Dialect is a photo collective in Macau, founded in 2017. It was first created as an online platform to share news about photographic events in Macau. Since then, Dialect has become a collective that aims to introduce to Macau new possibilities in photographic practices. Like Hong Kong, the dominant framework of art photography in Macau has been salon photography (Pictorialism). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were a few practitioners who brought back new ideas in art photography, having studied in Western Europe and the USA. Their creative energy has since dissipated, I suspect, due to the lack of support in terms of audience and community. Dialect is a more recent initiative. Its name points to the collective’s belief that photography is a dialect of communication.
I met Dialect member Alan Ieon on a previous trip to Hong Kong. He told me he was interested to showcase Malaysian photobooks at Bookery 2023, an intimate fair of zines, photobooks and art books. I helped introduce Alan to Faisal Aziz and Liyana Jaafar (Photobook Club Kuala Lumpur, PCKL) in Kuala Lumpur, and to Hoo Fan Chon in Penang. He promptly paid a visit in mid-2023. Using the collection of photobooks from PCKL and Zontiga (film processing lab and photobook library in Kuala Lumpur), the showcase of Malaysian photobooks at Bookery 2023 has become a reality.
In conjunction with Bookery 2023, Faisal, Liyana and I are invited to Macau from 18 to 21 August to interact with the cultural workers and lead presentations concerning photo publications of Malaysia. On 19 August, I delivered a presentation titled “Seeing Malaysia through Photography”. On 20 August, Liyana and Faisal introduced their longstanding work on collecting and sharing photobooks relating to Malaysia. They also spoke about a few of the publications that they selected for the showcase. Scroll down to the end for the brief curatorial note penned by Faisal and Liyana.
I have also used the opportunity to walk around Macau, skipping the casinos while avoiding the obvious tourist spots. Arriving in Macau via ferry from Hong Kong, the city feels more relaxed. People seem friendlier; I was trying to find the stairway to the second floor of S. Lourenco Municipal Market Complex 下環街市 when a hawker quickly brought me to it.
Speaking to Dialect members Alan and Rusty Fox, the young people in Macau are quite pragmatic. At a young age, some of them would already be thinking about pursuing studies that would give them a job in the hotels and casinos. In matters relating to creative expression, the Macau people have already been well schooled in terms of navigating the terrain since the colonial era. Compared to Hong Kong, the civil service in Macau is also less efficient. This allows pockets of open space for creative expression to, at the very least, sustain itself.
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Bookery 2023 Curatorial Notes
Malaysian Photobook: A Contemporary Visual Narrative
18 August to 3 September 2023
By Faisal Aziz and Liyana Jaafar (Photobook Club Kuala Lumpur)
Malaysia possesses a rich treasure trove of photographic art, and we believe that the work of collecting, archiving, and cataloging is just beginning.
While not comprehensive, our sentiment is that it covers almost the entire spectrum of photography in Malaysia, drawing from the existing records. As part of the Malaysia Photobook Archive team (a collaborative initiative with Zontiga for archiving and cataloging Malaysian photobooks), we consider it imperative to provide, to the best of our ability, a touchpoint about Malaysia for the audience at Bookery 2023.
The curation takes into account the representation of diverse ethnicities, genders, geographies, and genres in photography. Objectively, we aim to offer a comprehensive insight into the subjects, interests, and core issues that are central to the development of photography in Malaysia, particularly within the realm of photobook publishing.
We extend our gratitude to Zhuang Wubin and Alan (founding member of the Dialect collective) for placing Malaysian photography on a platform where it can be discussed, nurtured, and appreciated.
See you at Bookery 2023. Macau, here we come!
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Gifts from Macau
“Eyes That Speak” / Photographs by stateless children in Kuala Lumpur; Published in 2021 by Jalanan Chow Kit Book Club, Kuala Lumpur 
“Eyes That Speak” / Photographs by stateless children in Kuala Lumpur Published in 2021 by Jalanan Chow Kit Book Club, Kuala Lumpur 
“Eyes That Speak” / Photographs by stateless children in Kuala Lumpur Published in 2021 by Jalanan Chow Kit Book Club, Kuala Lumpur
zhuang wubin | 庄吴斌 
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