Navin in the sculpture wears a traditional Indian garb, the kurta, and holding up a sign spelling his own name in a different language each time as if looking out to receive an ‘other’ of the same name. ‘Unused’ signages spelt in languages such as Thai, English, Japanese, Burmese, Russian, Mandarin and Hindi saying only one thing, Navin, are scattered on the floor around the feet of the sculpture as if waiting for the right context for its use. In 2006, Rawanchaikul collaborated with Naren Mojidra, a young Bollywood film director to present the film Navins of Bollywood at Nuit Blanche festival in Paris, France. As part of his research and within the film, Rawanchaikul embarks on a personal journey, looking for other Navins of the world. Here, he discovered that ‘Navin’ meant ‘new’ in Sanskrit and is a name that can be considered household in predominantly Hindu India and is given to both genders and not just men alone as he had initially assumed. Rawanchaikul also discovered that Navins existed everywhere, from parts of Asia to the United States and even in distant Scotland.[12]

The question of both personal and collective identities in an ever-globalised world as experienced by Rawanchaikul has heightened and received renewed interest recently in Southeast Asia. In Singapore, about 4000 citizens came together in a landmark public event to speak against the Population White Paper endorsed by a vote of 77 to 13 in its parliament in January 2013. The issue at stake was the potential disruption to the livelihoods, identity and culture of ‘true’ Singaporeans by the government’s need to propel the economy by inviting an additional 1.5 million foreigners by the year 2030 to reside and work on the island state.[13] This ‘true’ Singaporean identity has been a scorching point of debate amongst the citizens of Singapore where Singapore residents from Mainland China are identified and singled out as being culturally and economically dissimilar from Singaporean Chinese although they share the same roots and language. The same is thought of the Indians hailing from India vis-a-vis Singaporean Indians as well as affluent Singapore residents from Europe, America and other parts of Asia. Meanwhile in Myanmar, Buddhist monks in the city of Mandalay marched on 2 September 2012 to support a plan to oust the Rohingya minority by President Sein Thein. Led by a monk named Wirathu, the march, according to him is to "let the world know that Rohingyas are not among Myanmar's ethnic groups at all", even as the United Nations refers to Rohingyas as the ‘most prosecuted people on earth’ in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Many Myanmese prefers to view Rohingyas as Muslim refugees from Bangladesh who entered and lived illegally in Myanmar for generations, whose population have exploded exponentially and are a violent people but yet is demanding citizenship.[14]

In recent years in Malaysia, ethnic issues have also raised political and social tensions when its citizens, particularly the minority Indian and Chinese Malaysian ethnic groups questioned the validity in conferring the special bumiputra (son of the soil or native son) status almost exclusively to the Malay majority based on a policy that was drafted in the 1950s even today. Such protests are at times read with a positive light and is seen as proof of allegiance and unity within the early migrant populace derived from an adaptation and amalgamation of local cultures, recognising Malaysia as the ‘fatherland’ where their forefathers played pivotal roles in, contributing to its progress and modernisation. Malaysian artists such as Liew Teck Leong, Chong Kim Chiew and Yee I-Lann for example, often revisit this question of rights and identity through their works.

Just recently, on 9 February 2013, armed militants from the Philippines stormed and took the Sabahan village of Tanduo by surprise. These insurgents apparently came on the orders of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III to reclaim the ancestral land they see belonging to the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo. This territorial dispute can be traced all the way back to 1658 when the Sultan of Brunei gave away an area to the Sultan of Sulu (present day Sabah). According to the Sulu Sultanate, Malaysia today is servicing a yearly ‘cession’ payment of RM5300 to the Sultanate of Sulu, a continuance of the 5300 Mexican Pesos to be paid yearly as agreed in 1878 between the British North Borneo Company and Sulu as part of the permanent cessation of North Borneo.[15] The irony it seems today is the fact that the Sulu Sultanate appears confused by the ‘cessation’ arrangement and claims that the yearly monies paid to them is ‘rent’, hence their daring ask for the return of Sabah to Sulu.

