Dr. Fiona Wong E Chiong, an illustrator and graphic designer turned educator, possesses almost two decades of teaching experience. She is actively involved in researching local cultural heritage and believes in the significance of art and design education in our visual world. As an art and design educator and researcher, she promotes the preservation and conservation of our country’s cultural arts heritage. Through scholarly writings, talks, and community engagements, including secondary schools and tertiary institutions, she aims to inspire others to participate in safeguarding our cultural heritage. Her passion lies in sharing the knowledge of multicultural and local art forms with the younger generation.
This digital image of a stage prop with a fan-like or leaf shape is known as Pohon Beringin, or Tree of Life, in the Wayang Kulit Kelantan, or known as the Kelantan shadow play. Wayang Kulit Kelantan is a type of shadow play that is unique only to the Kelantan state of Malaysia. Once a popular form of traditional entertainment in the Malay kampung or village, yet with modernity and technological advancement Wayang Kulit Kelantan is eventually diminishing with time. Inspired by the prop puppet made by the master puppeteer or tok dalang Pak Hamzah sometime in the 1970s and photographed by the reputable expert in Malay traditional performing arts, Dr. Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof, the Pohon Beringin, in its perfect symmetry and precision, is supposed to reflect a myriad of colours that accentuate the intricate ornamentation and delicate detailing of the natural elements and animal creatures, symbolising the cosmos in three tiers – heaven, earth and underworld. However, the Pohon Berigin is presented here as an inverted black-and-white reminiscent of black-and-white photography or the negatives, coloured in a duotone of yellow and black which symbolizes the dying craft and theatre art form amidst the projected light that casts the stage prop its shadows on the screen, leaving behind only its skeletal presence of a symbolic cultural heritage.
