WHO ARE THE INDIVIDUALS BEHIND MARS?
MARS is conceptualised and developed by Shahnim Safian, Bayu Utomo Radjikin and Nur Hanim Mohamed Khairuddin.
SHAHNIM SAFIAN, has been working on database management in creative industry since 1998, collaborating with nonprofit organisations and Universal Music, Malaysia. After graduating from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) Australia in 2002, she worked fulltime in digital branding for Arachnid, and later served as consultant on educational, commercial and governmental projects with several MSC digital branding and database Agencies.
She was commissioned in 2007 by HOM to head and manage a research on MATAHATI’s published materials that span from 1998 to 2008. In 2009, she completed her MA at MARA University of Technology (UiTM) with a progressive research on rethinking and designing an alternative method which proposes a web-based centralized search on content housed in visual art repositories located across Malaysia. She currently holds a post as Senior Lecturer at The One Academy.
BAYU UTOMO RADJIKIN obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art at the MARA University of Technology (UiTM) in 1991. Identified as one of the country’s leading figurative artists, he has exhibited widely since the late 1980’s, including in countries like the USA, Indonesia, UK, Austria, and India.
Early successes in his career include the Major Award at the Young Contemporaries competition (1991) and Honourable Mentions at the Philip Morris Art Awards (1994, 1995). Bayu is also known as one of the founders and a member of MATAHATI, Malaysia’s longest running art collective. Aside from his artistic practice, Bayu wears the hat of an arts administrator, helming House of MATAHATI (HOM), an independent art space founded in 2007, managing its multiple programmes spanning artist-residencies, competitions, and exhibitions.
NUR HANIM MOHAMED KHAIRUDDIN graduated from Institut MARA University of Technology (UiTM) with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art in 1994. Since that time, she has been an artist and curator, as well as arts and culture writer. She has participated in numerous exhibitions both at home and abroad, and is the recipient of several awards, most notably the Major Winner in the 1996 Young Contemporaries. From 1996 until 2010, she worked as Curator at Perak Arts Foundation.
She has curated solo shows for some renowned National artists including Sulaiman Esa and Raja Shahriman Raja Aziddin and was an Associate Curator for the 2016 Singapore Biennale. Often engaged as writer, translator and editor for art publications, she is the owner of Teratak Nuromar, an independent publisher of visual art magazine sentAp! where she also serves as its co-founder and editor-in-chief.