In Sulu Stories (2005) by Yee I-Lann, the political, cultural and historical relationships and borders between Sabah and the Filipino-Sulu region are depicted being as wide and fluid as the expanse of the seawaters around them. One frame in this series of constructed photographic images features Tun Datu Mustapha, who is of Suluk-Bajau descendant and was the first governor of modern Sabah, standing in an old wooden boat next to the Sultan of Sulu. Another image, lining up ‘natives’ on an otherwise pristine beach littered with modern-day, human generated waste, suggests the ‘selling off’ of the region and its peoples to tourism and exotica.

In his lifetime, Tun Datu Mustapha was criticised for amassing a large amount of wealth through suspicious means and was rumoured to have customised two Boeing jets belonging to the state owned Sabah Air for personal use seem. Yet this accusations pale in comparison to former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos, infamous for her multi-million dollar shopping trips to Europe and America, acquisition of expensive buildings in Manhattan and masterpieces such as those by Michelangelo and Boticelli. In his Imelda Collection (2006) series, Filipino artist Steve Tirona features Marcos as the central image to a line of fashion accessories from Marcos’ own brand. Endorsed by Marcos herself, depicting a kind of material ‘madness’ and ‘self-referencing satire’ as advertisements, these images were peculiarly commissioned by her own grandson to Tirona whose background lies as a commercial photographer. Despite her tumultuous and controversial public image, the commissioning, approval and use of these photographs as advertisements suggest that there is actually a perceived public ‘value’ and attractiveness for them in a land where in more than one region, 45% of the populace can be considered poor.[16]

Poklong Anading documents some of these ‘ordinary poor’ urban areas in the Philippines with the series Anonymity (2005-2008). Everyday figures are depicted here, with identities obliterated by mirrors held up against their faces to reflect the sun. These are people glossed by on a daily basis in what was described earlier by Lee as ‘blighted urban landscape’. They include unidentified balloon sellers, street sweepers, food vendors and urban urchins, some whom were friends of the artist. The reflections from the mirrors create a kind of angelic ‘halo’ often associated with messiahs who sacrifice their being for greater good and service. A different urbanity is demonstrated in Hong Sek Chern’s Constructing Old and New (2010). This ink painting, borrowing techniques from traditional Chinese painting, personifies the famed and highly prized Singapore public housing apartments (HDB). These apartments are not mere concrete buildings but are also excellent exercises in space management and social engineering. Each neighbourhood and cluster of apartments are designed to contain a prescribed ratio of families from various ethnic groups, obliterating village models where people of the same ethnicity cluster together as a means of support, at the same time preserving traditional culture and language. This is the price we pay in the chase to become ’world class’ as performed by Lee Wen in his work World Class Society (1999). This modern day, urban, living arrangement shrouded by an ‘electric city’ (Electricity, 2010, :phunk), a city bathed in multi-colour and glowing artificial neon light in place of moon and stars as night comes.

There is no disputing the fact that the jungle today in most of Southeast Asia has turned largely either into concrete or well-managed and manicured gardens and plantations, all commonly connected to the chase for economic progress and alleged betterment. Some of us could be lost or struggling in this new unnatural jungle, caught in a perpetual chase merely to sustain our mortality and our art and artists often reflect this reality with unrestrained truths and sometimes, harsher reminders; it is however still one’s personal choice should one choose to shield oneself from this reality and view the more spectacular art presented at ‘markets’. The contemporary art practice of Southeast Asia, although generally borrowing the strategies, materials and methodologies introduced by Europe and America, does not exist to replicate or pursue the rhetoric of art within itself.[17] It is a practice that excavates and investigates the embellishments embedded deep within the polities and spiritual and cultural roots that sways societal progress. Its aesthetics are borrowed equally from its own ancient histories and sub cultures and both in the same light. This is a region of more than 1000 languages of Austronesian heritage, belonging to hundreds of ancestral tribes whose bloodline still runs deep in the veins of its modern day descendants. Its natural jungles might be fast diminishing, but its urban and proverbial one is expansive and just as challenging if not treacherous to tread in.