KUALA LUMPUR: The country’s diverse, distinctive and delicious delicacies have become the source of inspiration for two girls from Selangor to use them to create people’s portraits in a special project entitled ‘The Rojak Project’.
Digital graphic designer Lim Sheng Feiyan, 28, with her two close friends, Rachel Lee Ju Wei, an architect, and Jonathan Cool, both aged 28, travelled to different parts of the country on a mission to create portraits of 550 faces of people they met using only local food available at that particular destination.
Using ingredients such as nasi lemak, roti canai, char kuey teow, laksam and many other local delicacies, they created portraits of the faces of ordinary Malaysians they met by crafting the food carefully and delicately.
The girls were using A3-sized white paper where a line would be drawn using pencil first, before the meal was arranged individually one after another to create a portrait of a person.
Once the photo was taken, the food would not be thrown away as the three of them would enjoy the dishes.
Lim said the idea was conceived during the MH370 disappearance where the country was depicted negatively especially on social media.
“I took the initiative at the time by expressing my views using local food to illustrate the diversity of food that depicted the harmonious plural society in our country.
“When we first started in 2014 and 2015, it was just for fun because we are fully employed. We were experimenting to draw local portraits using our meals at the places we visited.
“Every meal has its own level of difficulty especially the food in liquid and oily form,” she said when met by Bernama at the The Rojak Project Exhibition at the Youth Festival of Ideas 2018 here today.
A total of 55 portraits from them were on display at the Sentul Depot here, in conjunction with the RIUH x Grab Malaysia Day Weekend from today until tomorrow, from 11am to 9pm, held in conjunction with the Malaysia Day celebration.
“Our message is to make all of us proud to be Malaysians especially in the new Malaysia and the differences we have in terms of food, culture and religion that make us unique,” she said. - Bernama