Tergantung Sepi by Amir Amin

Tergantung Sepi
Acrylic & pigment ink on mannequin & plywood
125 cm x 62 cm
2018

Tergantung Sepi is the latest work by Amir Amin and for this work, the artist to combine both the muscular and jawi into a single form. This act further amplify the notion of 'Jawi is part of us', which is the grounded idea for the artist's whole series of works. . This act further amplify the notion of 'Jawi is part of us', which is the grounded idea for the artist's whole series of works.

There are five (5) different eras that can represent the development cycle of Jawi in Malaysia. There are 'The Beginning', 'The Golden Age', 'The Downfall', 'The Recovery' and 'The Unknown' (Mahyuddin, Ashrof & Hanifah [2012]). The Downfall era started in the 18th - 19th, when the usage of Jawi began to be replaced by the Roman script. In 1963 under the National Language Act 1963 (Akta Bahasa Kebangsaan) was implemented, we can see the decrease of the usage of Jawi even further. Not implying that this act causes the downfall but in a way it slowly causing the usage of Jawi script to lessen. After the downfall, the Recovery Era began to emerge, which can be divided into two major parts - 80s and in 2006 till 2012, during the 80s, Tun Abdullah Badawi was the Minister of Education and he declared that it was compulsory for students who went to Islamic Primary schools to learn Jawi. This move contributed greatly in the revival of Jawi. Then in 2006, when Tun Abdullah took the office, the government set aside MYR26 million for programmes that can help with the revival of Jawi script for the period of 5 years (2006 - 2010), and nowadays, the Jawi script began to deteriorating day by day as it is scarcely used by the society.!

P/s: the artwork is now exhibited alongside many great artworks for "Progride" exhibition at Artcube @ Intermark.