Sasaran International Arts Festival + Pantai Remis @ Kuala Selangor

After seeing the commentary about Sasaran International Arts Festival 2011 by Mr. Zheng (郑丁贤), the vice editor-in-chief of local newspaper Sin Chew Jit Poh and a famous commentator, our family decided to come all the way from PJ to Sasaran, Jeram in Kuala Selangor. The commentary can be seen here.

This festival was supposed to end at 20th of December, but because of the overwhelming response by the public, it extended its exhibition date to 26th of December. Going to an international arts festival during Christmas, quite unique for everyone right.

Those who went there before knew that there wasn’t any road signs to that small village, so on the way my father asked the some people who lived around the area about how to go to that Sasaran village, how many kilometres from here etc. etc.

This arts festival was organized  by the Sasaran Art Association, which founded by an artist who grew up in Sasaran. He wanted to make Sasaran village a centre of artistic excellent with the focus of creation and presentation of Malaysian creative expression.The theme of this arts festival was “We ART together, 当我们同在艺起”. This art exhibition were divided into three exhibition places.

We went to the first exhibition place. This place was once the land of shop lots but according to my father, those shop lots were burned down because of an accident.

The sun was directly under us even though it’s already half a day! Each of us get an individual umbrella, which were spares placed in the cat boot. I just capture pictures ignoring everyone. -_- There were a whole load of crowd there too!

Be warned, this post is going to be full-loaded of pictures! And I don’t have any art sense so you can ignore my shitty captions. 😉

#1 First thing I saw but the last photo I captured wtf. Art of  wooden baskets?

#2 Wooden sticks with paper made and plastic coloured stuffs. Made me thought of Japanese styled umbrella.

#3 China ceramics plates? Plastics plates? Glass plates? You name it.

#4 Wood sundial. You see the shadow? It’s about 4 p.m. that time. Very accurate.

#5 Decoration curtain?

#5a

#5b This is the same art as above (a).

If you see things in a  different way and perspective, the conclusion you get will be different too from the first.

#6 White what?

#6a Unique thing.

#7 Artificial ship! I love this. And that’s mum there.

#8 White net with plastic red and white twigs underneath.

Okay so the sun was so scorching hot that mum suggested we go to the second exhibition place which was indoors, in the school hall of SJK (C) Chung Wah. A Chinese primary school in the outskirts of town, not bad. And not to mention that this school is small compared to city primary schools.

#9 Hand print paintings by the school’s students along the entrance and yes this is a picture of my mum. And the banner of the event.

I did not go inside the hall first. I wandered outdoors and found something very interesting.

#10 It’s called conversation with someone! It was quite superstitious but I did try it.

I thought of words to say to Gosho Aoyama-sensei, the mangaka of Detective Conan. He’s the first person that popped up in my mind.

I don’t mind telling the world what I said to him but it’s quite stupid and embarassing. I thought: “I wish he could come to Malaysia.” [I thought it in Chinese btw -_-]  and I threw the wood to the wood Man but I missed it with very bad accuracy.

Malaysia is a very beautiful and wonderful country and I hope he can come to visit. And at least have a fan meeting session and let me interview him. In my dreams.

#11 There were about 13 wood mans. Each wood man had a mirror and it reflects your own face. I don’t really know why it’s set to be like this.

There were also many wood shreds or pieces of woods on the floor and a red chair as said above.

I went inside the hall afterwards. At the hall entrance, there were some people wearing santa hats selling things for charity. I approached them and they called me to sign up. Sign up for what? I thought. Then they showed me a guest book and I knew the reason why.

It’s to record the details of the visitors who came here. (for those who’s wiling to do so lah) When I saw the column telephone number, I hesitated. Then I thought Aiya nevermind wan lah, it sure is a wise choice. And I scribbled down my house’s phone number.

