Penang’s popular shopping mall, the Gurney Plaza will soon become a centre for arts, music and entertainment for the whole community to benefit.
This is following a collaboration signed between Gurney Plaza and Penang Art District (PAD) to create a community art space that will introduce various art forms of art and cultural activities at the mall.
On hand to witness the signing of the agreement was State Exco for Tourism and Creative Economy, YB Yeoh Soon Hin along with Gurney Plaza’s deputy general manager, Peter Chan and Kenny Ng, the project manager at PAD.
“We welcome this move to introduce a variety of arts and cultural activities in the shopping mall. It will also help to connect artists and cultural communities and to excel.
“In this respect, Gurney Plaza represents an ideal venue to showcase creative products and activities in Penang. Eventually, it will also help in making art accessible to all.
“The Penang state government and I will always support the creative economy industry. As I am also the head of PAD, we are certainly committed to leverage the artistic profile of Penang to a higher level.” said Yeoh in his address.
Meanwhile, guests were also treated to a musical performance of the Australian musical instrument, didgeridoo, by Abun Tagtgren, who hails from Penang.
He was first introduced to this instrument by his brother when he was 15 years-old and since had fallen in love with the unique instrument.
Now he wants to introduce didgeridoo to many more people as it is still not known in Malaysia or even the Asian region.
To his knowledge there are only about five people in the whole of Malaysia who can play the didgeridoo.
He has now come out with his own musical creations by combining didgeridoo with other instruments like Cajon box percussion, cymbals and sound effects as back up to make it more interesting to listeners.
Among the activities lined up next month are the “animatronic shadow puppet show”, Community Kolan Art in conjunction with Deepavali in October, Asian Canadian Literary Journey Exhibition (November) and the Christmas Embroidery Workshop (December).
Also present was the managing director of LBS Music World, Lim Boon Seng, Khor Kar Hoe, Music Director of Zero Orchestra Penang, Renee aw of Gurney Plaza, Swarna Rajagopal of Penang Convention & Exhibition Bureau (PCEB) among others.
