Ang Xia Yi
Connecting personal and collective memories
By Nabila Giovanna
Ang Xia Yi, ‘Good Friday’, 2024, cotton tablecloth from 1980s, cotton shirting fabrics, cotton- canvas, linen fabric, cotton-polyester mixed fabric topstitched with cotton threads, 26.5 x 35cm. Image courtesy of The Back Room, KL.
Ang Xia Yi (b. 1996) is a Malaysian artist whose practice spans drawing, painting, photography, and archival intervention. Initially pursuing a BA in Fashion Journalism at Central Saint Martins in London, she returned home after one year and continued to work as a writer and photographer. Her entry into art was in 2019 when her work was featured in The Back Room's 'small works' (2019) group exhibition, leading her to pursue art full time.
Her works bridge past and present trauma, drawing from her observations of changes in domestic life and the environment after years of colonisation. To Xia Yi, history is fluid and shaped by people's experiences, perceptions, actions, and thoughts. This approach allows her to explore the connections between personal and collective memories, integrating them with archival materials to craft new stories that resonate universally.
Ang Xia Yi, ‘In Books There Was Us’, 2024, cotton baby napkins from 1990s, cotton shirting fabrics, cotton-canvas, cotton-polyester mixed fabric topstitched with cotton threads, 26.5 x 35cm. Image courtesy of The Back Room, KL.
Recently, her works are exhibited at ‘Inventory of Intimacies’ (2024) in The Back Room, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. The exhibition explores how textiles, unlike photography or language, capture memories in an impressionistic way that feels less exact and can evoke a sense of nostalgia.
In her works for the exhibition, Xia Yi turns old black-and-white family photos into patchwork scenes using fabrics that reflect the fashion of that time. These fabrics come from stacks of leftover materials found in old fabric shops, each with its own history. The resulting artworks blur the line between reality and memory, creating scenes that feel like hazy memories. The scenes bring a sense of familiarity and nostalgia, inviting viewers to think about their own stories and how they connect with the artist’s.
Ang Xia Yi working on her artwork. Photo by Amani Azlin. Image courtesy of the artist.
Click here to read our dialogue with Ang Xia Yi, where she speaks about intergenerational memories, finding the balance between materiality and narrative, and the role of books within her art practice.
