Yasmin – In Her Own Words

By Farezza Rashid

Very few people can deeply affect others in just a ten-minute meeting, and one of those few people was Yasmin Ahmad.

A ten-minute job interview with Yasmin was enough to affect Art Director Kevin Bathman into creating an art exhibition dedicated to her – In Her Own Words: A Celebration of Humanity and Universal Love. Bathman, a Malaysian, who has an Arts Degree in Graphic Design/Advertising from Auckland University of Technology held an exhibition in the KL Performing Arts Center (KLPac) from 7-18 July 2010 to mark a year of Yasmin Ahmad’s untimely passing.

A loyal follower of the late filmmaker’s blog, The Storyteller, Bathman used Yasmin’s own inspirational words from the blog combined with her images and created twenty different digital artworks with the themes of Art, First love, Flavors, Heart, Heartbroken, Intention, Life, Love, Multiracial, People, Optimistic, Pathos, Obstacles, Politics, Purity, Race, Sincerity, Skin, Storyteller and Struggle.

From this exhibition, Bathman hoped that people will be empowered to make positive changes in their lives by reading Yasmin’s quotes. One of it was optimistic, quoted as “I am optimistic and sentimental to the point of being annoying, especially to people who think that being cynical and cold are cool. Every day, I thank Allah for everyday things like the ability to breathe, the ability to love, the ability to laugh, and the ability to eat and drink.”

Effective enough, Yasmin’s quote entitled Life has moved an anonymous soul who was feeling depressed about his life that he was now inspired to take up photography again.

“You’re better off spending your time enriching your life by falling in love, getting hurt, observing people, reading poetry, watching films, painting, photographing, travelling and just living life. Rather than burying yourself too much in books on film theories and script writing.” – Life.

Having the blessings of Yasmin’s sister Orked Ahmad and Yasmin’s husband, Art Director Tan Yew Leong, Bathman used scanned images of Yasmin taken by Evan Hwong and Halimi Saidi, and laid down some textures relevant and matching to the images and quotes that he chose.

He also did this because he wanted people to remember the remarkable person that Yasmin was; never being afraid of fighting for what she stood for in ways she knew how, through her commercials and films while at all times being driven by the love that she had for everything.

In the short time that we knew her, although not personally, Yasmin had always spoke of love and sincerity not just in work but in life. Bathman tried to achieve that in this digital art exhibition and to avoid being pretentious or caught in the “fakeness” that usually surrounds the industry of art and even advertising today; often being done for the sake of awards and recognition instead of the connection with people.

Attendees of the opening night included Orked Ahmad, writer Amir Muhammad, the star of Mukhsin and Talentime,  Mohd Syafie Naswip and of course, Yasmin’s fans. Many gave positive words to Bathman in the guestbook and donated through purchases of the posters and postcards of the exhibition throughout the week. Some of the proceeds were donated to Mercy Malaysia, Yasmin’s preferred charity.

Towards the end of the 12-day exhibition, people still came to see Bathman’s artworks. A number were seen coming alone to quietly read Yasmin’s quotes and gaze at her images. It seemed as if they were taking this as the last opportunity to pay their final respects to her.

Yasmin had never forgotten her fans and supporters in Singapore; therefore Bathman will also bring the exhibition there from 27-31 August 2010 in The Arts House on 1 Old Parliament Lane. The exhibition will finally be in Melbourne, Australia where Bathman lives, from 2-6 October at the Australian Centre for Moving Images, in collaboration with the Australia-Malaysia Film Festival 2010.