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Open Studios @ Luma
Featuring the works of Malaysian Writers Society, LUMA Creative Studio, Dabble Dabble Jer, and Charis Loke.
Friday – Sunday, 14 – 16 March 2025, 2PM – 10PM
Join us for unplugged sessions at LUMA to create, imagine, and play. Journey through the creative processes behind our works, whether it’s writing stories, making board games, developing performance works, or crafting worlds. There will also be a multidisciplinary workshop that takes you behind the scenes to create your own playable world through storytelling and creature creation!
● Crafting Worlds Workshops (paid)
● Readings
● Showcase of local art, books, board games, and performance highlights
● Drop by to play board games or work on your own writing
Click here for full schedule Programme Schedule for Open Studios @ LUMA & Crafting Worlds Workshop
Charis Loke (b. 1991) is an illustrator who makes richly-layered maps and images that convey stories and cultures both real and imagined. After discovering Shaun Tan’s ‘The Arrival’ in a school library as a teen, Charis fell in love with visual storytelling. She’s since drawn street protests, market communities, election rallies, in the jungle, on a boat, by a glacier. Working across adult and young adult fiction as well as editorial nonfiction, she’s created maps and covers for stories by Fonda Lee, Sue Lynn Tan, Hannah Whitten, Judy I. Lin, Vanessa Le, Kacen Callender, and Hanna Alkaf. She also illustrated the locally-designed board games Bansan and Kaki Lima. Charis recently completed an MA in Visual Sociology at Goldsmiths with a focus on drawing and mapping as art research methods. She’s always interested in genre-bending projects that interweave maps and text.
Darynn Wee is an educator, actor, storyteller, and arts manager. She is currently teaching Drama at Wesley Methodist School Penang (International). She has a BFA in Acting & Directing with a minor in Psychology from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). Her artistic journey includes stints as a production assistant and manager with Five Arts Centre, alongside notable performances in productions like Fragrance (2019), Are You Game Sau(dara) (2019), and a reading of #Causeway (2020) and The Carer’s Monologue (2020). Beyond the stage and classroom, Darynn passionately advocates for nurturing young talent and wants to contribute to the social well-being of the community around her.
Anna Tan grew up in Malaysia, the country that is not Singapore. She writes fantasy stories and fairy tales, puts together anthologies, and helps people figure out their publishing goals at Teaspoon Publishing. She also wrangles writers and deadlines for the Malaysian Writers Society (MYWriters) in Penang. Anna has an MA in Creative Writing: The Novel under a Chevening scholarship. She is interested in Malay/Nusantara and Chinese legends and folklore in exploring the intersections of language, culture, and faith. Find out more about her work at annatsp.com.
Since graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Goh Choon Ean has clocked extensive hours in conceptualising, capturing and creating still and moving images. She currently runs LUMA and channels her efforts into supporting arts and culture in Malaysia, including providing audio-visual documentation, building steel pipe structures, facilitating workshops, designing heritage-inspired tabletop games, and hosting the Malaysia edition of the Asian Board Game Festival. Choon Ean’s first published board game, Kaki Lima (2019) which features her photographs in the core visual design, highlights accessibility and community-ownership of George Town’s five-foot ways. Her next game, Bansan (2023), one of the recipients of the 2022 Krishen Jit Fund, simulates the social interactions unique to local wet markets. A downtown Kuala Lumpur version of Kaki Lima (2024) was her next game design project and depicted how transient activities along KL’s five-foot ways added to the vibrancy of the city.
W: https://www.charisloke.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/charisloke/
Dabble Dabble Jer Collective celebrates the power of storytelling and creates pieces that explore narratives, push boundaries and interrogate our ever-evolving environs. We encourage collaborative and experimental works across disciplines and frameworks. Our recent works include Burden of Proof (2023), Readings@Tamjong in collaboration with MYWriters Society and YAM SENG LAH! for GeorgeTown Festival 2024.
W: https://www.dabbledabblejer.co/home IG: https://www.instagram.com/dabbledabblejer.co/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/dabbledabblejer.co
LUMA is the creative studio arm of LiveWire! Media, initiated in 2012 to light up arts and culture in Malaysia through media production and board game creation. Documenting cultural heritage through tabletop games has led to publishing Kaki Lima – highlighting life in the five-foot ways of George Town and Kuala Lumpur; Bansan – inspired by the local wet markets in Southeast Asia; Trishaw Frenzy – themed after trishaw riders taking passengers around Penang; and Petal Plotters – spotlighting animals and flora in a Malaysian tropical rainforest. Crafted by local game designers and artists, LUMA’s games hope to bring an interactive celebration of Malaysian culture to tables around the world.
IG: https://www.instagram.com/luma.net.my/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/luma.net.my/
Malaysian Writers Society (Persatuan Penulis Malaysia) is a society for writers hailing from Malaysia spanning genres, languages, mediums, functions and experience levels. Our goal at MYWriters Penang is to help promote Penang-based writers by creating learning communities, such as the monthly critiques at LUMA, and showcase platforms, such as Readings@Tanjong and our annual zine, NutMag.
https://nutmagzine.weebly.com/ | https://www.instagram.com/mywriters | https://www.facebook.com/malaysianwriterssociety