The Exotic Fruits Lab is a collaboration between Lian Loke and Kristina Mah. Through this week-long immersion, the artists explore and experiment with movement, the body, and image to question identity and transformation. The lab will incubate the development of “Exotic Fruits”, a durational performance taking place at Melaka Arts and Performances Festival in Malaysia, on August 31, 2024. 

As Westernised children of South-East Asian migrants, we are caught between worlds. Our parents sought to assimilate into their adopted country, rejecting Asian traditions and superstitions for new found freedoms. Yet we long for deeper connection with our lost cultural heritage, beyond an obsession with the exotic. In this performance we create our own rituals of acceptance and integration, drawing on nostalgic childhood memories of food and festivals. We notice and listen to our embodied narratives and uninitiated understandings of cross-cultural identities, language and meaning. 

We question and converse through playful rituals drawing on the absurd as ways to reconnect and converse with our broken lineages, with broken language. Asking ourselves the perplexing question, am I a banana or an egg, or something in between?

- Drs. Kristina Mah and Lian Loke.