In a seemingly sleepy corner opposite of one of Kuala Lumpur’s liveliest districts lies a thriving, vibrant community of creatives housed in a renovated 1950s building
I remember feeling emotional the first time I saw The Zhongshan Building: it was April 2021, after interviewing Red Hongyi in her old studio, I stepped out into the narrow hallway and looked down below from where I stood on the mezzanine. There were people in the cosy courtyard on the lower floor, chattering as they waved their glasses of coffee excitedly in their hands, some with their cigarettes pinched precariously between their fingers. I recognise some of them to be tenants of the building.
Before it became known as The Zhongshan Building, this 1950s establishment in Kampung Attap was once a family-owned butchery and a residential space comprising three shophouses. It was also a communal space that hosted the Selangor Zhongshan Association and several small merchants before turning into a hostel for foreign workers in the early 2000s.
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After getting the building back and a grant from Think City, Rob Tan, Liza Ho and Snow Ng rejuvenated the place with the intent to create a centre that cultivated creativity. While the latter two were art consultants who worked at the Valentine Willie Fine Art Gallery in Bangsar, the former was an entrepreneur who inherited the building from his late grandmother.
Not wanting to build another commercial space, Ho and Ng gave their art consultancy and project platform, OUR Art Projects (OAP), a physical space in Zhongshan. And when OAP closed its doors in 2019, Ho launched The Back Room gallery. According to the founding trio, their tenants were people who could ‘click’ with the building.
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When I met Ho earlier this year, I asked her if they ever intended for this place to become the community it is today. She gave a wry look and said, “We’re in Kampung Attap. It’s not a place you pass by every day, let alone visit. Initially, we wanted a gallery, but we knew that for us to thrive and for that creative energy to sustain itself, we needed more like-minded creatives. We couldn’t just be one thing.”