This residency was shaped around our meeting with Aqilah Zulkhairy, an incoming student of the Visual Arts course at the University of Malaya. Aqilah was a Special Needs Therapist before deciding to pivot into the art world. The RogueArt library collection, forming a substantial collection of texts on modern and contemporary art in Southeast Asia, presented an ideal resource for her at the beginning of this journey.
The form of the residency, lasting three months, is fluid and embraces the often diverging routes that one takes when exploring an unfamiliar library. Alongside other outputs of her choice, Aqilah will be sharing her discoveries on our Instagram page throughout her residency. Our hope is that her experience will strike a chord with those who may also be considering that exciting leap, and likewise that the library can be developed and challenged by her interrogation of its current form.
The RogueArt library includes catalogues and publications collected and shared by cultural workers across the region, built up through the many cross-regional exchanges and friendships fostered since the late 1990s (from Valentine Willie Fine Art days through RogueArt’s own 15 years, and ongoing). Its non-borrowing 2000-2015 collection located in the front room of A+ Works of Art is accessible to the public. Library residents will also gain access to their post-2015 collection, now located at the RogueArt office at TwoForty.
The 𝗔+ 𝘅 𝗥𝗼𝗴𝘂𝗲𝗔𝗿𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 is committed to the goal of supporting innovative research and experimentation in contemporary art for all.
