Cultural Arts
Alongside quantitative research, I study and practise the cosmopolitan arts of the Nusantara — the interwoven heritage of Malay film, textile, metalwork, shadow theatre, and music that stretches across island Southeast Asia. My work applies computational methods (phylogenetics, data mining) to these traditions, while remaining committed to public engagement through workshops, lectures, and exhibitions.
Cinema
Kampung of Stars — Malay Film Productions and the Boon Teck Road Quarters
A social and cultural history of Malay film centred on the Shaw Brothers’ Boon Teck Road staff quarters in Singapore. HASS internal grant 2025 with the School of Arts & Social Sciences. The project traces how a residential compound became the creative epicentre of postwar Malay cinema.
P. Ramlee 50-Year Tribute Symposium
Research-grant-supported symposium marking fifty years since P. Ramlee’s passing. Academic papers, film screenings, and live performances.
The Timelessness of P. Ramlee
Public lecture series, Penang, June 2025. Scenes, songs, and contextualisation of the Ramlee canon. Featured in Berita Harian and Dewan Budaya.
Heritage Objects
Phylogeny of Cultural Heritage in Southeast Asia
Applying computational phylogenetic methods (borrowed from biology) to trace the evolution of keris, destar, and wayang kulit scripts across the Nusantara. Published LNCS 16342, Springer.
Tanjak, Destar & Tengkolok of the Malay World
The Malay headwear tradition as a lens for understanding identity, status, and aesthetic exchange across the peninsula and archipelago. Guest lecture in Southeast Asian Culture & Societies, and as part of the Cosmopolitan Arts of the Nusantara Series with HARTA Gallery.
Workshops & Public Programmes
Cosmopolitan Arts of the Nusantara
Co-organised 30+ lectures and workshops since August 2023 with HARTA Space / Habib Jewels. Covering keris, jewellery, textiles, wayang kulit, destar, music, and film of the Malay world.
Tanjak Warisan Jemala
Heritage exhibition on the tanjak and destar. Public programme and scholarly context for one of the Nusantara’s most symbolically loaded textile traditions.
Audience Studies — The Timelessness of P. Ramlee
Guest lecture for the Audience Studies unit. Contextualising Ramlee’s legacy through audience reception theory, Southeast Asian popular culture, and sentiment analysis.
LAT: 60 Years of Cartoons (1964–2024)
Exhibition marking six decades of LAT’s work — from Kampung Boy to his chronicles of modern Malaysian life. Presented at Monash University Malaysia as part of the Cosmopolitan Arts of the Nusantara series, bringing one of Malaysia’s most beloved cultural figures into dialogue with Nusantara scholarship.
Music & Performance
Predictive modelling of concert programming
Official Research Partner of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO). Using predictive analytics and time-series modelling to inform orchestral programme planning, audience development, and scheduling.
Popular music, politics & dissent in SEA
Netnography and sentiment analysis of popular music’s entanglements with politics, LGBTQ+ expression, and protest across Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Presented at IASPM-SEA, Bangkok 2024.
P. Ramlee re-arrangements & film music
Personal practice in re-arranging P. Ramlee’s songs, tracing the Nusantara popular music tradition. Shared in guest lectures and public conversations on the cosmopolitan arts.