“LangUR Exhibition: Building Bridge Between Our Worlds”—now swinging at the Penang State Art Gallery—is packed with an eclectic mix of artworks that make us dream of a harmonious world with this handsome species of primate, one that makes us excited to emerge from the pandemic.
By Emilia Ismail
Dusky leaf monkeys (langurs) are considered by some as a symbol of Penang’s unique wildlife—just like koalas to Australia—but sadly, not many remain today. According to the head of Langur Project Penang (LPP) Jo Leen Yap, the dusky langur is an endangered species under The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species and is at risk of becoming extinct due to residential development, roads, agriculture, hunting, and illegal wildlife pet trade.
So the question is, can humans and wildlife, especially the langurs, co-exist?
The answer to this question comes in the form of a visual arts exhibition, “LangUR Exhibition: Building Bridge Between Our Worlds”, at the Penang State Art Gallery in Dewan Sri Pinang. The exhibition aims to create awareness about the conservation of these endangered primates, and it is not small: it features some 60 artists and 60 artworks of various mediums, from acrylic and watercolour to sculptures, installed across the gallery—melodramatically spotlit. It is designed to guide visitors through langurs’ various stages of life, from birth to the threats they face.
For guest curator Ivan Alexander Francis Gabriel, the exhibition feels personal and ingenuous. “My connection with the langurs started many years ago, even before I knew what they were. I was walking to my classroom where I worked as a teacher when I saw a langur in the corridor. Its back was facing me, and at that point, I didn’t know what it was doing. As I walked closer to it, I realised it was feeding its anak emas (golden child),” says Gabriel.
Unconditional Love, 2018 by David ST Loh. Baby langurs are born with bright golden fur that turn grey as they grow. Photo credit: David ST Loh
“The encounter did not make me go ‘Wow, this is nature’, but I digested it as the mother langur showing me her baby, telling me, ‘You have every power to save us.’
“In colloquial Hokkien, lang means human. We call ourselves Penang lang, which means ‘the people of Penang’. That’s why for the exhibition’s title, I clued it beautifully as ‘lang-UR’ because I want this exhibition to be a conversation about us humans coexisting with the langurs,” he continues.
Guest curator Ivan Alexander Francis Gabriel. Artwork in the background: Entah lah, 2021 by Bibichun. Photo credit: Emilia Ismail.
At its heart, the exhibition is not just about giving voice to the langurs. It also highlights the wealth of creativity and talent in the local arts scene. Evocative art pieces with moving backstories by participating artists ERYN (Winnie Cheng) and Esther Geh suggest that there is sorrow and loss at the exhibition. ERYN’s Mother / Orphan / Pet is an interactive artwork of a mother langur clutching her infant—a gaping hole, where its heart is, appears when its golden baby is removed. Esther Geh astounds with a watercolour painting of plants, the monochrome portion of the painting symbolising the loss of langurs’ natural food sources due to deforestation.
ERYN (Winnie Cheng) holding the baby langur of her Mother / Orphan / Pet artwork. Notice the gaping hole in the main art piece where the baby langur should be. Photo credit: Emilia Ismail.
Esther Geh and her masterpiece, Adaptation. Photo credit: Emilia Ismail.
Meanwhile, the art piece of a langur behind bars by Tommes hovers somewhere between the obvious and the ambiguous—is it a langur trapped in a cage, or are we the caged ones? Especially during the previous lockdowns, the langurs were free to roam while humans stayed at home.
Tommes explaining his artwork, Dusky Leaf Monkey, to visitors. Photo credit: Emilia Ismail.
But there are also random pieces of oddity, quirkiness and opulence here: one origami of anak emas cleverly placed right smack in the middle of origami langurs huddled together on canvas entitled Generasi by Nicholas Choo; Azmi Hussin’s Missing, a cartoon of Joe-G (Azmi’s buck-toothed, true-blue Penangite character) putting up fliers in a forest about a missing langur; My Home, Your Home, a circular foliage-y neckpiece interspersed with green gems such as tourmalines and jades by Jonathan Yun.
Generasi, 2021 by Nicholas Choo. Photo credit: Nicholas Choo.
One thing is for sure; all the artists successfully stayed true to their signature styles while bringing the conservation message to the forefront, dazzling even the most jaded art enthusiasts and animal lovers. And it’s exhibitions like this that make us dream of a harmonious world with this handsome species of primate, one that makes us excited to emerge from the pandemic.
The exhibition runs through to December 31, 2021, at the Penang State Art Gallery. Admission is free. Circumstances require that the exhibition is currently open only by appointment. Contact +604 261 6466 to make an appointment to visit the gallery or click here to view the exhibition online.
Emilia Ismail is the co-founder of Penang Hidden Gems and a writer. Her articles can be found in The Star, Penang Monthly, and Penang Global Tourism.