magining and building worlds that don’t exist is a specialty of our cover personality this month. Raja Khalid Raja Mohamed Iskandar Shah—better known as Raja Malek—is a savant set designer who is celebrated for his visual artistry in some of the biggest theatre shows in (2006-2008), (2018-2019), (2019), and (2024). His own journey from hairdresser to set designer is as captivating as his work (p.74) and those who know, know that he can make the mundane extraordinary. His latest undertaking is a great example of that. Using plastic waste, he repurposes the material into beautiful reincarnations of birds for the upcoming art installation at the Langkawi Immersif Festival 2024, to be held at the island’s Kampung Buku Event Space from May to June. As his frequent collaborator Ivan Heng—founder and artistic director of Wild Rice—says, Malek’s work can be described as “ingenious, thought-provoking and sensational, but at the same time, handmade and human.”
