Umapagan Ampikaipakan wears many hats in Kuala Lumpur’s cultural scene. You may have heard him talk about movies, read his literary column, or listened to him in traffic on the radio. His newest hat, Festival Literary Director of The Cooler Lumpur Festival, is one he wears with pride. He talks to Coconuts KL and breaks down the idea of a festival of ideas.
Cooler Lumpur Festival is billed as Southeast Asia’s first and only festival of ideas. What is the importance of a Kuala Lumpur idea, or a Malaysian idea even?
Our societies have diverged in such an interesting way. This region sees a wide range of backgrounds, upbringings, communities, and politics. It brings out different issues, but we could also create different ideas to solve them. We talk a lot about the next Twitter, the next Facebook, the next great Malaysian novel. But our problems, issues, and inspirations are unique. We should be coming up with ideas that work in our society. I think there already are incredibly unique Malaysian ideas, the way that there are unique American ideas and British ideas. By bringing together people from around the world, we hope to inspire Malaysians to make things happen. Maybe it’s time also for our ideas to spread far and wide. There’s a lot of room for discussion and collaboration. And with the Cooler Lumpur Festival, there’s a space for that to happen.
#FAST is significantly bigger than last year’s first Cooler Lumpur Festival #WORD. What did the team learn from last year?
Logistics. Lots of logistics. But we also realised— “Wow, so many Malaysians love this stuff.” The panels last year were so full. At one point, we had 120 people in Blackbox, Publika. 300 showed up at night to listen to ghost stories. We had to turn people away from workshops. This wasn’t just your usual Bangsar or Publika crowd. There were uni students, curious aunties and uncles passing by, young parents who wanted to learn and keep their kids occupied. Malaysia already has a lot of music festivals and a flourishing theatre scene, but when it comes to things that poke your brain a bit, I think we’re a little starved for it.
The panel topics for #FAST run the cultural gamut. What were you looking for when deciding on topics?
We wanted panels that captured the Malaysian zeitgeist, what Malaysians are talking about on a daily basis. Stuff like language, and censorship. The best way to do this I think is tying it back to literature, going back to the arts as a point of reference. Everything ties back to literature, doesn’t it? I also curate panels that I would want to go to, of course.
How did you pair that idea of the Malaysian zeitgeist with festival panelists?
Some panel topics came first and we matched panelists to them. Some panels were inspired by talking to the authors we invited. With panelists, it really came down to cold emails. We explained the festival to authors we liked and hoped they found our pitch exciting. These people do festivals all the time. The challenge was to offer something worth travelling 13 hours from London for.
What three things are you most looking forward to at the festival this year?
Miguel Syjuco’s opening keynote on censorship (20 June, 8:30pm, Blackbox).
The Modern Malay Tongue panel (21 June, 12:30pm, Blackbox). I don’t think we talk about this topic enough. We need to talk about the evolution of the language now more than ever before, since Malaysian writers are branching away from formal Bahasa. In fact, I’m hoping these three generations of Malay writers will get into a nice argument.
I’m also excited about the Reimagining Malaysian Cinema panel (22 June, 6pm, Blackbox), because of my love for movies. Hassan Muthalib is one of the country’s best critics.
A festival of ideas is a first. If one felt like they should prepare before attending, what would you recommend they do?
Nothing! Really. The last thing we want is to make people feel stupid, unequipped, or think a festival of ideas is not for them. We want to engage on a basis any Malaysian would find relatable. No matter what the panel topic is, chances are you’ll already come with a huge pre-knowledge from daily conversations. It’s not an hour of intellectual masturbation, it’s an hour of ‘you’re speaking my language, about things I relate to, or things that are important to me, my family, and country.’ So don’t feel ill-prepared. Just show up. You’ll have fun, and your brain will be poked a little bit. Maybe that’s the biggest recommendation I can make. Come with the willingness to be poked in a brain a little bit. It’ll help.
#FAST: The Cooler Lumpur Festival is a three-day festival from June 20 to 22 at Publika, KL. For more details, check out their official website and Facebook Page.
Photo: Azwan Mahzan
