Penang State Museum board chairperson Wong Hon Wai has asked the committee organising an open art competition on the rationale behind its use of the theme ‘Ubah’ for the art contest, as he expected it to become an issue due to its connection with DAP’s election slogan.

NONE However, Wong ( right ) said he cannot stop the committee from using it as it is their decision.

“When I learnt that they are using ‘Ubah’ as the theme of this year’s competition, I also asked them what was the rationale behind it. But I can’t stop them using it although I anticipate it will become a topic of discussion,” said Wong, who is DAP Air Itam assemblyperson.

“I can’t stop them because the State Museum is a liberal institution, we promote arts and creativity,” he told reporters after an arts event.

‘Ubah’ was DAP’s battle cry in the last general election in its bid to capture federal power, although they failed to do so.

Using the theme ‘Ubah’ for the art competition, where applications for entry close on Sept 30, was seen as DAP allegedly trying to exert its political influence into the state museum and art gallery, which reports directly to the Penang government.

Wong said the Penang Art Gallery committee under the State Museum board comprised of 11 members.

NONE The committee is chaired by full-time artist and former state Education Department director Tang Hon Yin, with State Museum curator Haryany Mohamad as secretary, he added.

The rest of the members are local artists, artwork collectors, art teachers and photographers.

“I’m the only politician on the State Museum board but since 2009, the competition’s theme has been purely the collective decision of the committee and I never interfere,” said Wong.

‘Committee brainstormed ideas’

Haryany said the committee members brainstormed ideas and suggestions among themselves and decided on the theme after discussion.

She denied there had been any “political consideration” in the discussions, adding that politicians have not been invited as members of the jury team.

“It crossed out minds to use ‘Transformation’ as the theme for this year’s competition, but we think that is too stiff so ultimately we decided to use ‘Change’ which is more common and popular nowadays,” said Haryany.

“Change has become a culture or trend of current society especially with the younger generation,” she added.

“Just like lepak, rempit, jomlah which are very popular words. We choose ‘Ubah’ because of its popularity,” she added.

Haryany said the rationale of choosing ‘Change’ is also to encourge artists to transform ideas in producing their art which now remains in a very conventional form.

The word ‘Change’ is not banned by the government or any other authority, hence is free for anyone to use.

The interpretation of the word ‘Ubah’ is very subjective and it is merely a theme.

“The artist can use their own perspectives to interpret the word,” she added.

Haryany said the board has publicised the event to schools and various institutions since July and no one has questioned the theme.

She added there had been positive feedback in the board’s Facebook page promoting the competition.

“It shows that actually, artists are not sensitive about the theme but are more concerned abt the technical issues,” she said.

“Anyway, the organiser doesn’t impose any restrictions on participants. For instance, although the 2011 theme was not related to politics, we received political submissions,” she recalled.

“Art is very subjective, for you the red color (colour of the poster) may reflect something controversial but to me it is romance, just like the colour of roses,” she added.

CM: Don’t be too sensitive about word usage

Meanwhile, when asked by reporters at the DAP headquarters in Kuala Lumpur today, Penang Chief Minister and DAP secretary-general said, “Just because that word is used by us, it doesn’t mean that other people cannot use it.

Similarly, BN uses the word ‘Malaysia’ in ‘1Malaysia’. Does it mean that others cannot use ‘Malaysia’ any more? We should not be too sensitive about word usage.”

He added that logically, no political party should have a monopoly on any word and people who found fault were only being picky. “They can’t find any corruption in Penang so they have to do all this.”