Heritage
Cultural Identity
Diaspora
Creative Arts
Museum of Meaning
Meaningful objects as artistic practice. A participatory work with the Malaysian diaspora in Coventry, exploring how memory, food, song and family tradition carry belonging across time, place and generations.
Artistic enquiry
Can everyday objects become living carriers of belonging?
A garden
The work took place in
Nor's own home garden
Co-authored
Participants contributed objects,
memories and reflections
Six artistic tools
Food, hospitality, batik,
objects, conversation, song
One song
Rose & Hibiscus, with
composer Amy Kakoura
The work where my voice became both artist and changemaker
Museum of Meaning marked a pivotal moment in my artistic journey. Developed during Coventry City of Culture 2021, it brought together my lived experience as a Malaysian living in Coventry with my growing enquiry into identity, migration and belonging. It was through this work that I recognised my voice as both an artist and a changemaker.
Earlier projects explored how communities connect through hospitality, celebration and shared rituals. Museum of Meaning shifted the enquiry towards memory itself, asking how ordinary objects, food, songs and family traditions carry identity across time, place and generations.
Designing the conditions in which memories surfaced naturally
Working with members of the Malaysian diaspora, I created an intimate participatory environment in my own garden where hospitality, food, batik making, conversation and storytelling became artistic media.
Rather than interviewing participants or collecting stories, I designed the conditions in which memories surfaced naturally through shared experience. Participants became co-authors of the work, contributing personal objects, memories and reflections that gradually revealed a collective story of belonging.
Heritage
Collaboration
Music
Rose & Hibiscus
These conversations became the inspiration for Rose & Hibiscus, an original song created collaboratively with composer Amy Kakoura.
Rather than illustrating participants' experiences, the song transformed their collective memories into a new artistic expression, demonstrating how participatory storytelling can evolve into contemporary cultural work.
Artistic Insights
Through this work I discovered that:
Everyday objects
carry emotional
landscapes.
Memory is awakened
through the senses before language.
Hospitality creates the trust needed for deeper storytelling.
Collective meaning emerges through conversation rather than collection.
This work established meaningful objects, memory and conversation as artistic media within my practice.
Project Name
Malaysian Heritage: A Taste of Home (series)
Year
2021, developed during Coventry City of Culture
Artistic media
Meaningful objects, food, hospitality, batik textile, conversation, song
Key Events
International Changemakers Programme (2021) / Malaysian Ladies History Time at St Mary's Guildhall (2023) / A Taste of Malaysian Heritage at Coventry Peace Festival (2025)
Locations
Nor's garden, Coventry
Collaborator
Amy Kakoura, composer - Rose & Hibiscus, Malaysian Coventry Society
Partners
St Mary's Guildhall, local composer (2021), Coventry Peace Festival (2025), Malaysian community groups
Artist
Dr Nor Aziz, Champion Inclusivity CIC
Funders
British Council & Coventry City of Culture 2021
What the work produced
-
Rose & Hibiscus, an original commissioned song born from participant storytelling, created with composer Amy Kakoura
-
An intimate participatory environment where hospitality, food, batik making and conversation became artistic media
-
A collective story of belonging, co-authored by participants through personal objects and memories
-
Recognition of meaningful objects, memory and conversation as artistic media within the practice
-
Growing recognition of Malaysian cultural heritage within Coventry
Nor has an emerging interest in place-based histories, particularly those which are undersung, or see different cultures come together. She has good skills in pulling out relevant and engaging parts of shared and oral histories and turning them into ethical tales on integration, community support and care
Regular garden participant, Canley
