Restoring Legacy

As we shared in our Manifesto, this year we choose to go home—to record, cherish, and honor the neighbourhood we are in and the people who continue to shape it. Restoring Legacy is one of the ways we attempt do it.

Here in Glodok, there are still those who quietly practice and safeguard traditions with care, despite the rapid changes happening within the neighbourhood. We find that deeply admirable. Yet we also recognize a pressing reality: many of Glodok’s longtime inhabitants are growing older, and with them, their legacies—the traditions they uphold and the stories they carry—risk disappearing.

When we think about legacy, we often imagine something tangible: inheritances, buildings, hand-me-downs, and keepsakes. But legacy can live on in memory, in stories retold, and in values passed from one generation to the next. These are the things we hope to preserve and carry forward through Restoring Legacy.

For its inaugural edition, we featured the late Mr. Lioe Ren Chen, Glodok’s local and renowned calligrapher, who was an important pillar to the community. He had been practicing the art for decades, and his brushwork continues to adorn gates, drums, and artworks seen around the neighborhood, leaving enduring marks on its visual and cultural landscape.

We are grateful to have been given the opportunity to document and restore his archive of calligraphy works, paintings, and photographs—carefully kept by his family since his passing in 2020.  We also got to know Mr. Lioe better beyond his work by conversing with his daughters and cleaning his home studio. Through this process of restoration, the shape of the program began to take shape.

In the Restoring Legacy program, we revisited Mr. Lioe’s life and legacy—showcasing his archives, listening to stories from his daughters, and visiting his home studio. It was both an act of remembrance and a gesture of continuity.

We’ve reproduced his Guāng (光; “light”) brushwork, retrieved from his archive, in honor of dedication and care. Riso-printed on xuan paper chūnlián—usually hung on doorways and walls during Chinese New Year celebrations for good luck—the piece pays homage while breathing new life into his legacy, offering light as a blessing for the year ahead.