Borneo Laboratory

BANDUNG // Grammars
Making Place Without a Blueprint

At Grammars, we gathered to explore what it means to make place without a fixed plan. Featuring Artiandi (Office SA) and Wendy Teo (Borneo Laboratory), and moderated by Hamzah Al Asadulloh (Studio Lion) with comments from Prananda Malasan (Museum Benda), the session invited us to rethink how places are created, cared for, and sustained.

We shared stories of practice where presence matters more than drawings, and relationships matter more than objects. Place is not something finished or handed over, it emerges over time, shaped by people, land, and care. We reflected on unlearning top-down approaches and embracing collective authorship, where trust, reciprocity, and small gestures guide our decisions.

Climate was seen differently too: not as numbers, but as the sacred landscapes we inhabit, and the care we show to communities and the environment. Drawing from examples across Borneo and Southeast Asia, we explored ethical placemaking in publishing, exhibitions, and everyday practice: returning knowledge and stories to those who made them, rather than chasing spectacle.

In Bandung, we learned that presence is itself a form of design, giving is radical, and slowing down, being close to land, body, and each other, nurtures humane, time-rich collaboration. Place, as we discovered, chooses us as much as we choose it.

PERIPHERAL CENTRES //

What happens when we rethink the map?

Bangkok — a regional metropolitan hub.
Borneo — an ecological and cultural frontier.

How do artists and cultural practitioners shift power, perspective, and possibility between centre and periphery?

Join us for a book launching & discussion exploring these questions through dialogue between Wishulada Panthanuvong (Bangkok) and Wendy Teo (Kuching, Sarawak).

Together, we will reflect on:
• Art as ecological responsibility
• Cultural practice beyond extraction
• Rewriting dominant narratives of region and periphery
• Regenerative thinking across Southeast Asia

Connext Space, 3rd Floor, The Seasons Mall
Saturday, 21 February
9:00–12:00

Featuring conversation + Q&A sessions
Light morning exchange in an intimate setting.

Limited seats.
RSVP: +66 652 263 947 (Wishulada)

Let’s rethink what “centre” means — and who gets to define it.

ArtAndEcology Borneo ThailandArt OurClimateGlossary