Celebration and Exhibition
The project celebrated the history, heritage and traditions through a three-day event, Gempita Istana Puteri Bongsu 2025 at the Istana Puteri Bongsu, a more than 100-year-old palace. The project, funded by the British Council, provided an opportunity to bring this research into a physical exhibition space and create opportunities to bring together artists, historians, landscape and planning academics, technologists, and museum curators. Many aspects of the exhibition used AI and AR technology together with real items to visualise landscape and cultural heritage in new ways, allowing visitors to step “into” the scenes and explore the narrative layers interactively.
The exhibition presented multiple ways of looking at cultural heritage, from archival photographs and curatorial notes to inspired, future-facing visualisations. On the day multiple activities engaged different communities in developing and celebrating the Palace. This includes collaborations with PATMA, Student Club – Kelab Rakan Taman, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and WCO Holdings Sdn. Bhd and Politeknik Metro Kuala Lumpur. In preparation for the event, 60 students supported by four lecturers from the Politeknik Metro Kuala Lumpur helped to clean and restore the beauty of the Palace.
On 18-19 September 2025, a collection of exhibition were brought together to display many aspects of heritage. Students’ work from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia was exhibited to show how AI and AR can animate urban design drawings. Dioramas from WCO Holdings Sdn. Bhd displayed the culture of Kelantanese, and modelled in beautiful detail the past and present of day-to-day life. Photographs from the archives were transformed into animation via AI and incorporated into AR to capture traditional Malay architecture in new and multiple dimensional ways. Central to the exhibition is the display of Kelingkan along with an image of Scottish tapestry in AI and AR technology, through the British Council Connections Through Culture grant programme we have been able to bring the research team together at the event. This has brought together examples of European and Malaysian textiles. Both joined by a connection to royalty and designs inspired by nature. Find out more about the key aims of the project here [https://www.ukm.my/istanaputeribongsu/penyelidikan-dan-penerbitan/heritage-reimagined]
An exciting part of the first day was bringing nature back to the Palace; the participants of the event including VIPs took part in a tree planting ceremony. Signifying the importance of the future of nature to the Palace and our community. Students from UKM and Politeknik Metro Kuala Lumpur supported this activity through planting the surrounding area with native species from Kemuning to Betel Nut Palm. It has been important throughout the project to bring nature into the exhibition and this was a way to honour the beauty and inspiration nature provides us.
On day two, the local community and students joined us for tours of the beautiful wooden palace and to view the exhibition. This day also gave the usually UK-based researchers, Dr Francesca Boyd and Dr Mingyu Jiang an opportunity to learn more from Dr Solehin about the intricate woodwork patterns, to see the careful restoration and to hear about life in the Palace. It was also a wonderful chance to share lunch with students from a range of different disciplines and discuss their interests including opportunities to study abroad. Both Francesca and Mingyu valued the opportunity to share their own research interests and learn from the enthusiastic students.
On day three, the palace was filled with laughter and music as over 45 children joined us for a workshop on Shadow puppets led by the 11-year-old shadow puppet master. The children had the opportunity to play with numerous puppets and traditional musical instruments that accompanied the shadow puppet show. They were divided into several small groups to organise their own narratives to be presented at the last part of the workshop. This, workshop received news coverage on the national broadcast ( https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19k3U4gwMV/) and further photos can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AXe2DXADk/
The event joined together many different partners and was enabled through support from the following; Majlis Perbandaran Kajang, the British Council and UNESCO. The days created an opportunity to engage multiple organisations, foster collaboration across disciplines, and open conversations about the meaning and relevance of heritage today. This continues into the future as the collaborators expand their teaching and learning between different professionals, students and artists.
If you are interested in finding out more about this project or research into the heritage of Malaysia and nature please contact: Gs. Dr. Muhamad Solehin Fitry Bin Rosley | INSTITUTE OF THE MALAY WORLD AND CIVILIZATION
Further photos can be viewed from here