Two information boards stood by the second entrance of the school hall. Articles, news and press events about the arts festivals stuck on the boards. An orange coloured A4 paper pasted on the board caught my attention. When I went closer to see what it was, I was thrilled by the words printed on it. It’s the reply by Mr. Zheng! (SSA wrote a letter to him for thanking him because he wrote a commentary about this event)

#12 Interior of the hall of SJK (C) Chung Wah, with murals and all kind of paintings, arts.

#13 Hall banner. Literally translated into The Closing Ceremony of the Sasaran International Arts Festival and The Opening Ceremony of the Exhibition of Art. 

#14 This painting is one of my favourites. It’s called The Broken Egg. I think it’s by a Malaysian artist.

#14a Abstract painting.

Besides the hall, there were also about three classrooms used as pre-exhibition places. The first classroom exhibited paintings; the second classroom exhibited paintings, rocks and wire-art; the third classroom exhibited 3D perspective in boxes and paintings too.

#15 From the first classroom, a butterfly painting.

#16 From the second classroom. All sorts of wire art. I love the wire-crane.

There’s also a 3D perspective painting at the basketball court.

#17 Captured from the second floor. This was the first time I saw 3D art. Daddy posing as if he’s going up the stairs.

My sister said that at the Europeans countries, the streets were full of 3D paintings. I saw it on the web before, but I never thought that I’ll be seeing one in real life. And at first I thought that we cannot step on the painting.  -_-

It’s about time we go to the last exhibition place because we’re in a hurry to go back home. The third exhibition places were all about imaginations. Everything used recycled materials.

I’m not gonna show my face… I’m not gonna show my face…

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FINE. 

#18 Problem? Heh.

I’m not sure how to describe all those things but at least it’s very… Colourful and Beautiful.

#19

#20

#21 We were surprised to find so little people here. But I saw about 3 foreigners here.

Even though our schedule was tight, we still decided to go sightseeing around Kuala Selangor. There was a beach named Pantai Remis (Remis Beach). I’ve never heard of this beach before since we don’t learn it in Geography.

It’s about 10 minutes drive from the previous place. When we reached there, there were a massive traffic jam, just because the road to the beach is small and sempit (narrow). Cars nearly bumped together, and luckily we found a place to park our car. There were also a whole lot of crowd, especially the Malay people there.

Pantai Remis is a beach destination 20km south of Kuala Selangor at Sungai Sembilang in Jeram, perched along the coastal road to Klang. Named after the copious sea shells along the shore, it’s a popular seaside retreat for locals to indulge in swimming, kite flying and fishing activities. Numerous hawker stall restaurants serve authentic Malay seafood cuisine, including traditional ‘Ikan Bakar’; fish grilled on coals with a banana leaf wrapping. The beach itself lies along a long 2km stretch composed of sand, rocks and shells shaded by abundant Casuarina trees. Pantai Indah Seaview Resort, an apartment hotel, provides the only visitor accommodation at Pantai Remis.

Above info courtesy of the Kuala Selangor website.

The first impression was, OMG. BEACH. DIRTY. It’s the truth. Daddy said that West coast beaches were very dirty, or maybe not, forgive me. Because I think maybe we’re just at the starting point of the beach with many people there, so it’s common sense the beach’s dirty, and there’s still a long way to the end of the beach. My sister said it’s high tide today because there’s little sand but I don’t think so.

Second impression. SEA SHELLS. Shells everywhere! As of above info, the name of this beach was said to be named by the sea shells along the shore.

#22

#23 I wear flip flops everywhere.

Mum saw many sea shells on the sand and she decided to bring home some wtf. I don’t think the shells here were pretty, though.

#24 Mum carrying a plastic bag of shells she picked.

#25 Sister helping mum collect sea shells.

#26 Me pretending to help mum wtf but in reality I’m just posing only lol. There’s a lot of them.

I wanted to walk further up across the shore so I keep nagging my sis to follow me. We just walk a short distance and my sis said that she did not want to go any further so I was so not satisfied that time.

#27 Saying goodbye in the car.

We went home after that. My legs ache after reaching home.

P/S: Today was a memorable day too because it’s my sister first day to go outside to work! 🙂