Lily Jamaludin

Writer, Campaigner

Malaysia

Human rights campaigner, writer, and poet.

Portfolio
Queer Lapis
01/28/2021
How This Young Writer Queered Malaysia, and Possibly the World | Queer Lapis

BY LILY JAMALUDIN JOSHUA KAM'S DEBUT novel is an impressive feat. Wildly inventive, quirky, and philosophical, How the Man in Green Saved Pahang, and Possibly the World, tells the story of two young Malaysians who encounter history and are called to save Malaysia from a monster that threatens to swallow it completely.

Substack
08/30/2021
#2. Of Putrajaya, Amnesic Utopias, and The City of Omelas

“It’s a city of the future,” said the president of the Putrajaya Corporation about Putrajaya in 1997, four years after it was first conceived. An elaborate part of Mahathir’s Wawasan 2020, Putrajaya’s architecture symbolized Mahathir’s vision for the country’s future: modernity, progress, and technological advancement, with a cultural vision that centered Malay-Muslim nationalism and leadership in the Islamic world. Putrajaya was supposed to be a Malaysian utopia. But walking through...

Cendana
Izat Arif’s Taman Kenangan and the Failed Promise of Development

Kenangan itu, hanya mainan bagimu, running at Mutual Aid Projects from Dec 19 to Jan 23, may be one of my favorite exhibitions of the year. It’s tiny – consisting of a single diorama located in a small “showroom” inside the charming yet outdated Wisma Central on Jalan Ampang in Kuala Lumpur – but wrestles with Malaysia’s economic development in a way that is striking, original and incisive.

ArtsEquator
11/01/2019
The architecture of patriarchy: The Professor by Faisal Tehrani

By | November 1, 2019 | 8 minutes of reading Trigger warning: Descriptions of sexual assault. This review contains spoilers for The Professor . As skeptical as I was about a Malay man writing about queer women, I believed that he could prove me wrong.

ArtsEquator
08/27/2021
Where are the Malays?: Locating the Singaporean Malay in Singa-Pura-Pura

By | August 27, 2021 | 7 minutes of reading Singa-Pura-Pura boasts an eclectic collection of short speculative fiction from a minority ethnic group in Singapore, exploring worlds where robots are therapists, prayers are read from preloaded cards, and humans are migrating to Mars.

Reuters - Salaam Gateway
A digital Eid: Online increasingly the way to go for Malaysia's advertising ringgits

Hari Raya ads in Malaysia are what Christmas ads are to the British - they're highly-anticipated and enjoyed by the public, and are a reflection of the traditions and shared experiences of a community celebrating the culmination of a month of fasting. For brands, it's a prime opportunity to leave a 'feel-good' mark on audiences.

UNICEF
2017
UNICEF Youth Innovation Challenge Handbook

Could your generation lead change in the Asia Pacific region? If you are a young person aged 24 and under living in Asia, join us and explore the possibilities for you to drive social change and address challenges facing young people and children across the region.

Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre
2015
MaGIC Guide to Social Enterprise in Malaysia

A guidebook to introduce Malaysians to social enterprise, commissioned by the government's Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre

Malaysia
Books on the Move

In Malaysia, several grassroots movements are working hard to improve the local community. Buku Jalanan is one such movement, which has spawned several chapters around the country and even abroad. Why bring people to libraries, when you can bring libraries to people?

Malaysia.my
Coast Guards

On a typical weekend morning, the young members of Kelab Alami are scattered across Gelang Patah, Johor. Some are knee-deep in the seawater collecting data on mangroves and seagrass. Some are leading tourists through Merambong Island, explaining to visitors the flora and fauna present in the region. Another member may be out on the jetty, selling fish and crabs to customers and ensuring that fishermen get a fair cut of the profits. They are doing work and research for Kelab Alami, an...

Straits Eclectic (Gerakbudaya)
2017
Understanding Return

We are splayed across the earth and stretched past our muscle. We leak through continents and years like watercolours, spreading across Iowa, Bucharest, Bangkok, and Penang. We learn languages halfway and meet other gods in the distance and it is difficult, in the midst of all this movement, not to feel that we have lost something of ourselves

Exhibition Opening
Hana Zamri's Body of Exile

In Hana’s body of work, viewers are thrown into what is often a disorienting desert landscape. We enter a world that is at times a dark void, and at others an inescapable horizon. We meet figures in the middle of their journey in a dreamscape, a limbo between paradise and hellfire. As viewers, we join these subjects in looking for a way out—only to realise that is hardly the point at all.