by Adline Abdul Ghani

Museums play a crucial role in their local communities, particularly in their cultural landscape and their natural environment.

And to celebrate the importance of museums, each year a special event is organised in museums throughout the world – International Museum Day.

According to the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the objective of International Museum Day is to raise awareness of the fact that, “Museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples.”

The event is held on and around 18 May each year, with each year seeing a larger global participation than before. In 2017, for example, International Museum Day garnered record-breaking participation, with more than 36,000 museums hosting events in some 157 countries and territories.

This year’s theme, ‘Hyperconnected museums: New approaches, new publics,’ is truly apt, as it is impossible to understand the role of museums without taking into account all the connections they make. Thanks to technology, museums can now reach way beyond their core audience and find new publics when approaching their collections in a different way: it can be the digitalisation of their collections, adding multimedia elements to the exhibition or something as simple as a hashtag that allows visitors to share their experience in social media. However, not all these new connections are due to technology. As museums strive to maintain their relevance in society, they shift their attention to the local community and the diverse groups that make it up.

This year, as in the years prior, the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia organised an array of activities specially for International Museum Day. However, the IAMM decided to organise the event on 18 July 2018, as May was reserved for observing the month of Ramadan. IAMM certainly made a real connection with hundreds of visitors that day, which included over 600 students from schools around the Klang Valley. 

In order to cater to its young visitors, the IAMM staff set up booths, which offered various hands-on activities. This included a batik-making booth, where visitors had the chance to try their hand at hand-drawn batik, as well as add their personal designs to a large batik piece.

At the Conservator Booth, people of all ages tried the Digging the Past Activity, where they could pretend to excavate precious artifacts.  And at the Curator Booth, visitors had a different taste of coffee culture by trying their hand at painting with coffee! Other highlights included a calligraphy demonstration by Persatuan Seni Khat Kebangsaan and Wariscan, a prototype smartphone app with a Virtual Kiswah and Virtual Reality Holy Kaabah.

Overall, it was a splendid day of learning for all IAMM visitors. Many of the young patrons left with a new regard for museums as an exciting place to learn and experience new things. And for the museum, it was an excellent opportunity to engage with the public and strengthen connections with them.

by Adline Abdul Ghani

Saloma’s iconic retro garments were displayed in custom-made showcases that allowed visitors to see them a 360 degree angle.

Puan Sri Datin Amar Salmah binti Ismail, more lovingly known  as Saloma, is a primadona who has had an immense influence on our nation’s music and film industry, particularly during the late 1950s to the early 1980s.

Though she is remembered mainly for her extraordinary singing and acting, she also had a true talent in cultivating her own style and identity. Therefore, it’s fitting that the nation’s first songstress has been crowned the “Icon of Retro Fashion,” as Saloma was a pioneer, trendsetter and fashion inventor.

Saloma’s outfits were very much part of her glamorous image and persona, complementing the way she sang, spoke and moved, as well as her coy gaze and magnetic smile. Always dressed to impress, Saloma was among the first in this country to merge fashion elements of the East and West. Her iconic garments included Kain Kapas, Peplum, Kain Sempit, Kain Belah and Kebaya Ketat, with added touches of Western elements. Due to her attention to detail, she also added personal embellishments in the form of sequins and beads, as well as stitching techniques and twining. During her heyday, young women across Malaysia and Singapore emulated her style from head to toe, including the way she wore her hair and accessories. Today, some of Saloma’s iconic and enduring retro fashions and silhouettes are again all the rage, experiencing a revival in contemporary fashion design.

In order to organise this landmark exhibition, which was held at the National Museum from 8 August to 31 October 2017, the Department of Museums Malaysia collaborated with the National Archives of Malaysia, as well as Saloma’s family and friends. 65 garments, in the care of the National Archives, were selected for the exhibition, and they were all handled with care using professional textile conservation techniques recognised by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). Some of the display methods used by the museum include the 3D invisible mounting system (bukrem and ethafoam), padded torso and mannequins, t-bars, hanging cylinders and padded slants. These methods were employed to ensure the sustainability of the collection, as well to maintain their aesthetics. However, museum curators and conservators were faced with a unique set of challenges in handling Saloma’s garments. This is because the garments are much smaller than average, due to Saloma’s very petite, slender figure. Therefore, the display supports they used had to be painstakingly handmade to size.

The warm response that the exhibition has received from the Malaysian public is testament that Saloma’s legacy has endured and will continue to do so in the future.

by Adline Abdul Ghani

Typically, when studying a manuscript, the focus is on what’s in the book, rather than what’s on the outside. After all, as the old adage goes, we must “Never judge a book by its cover.” However, here’s an exhibition that invites you to take a closer look at the covers of books, instead of their contents. Simply called “Islamic Bookbinding,” the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia’s (IAMM) latest temporary exhibition showcases 70 artefacts that comprehensively portray the beautiful elements of bookbindings from around the Islamic world.

Opened to the public on 8th May, the exhibition begins by tracing the history and types of bookbinding. This is followed by a look at the intricate designs and techniques, as well as the constituting elements that form a bookbinding. The objects displayed are beautifully-handmade, most from leather, lacquerwork and textiles. Some specimens show their age and evidence of frequent use, while others are perfectly-preserved time capsules.

Overall, the exhibition hearkens back to an age where bookbinding was a treasured artform in royal ateliers. Besides their practical function, book covers were ornamented with fine tooling, stamping, gilding and painting to showcase the status of the owner.  Some manuscripts are also equipped with additional housings, such as boxes, pouches and slipcases. And then there are those that are so sumptuously decorated with gemstones, they have to be seen to be believed!

The highlights of the exhibition are several rare masterpieces, such as a pair of royal Qajar lacquered book covers, depicting Fath ‘Ali Shah Qajar (r. 1797 –1834) and his son Mohammad Shah Qajar (r. 1834 –1848). Another outstanding piece is a Qur’an binding from the East Coast of the Malay Peninsula, featuring red Moroccan leather and elaborate tooled decorations with a central medallion.

Bookbinding is a topic rarely featured by art institutions, and this pioneering exhibition takes it a step further. It is the first exhibition of its kind to showcase a little-known and almost forgotten part of Malaysian heritage – the art of local bookbinding. Unique emphasis is given to local bindings made from textile that show detailed stitching of the endband placed over the spine.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the IAMM has produced a special catalogue of the same name, featuring artefacts from the museum collection, which will no doubt be a valuable reference on the subject. In addition, the IAMM’s Education Department has lined up a variety of public programmes, including lectures and hands-on workshops for adults and children, throughout the exhbition’s eight-month period.

For further information on this exhibition and its public/ educational programmes, please visit iamm.org.my.