Kopi Susu

The name invoked a lazy Sunday afternoon enjoying a warm drink while watching the time pass by. That was also the title of an exhibition at White Box Publika of the work by the artist Soraya Yusof Talismail.

I thought that the subject matter would be happy faces and jovial scenes. Far from that. It was more of Kampung scenes, devoid of people. Just you and nature. And no coffee in sight.

I just missed the forum when I entered. The artist was still in the hall speaking to the visitors.All the photos were monochromic, hence the reference to Kopi Susu or Latte. It was more of the technical process of printing in the end I think. And that may explain the size of the prints. They were too small for the subject matter for my liking. This point was brought home by the impact from a few of the prints which were bigger. Those carried more impact!

There were around 20 artworks on display but no narrative. 

I was there on a Sunday but due to work, I missed the couple of forums organised for the day to supplement the exhibition. Maybe if I were to attend those, I would have appreciated the program a bit more.

Now, this how big the prints should be ....Some background reading and information would have helped a great deal to those casual art and photography lovers like myself. As it was, it was not worth the effort for me going out of my way to see it.

Pasar Seloka Raya

Anita read somewhere that there was a bazaar going on at Publika. She wanted to buy some items there and asked if I can drive her there.

Being a public holiday, getting a parking spot could be tricky. But it turned out that there were plenty of pace at the lower levels. Once there, you just needed to climb on the escalator to get to the shopping floors. Quite convenient.

And the bazaar was great. After half an hour, Anita could not make up her mind about what to buy. There were too many optins and since the place was packed, it was difficilt to get any service. Maybe she should come back during work days when there were not too many people.

The bazaar mainly sell clothes. It was a great place to get Raya clothes for children, The dresses were damn cute, so were the baju melayu. There were also ornaments and cosmetics. The one stall which attracted my attention actually belonged to the singer, Amy Search.

I ended up buying some lights for the balcony for Raya decorations. All battery operated and portable. Definitely a great place to spend an afternoon shopping with plenty of cafe and restaurants - alas, it was Ramadhan. Great place to hang around ...

The KLPF 2017

*The event was held in November 2017*

It was in Pudu last year. And this year the venue changed again, to Publika near Hartamas. I managed to get there on the final day and from what I could see, it was near the end. Some of the exhibitors had started packing up.

On the whole, the setup was a strange one. They had a stage by the Publika entrance and the organiser utilised both White and Black Box as well as the corridors in between. Certainly it wasn't purpose-built. The stalls were peppered around the spaces while certain corners were turned into lecture rooms. Not ideal with the light and sound pollution. It was tricky to listen to talks at times.

Started out at the courtyard The list of contributors Inside the Black BoxBut I was very impressed by the quality of work on display. The printing were mostly excellent and the organiser really put the effort on getting plenty of photographs for exhibition. You could see photos on display everywhere from the walls in the hall as well as at the annexes outside.

I only spent an hour there and I was surprised that Alice Smith having their photography club present at one of the booths. I spent some time chatting with one of the teachers as well as an old boy who was now pursuing a degree in Photography in Hong Kong.

One of the many talks ...Exhibits everywhere ...Even my boy's school took part ...Not as big as the ones when it was hosted in Mid Valley. Back then, you could find all sorts of things to try. I remembered having a go at the Ricoh GR for the first time there. I was hoping to be able to hold the GF50s. Unfortunately none was available although I could see plenty of Fuji products at the exhibition. Maybe sponsorship these days were limited.

That's brighterPeering inMore talks ...If you were exploring around for a gear, don't think that the KLPF is the spot. If the organiser was clearer on their objective and vision, I think the festival can really move further ahead. Hopefully they remain at the same spot next year ...

Monday at Publika

Even though it was located only 10 minutes away from our apartment, Public was not a common place for us to visit. And it mainly to do with parking. We were stuck in huge queues to get in and out and in the end, we never bordered going there again.

We were banking that the place would be deserted during this long weekend and we were right. There were not too many people there. The CNY decorations were being dismantled as well and quite a few of the ships were still closed for the holidays.

Anita wanted to buy some tidbits for the apartment for decorations and there were a few stores there selling cute items. One thing about the place was the food. There were tons of restaurants there, both in Public and the streets surrounding it. We ended up having Thai Boat Needles and the restaurant was located right in the end of the mall.

There were too many things that caught our eyes that in the end we ended up not buying much. We may head out there again in the future once we decided what we wanted to buy.

Pandamonium

The 1600 Panda project was doing its round across Malaysia and for the final two weeks, them cute pandas would be stationed in Publika. It was a WWF project to raise awareness on the decline of the species and the 1600 pandas represent the 1600 pandas still left in the wild. Or at least when I was told.

I took the boys to visit today, and it was havoc. Publika was chock full of people. Parking was a nightmare and to make matters worse, we arrived during lunch hour and could not get any seat to eat. It was a struggle although we finally got one. Ben'd even had a 45 minutes waiting time. We went elsewhere instead.

The queue to get in to touch the pandasAfter we were fed, it was time to get into some panda action. The queue to enter the cordoned area to have a close-up of photos was just too ridiculously long. So, only a few selfies and snaps were done before we muscle our way out.

Best to come either late morning or maybe later on in the afternoon. Sunday lunchtime was definitely a bad idea in anyone's book.

The pandas were cute though. Smaller than I thought. Definitely worth getting the snaps ..... Shame that Publika would their final local stop. Not sure when they would return ...