About

As part of Human-Nature, the British Council’s 3-year programme in Malaysia exploring the role of the arts and creative approaches to highlight climate adaptation, Radical Ecology and Borneo Bengkel, in collaboration with the British Council Malaysia, present TIME OF THE RIVERS, an artist fellowship programme running from April to September 2025.

The Time of the Rivers Fellowship engages four artists from Malaysia and the UK to explore climate adaptation, decolonial approaches to art and ecology, and socio-political impacts on displaced communities.

Programme Overview

The Fellowship builds on ongoing research and community engagement by Radical Ecology and Borneo Bengkel, focusing on the ecological and social impacts of major dam projects such as Bengoh (Sarawak, 2010s) and Burrator (Dartmoor, 1890s). It centres the lives of displaced communities and historic legacies of dispossession, questioning how the extractive dynamics of economic development are also reflected in dominant approaches to heritage and culture that continue to connect the UK and Borneo to this day. In response to these issues and the projected impacts of global warming, the project also considers the reparative and emancipatory potential of artistic strategies that reconnect us with the time and flow of our river ecologies.

Programme Components

  1. Online Mentoring Sessions (April-May): to deepen decolonial approaches to art and ecology.
  2. Field Visits (June-July): two immersive 2-week field visits in Borneo and the UK. 
  3. Online Showcase (September): present research findings and proposals for new works that will emerge through the 6-month programme.

Fellows Sharing Session

Four artists—Kedisha Coakley, Rizo Leong, Syarifah Nadhirah, and Ben Swaby Selig—joined the Fellowship facilitated by Borneo Bengkel and Radical Ecology, to collectively explore: how can art and conservation meaningfully resist colonial legacies? What are the lived realities of vulnerable communities affected by climate change? And what happens when people are displaced in the wake of state-led infrastructure projects?

The fellows embarked on two transformative international field trips in Malaysia and the United Kingdom where they sat with rural communities to hear lived experiences, engaged in powerful exchanges with Indigenous activists, explored the depths of museum archives, and learned from cultural practitioners carrying generations of knowledge. Every encounter paved the way for deeper understanding and a greater sense of solidarity across cultural boundaries.

After six months of collaboration and deep immersion, the fellows will host a sharing session reflecting on their individual and collective experiences.

Register to the online sharing session - Tuesday 30 September, 12.30-2 PM (UK) / 7.30-9 PM (MY).

The Fellows & Mentors

Ben Swaby Selig

UK Fellow

At the heart of Ben Swaby Selig’s practice lies an intersection between materiality, sound, and technology. Through curation and installation, he considers the archive a living, reactive entity, shaped by those who build it. Informed by engineering, he explores Black sonic, social, and spatial production, particularly how diasporic communities repurpose technologies of state control to mobilise resistance and reshape connections to land.

Kedisha Coakley

UK Fellow

Kedisha Coakley (1982; London) is a Sheffield-based artist of Caribbean descent. Her practice spans sculpture, printmaking, and photography, predominantly casting in bronze and printing with braided hair, through which she interrogates Black histories and experiences. Investigating the overlooked, she remixes aesthetics, techniques, and cultural references throughout her work.

Rizo Leong

Malaysia Fellow

Rizo Leong is a Malaysian artist and activist dedicated to community empowerment through art. As a co-founder of Pangrok Sulap, he uses woodcut printing to address social and environmental issues. His work, deeply rooted in activism and cultural storytelling, has gained international recognition for its impact and authenticity.

Syarifah Nadhirah

Malaysia Fellow

Syarifah Nadhirah (b.1993) is an architect, visual artist, and Creative Director at Forest House. Her work explores plant migration, memory, and ecological relationships, focusing on Malaysia's natural heritage. She has exhibited internationally, received multiple grants, and participated in discussions on biodiversity and food security.

Celine Lim

Mentor

Celine Lim, an Indigenous Kayan from Sarawak, Malaysia, is the Managing Director of SAVE Rivers, a grassroots organisation advocating for Indigenous rights and environmental protection. Through community mapping, agroforestry and more, SAVE Rivers empowers local indigenous communities in climate solutions. Celine’s work addresses deforestation, sustainability, and social inequalities, earning her recognition in sustainability leadership and women-led impact.

Emma Nicolson

Mentor

Emma Nicolson is Head of Visual Arts at Creative Scotland. She is known for her innovative approach to art, nature, and community engagement, having spearheaded transformative projects at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) and founded the award-winning ATLAS Arts on the Isle of Skye. Emma was part of the 2024 Human Nature delegation to Malaysia funded by the British Council.

Françoise Vergès

Mentor

Françoise Vergès is currently a Senior Research Fellow at University College London’s Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation and Bennister Fletcher Foundation Fellow for 2025 for “Imagining The Post-Museum”. Her recent publications include Making the World Clean: Wasted Lives, Wasted Environment and Racial Environment (Goldsmiths Press, 2024), A Programme of Absolute Disorder (Pluto Press, 2024) and A Decolonising Feminism (Pluto Press, 2024).

June Rubis

Mentor

June Rubis is an Indigenous scholar, decolonial thinker and conservationist from Sarawak, Malaysia with over 20 years of experience in biodiversity conservation, climate change, and Indigenous knowledge systems. She is the Global Council Co-Chair of Documenting Territories for the ICCA (Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas) Consortium, and co-founded Building Initiatives in Indigenous Heritage (BiiH) to support the revitalisation of rituals and cultural protocols in her homeland and beyond.

The Team

Borneo Bengkel

Founded in 2017, Borneo Bengkel is a pan-Borneo platform that seeks to highlight the island's creative communities. Through the lens of arts and culture, Borneo Bengkel engages creatives of all disciplines as well as researchers and community workers, providing opportunities for organic connections and sustainable partnerships.

With collaborations throughout Borneo- Sarawak, Sabah, Kalimantan and Brunei - we have hosted, curated and facilitated residencies, exhibitions, workshops and dialogue sessions. 

‘Bengkel’ means 'workshop' in the Malay language, and it reflects Borneo Bengkel’s focus on knowledge exchange, mutual understanding, and collaboration.

Radical Ecology

Radical Ecology works across art, research, and policy to advance environmental justice.

We collaborate with leading artists, climate scientists, policy-makers, grassroots activists, cultural institutions and research centres to deliver critical interventions and public art projects, nurturing imagination where it is most needed and building community for change.

Radical Ecology operates at different scales and in diverse contexts, to create opportunity, community and relationship to the landscape and to nurture “planetary imagination” – a creative force and form of transformative agency that can translate across silos of racial identity and into the heart of our political ecology.

See also