Tidewater
Fourteen dawns on the Matang coast, where the forest is half land and half sea.
Liyana Kassim
Landscape and architecture photographs, made slowly across Malaysia from a studio in Ipoh.
From Tidewater. Kuala Sepetang, Perak, 2024.
Moving image, 14 seconds, looped.
Series
Four bodies of work, made over six years, in places most people drive past on the way to somewhere else.
Five-Foot Way
Shophouse fronts photographed level and square, in the half hour after the sun leaves the street.
Cloud Line
Four tea ridges above 1,400 metres, and the fog that erases them one contour at a time.
Civic
The halls, corridors and screen walls a young country built in concrete, photographed at noon.
Prints
Every plate is printed in three sizes, in small editions, and then never again.
Pigment prints on 310 gsm cotton rag, made and signed in the studio, with a certificate that names the edition number and the size. Framed in Ipoh in oiled meranti or black-stained ash.
About
Liyana Kassim trained as an architect and spent six years drawing buildings before she started photographing them. She works with a medium format camera on a tripod, rarely makes more than three frames of anything, and returns to the same places for years.
Born in Ipoh in 1988, she still lives there, in a shophouse on the old side of the river with a darkroom on the first floor and a print studio behind it. Her work is held by two university collections and a number of private ones in Malaysia, Singapore and Japan.
She teaches a four-day landscape workshop twice a year, writes four letters a year to anyone who asks for them, and answers every email herself, usually on Thursdays.
Commissions
Two or three commissions a year, chosen for the place as much as the brief.
Architecture
Completed buildings for practices, developers and award submissions. A walk-through with the architect, then two days on site, so the building is seen in the light it was designed for.
Landscape and place
Long-form work on a single place for publishers, hotels and foundations. A season at the least, often longer, with a book or an exhibition at the end of it.
Editorial
Assignments for magazines and newspapers on architecture, heritage and land. Short notice is fine within Perak and Penang.
Selected clients
- Atap Merah Architects
- Rimbun Press
- Teduhan Hotels
- Ruang Quarterly
- Lantai Tujuh Studio
- Galeri Batu Lama
- Yayasan Kelok
- Bilik Hijau Landscape
- Kota Lima Developments
- Sinar Pagi Weekend
Exhibitions, books and prizes
- 2025Civic, solo exhibition, Galeri Batu Lama, Ipoh
- 2024Tidewater, published as a book by Rimbun Press, 96 pages, edition of 800
- 2024Shortlisted, Tanah Seberang Photography Prize
- 2023Cloud Line, group exhibition, Rumah Kaca Gallery, Kuala Lumpur
- 2022Five-Foot Way, commissioned by Yayasan Kelok for its heritage archive
Contact
[email protected]
For prints, commissions, licensing and the workshop. Replies within a week. The studio in Ipoh is open by appointment on Saturdays.