Kim M Khaira: Pulang Balik: “I Am Going Home Too”
Kim Khaira and Hasinah Begum: Mehndi, Saturday, January 26, 2019, 10 am-4 pm at Lynden's 9th Annual Winter Carnival
Kim M Khaira is a community worker and artist based in Milwaukee from Penang, Malaysia, whose current work draws on the sense of home, creating home, and of making “sense” of the literal and abstract. For her residency at the Lynden Sculpture Garden, an exploration of the art and appreciation of henna and batik, and Khaira’s own drawings and paintings, will intersect with community and solidarity building. In the Malay language, Pulang Balik means “to go back and forth,” or “to return.”
About the Artist
Kim M Khaira received her BA in Political Science, with a minor in English Literature, from the International Islamic University of Malaysia, and thereafter worked in gender-based policy, refugee issues, and editorial and report writing for community-based organizations and a Southeast Asian focused publishing company. Khaira has showcased artworks in group exhibitions in her hometown's local events focusing on women's empowerment including Slumb-a-Chamber as part of the Georgetown Festival in August 2016, and a painting and poetry exhibition, Conversations Between Universes, with her sister Liani for the Penang International Women's Day in March 2015. She has organized music and art events for the Local Democracy Festival and SUARAM, a human rights organization, which included bringing refugee children and Malaysian children together to create art under the grassroots Penang Stop Human Trafficking Campaign. In addition to her residency with Lynden and her community work, Khaira is supported by Iranian artist Komeil Zarin and Rohingya refugee leader Hasinah Begum.