Experience Controversy was an exhibition staged by Izat Arif in 2013, following the removal of an artwork that was selected for the Young Contemporary Award organised by the National Art Gallery, Malaysia. The censored work was an installation of black t-shirts hung on a clothing rack, each silkscreened with two Arabic letters: ف and ق (in phonetics, ‘Fa’ and ‘Qof’). The installation was a response to the recent prohibition on the usage of the word ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims to address God within their non-Islamic beliefs when conversing or writing in Bahasa Malaysia. The work was taken down during the exhibition, and as a result, questions concerning censorship were raised.

Two-and-a-half years after the incident, Izat decided to stage a conversation about censorship and its accompanying controversies and issues, including how the media and certain political parties attempted to spin from the controversy to win public opinion. As he did not release a statement after the event, the conversation was also a form of closure.

Presented in the form of a speed sign, Soalan No. 6 responds to the news outlet’s following question of whether the event had posed a form of limitation on his practice, more specifically, his “freedom of expression”.