Material Poetics of a Malay House

What is it about?

Material objects call to us and structure our being. They are not passive, while we are active - rather, they embroil us in their lives as much as we engage them. Hence, sociality is not solely a human function but necessarily involves environments and artefacts. The notion of material poetics is, in this sense, a mutually shaping matrix that affects social life and thought. This philosophy is explored through an encounter with a Malay house. The house is in many ways liminal - a place in which thought and image dwells. It is traditional, yet unique; it holds and expresses history, yet that history is elsewhere and legendary; is Malay but with Chinese decorations, which articulate hybridity; is specifically local, yet involved in national and international flows. It embraces both oscillation and direction. The house is made of wood. This paper takes up this element, showing how the wood not only shelters, but also leads us to venture out to a garden of trees and a dream of jungles where encounters with things, stories and myths subvert our normal categories and expectations. The house leads us places and clears things for us, leading us into a new social field.

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