Se(Ranga)ga, 2003, Video Animation.

As a Muslim woman, artist Nur Hanim Mohamed Khairuddin investigates identity issues as she challenges the negative representation of Muslims in Western media. Khairuddin is also a freelance curator and writer and a key figure in contemporary Malaysian art. She runs the alternative space Perak Art Foundation in Perak and serves as editor of the contemporary art magazine ‘SentAP!’.

In the video animation Se(Ranga)ga, Khairuddin’s portrait surfaces from a swarm of animated insects that slowly form a burqa around her face. The title playfully interweaves Bahasa Malaysian words ‘seranga’ meaning insect, ‘rangga’, a word for label or status, ‘serang’ which means attack, and ‘rang’, a drumming sound. The underlying music of the video is played by the Indonesian underground band Kakabara. This is mixed with a poem recited by the poet Amirul Fakir, entitled ‘Akulah Perang’, or ‘I am in war’. Khairuddin describes the film’s final sequence ‘my portrait re-emerges and recedes placidly. This is to show that no matter what happens, it is our soul that has to posses and maintain all the strengths in order to “live life long in peace with oneself” through reconciliation of one’s own identity with globalization’. (GG)