap has also worked on the Narratives in Malaysian Art volumes published by Rogue Art. He has served on the jury panel for the 2013 Young Contemporary Arts Award by the National Art Gallery Malaysia; as a nominator for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize 2014 - 2016, Arts Maebashi Artist-In-Residency Programme 2016-2018 and the 2017 Hugo Boss Asia Art award. 

• Fasyali Fadzly

Fasyali is a director, playwright, researcher and educator. He had written and directed his own plays such as Teater Juta-Juta, Berani Mati, Kotak Hitam, Mati Hidup Kembali, Ingatan and directed several plays from other playwrights such as Faisal Tehrani, Leow Puay Tin, Yasmina Reza, Alfian Sa’at and many more. His theatrical works have been staged in Malaysia and abroad such as Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, Canada and Czech Republic. He also writes theatre-related articles and reviews and was published in local and international web portals such as Critics Republic (Malaysia), Arts Equator (Singapore), Dewan Budaya (Malaysia) and Jurnal Svara (Malaysia). In 2020, he self-published his first collection of plays titled Teater Juta-Juta: Koleksi Skrip Teater Fasyali Fadzly. Currently, he works for Malaysian theatre archive project, My Art Memory Project as a researcher. Fasyali is now serving at The National Academy of Arts, Culture and Heritage of Malaysia (ASWARA).

The 2024 Hai-O Arts & Culture Grants winner and successful grantees are as follows:

 Congratulations to the eight winners sharing the amount of RM 50,000

(A) Lifetime Achievement Award

(B) 8 Grantees