PACITA ABAD
INCLUDED IN ‘A–Z OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN ART: A CRITICAL DICTIONARY’, MUARA ARTS, KUALA LUMPUR, MALASYA: OPENING 1 NOVEMBER 2026
1 NOVEMBER 2026 – 4 APRIL 2027
Pacita Abad, Angkor Wat (detail), 1998. © Pacita Abad Art Estate. Courtesy of Alison Jacques. Photography: Michael Brzezinski.
Muara Arts opens with A–Z of Southeast Asian Art: A Critical Dictionary, an ambitious exhibition exploring the perspectives, tensions and connections that shape Southeast Asia today.
Inspired by renowned Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen’s generative work, The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia (2017–ongoing), the exhibition presents painting, sculpture, textile, installation, video and works on paper by more than forty artists. Each work engages with a term that reflects the region’s culture, ecology, geography, history or politics.
Rather than offering a definitive account, the exhibition embraces the dictionary as a space for multiple perspectives. From A for Animism and A for Archipelago to B for Buffalo, C for Corruption and ultimately Z for Zoomorphism, the exhibition moves across the alphabet to reveal the many ways Southeast Asia can be understood, questioned and imagined.
Conceived as a point of confluence, Muara Arts brings Malaysian and Southeast Asian artists together in dialogue, creating a space for exchange, discovery and new connections. The exhibition brings together artists from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam.