In Works Past and Present, Redza Piyadasa presented a survey that functioned as a visual inquiry into the construction of Malaysian national identity and cultural plurality. Staged shortly after his 2001 retrospective at the National Art Gallery, the exhibition highlighted the conceptual shift in Piyadasa’s practice from the experimental avant-garde of the 1970s toward a more grounded, historiographic engagement with his Malaysian Series. These works utilized archival photographic records to examine the various ethnic lineages that constitute the nation’s social fabric.

The exhibition centered on Piyadasa’s role as an “artist-thinker,” where the act of painting and collage became a method for reconciling fragmented historical narratives. In pieces such as Kapitan Cina (1994), he employed silkscreen and board collage to elevate personal and community histories into the realm of high art, challenging the viewer to acknowledge the shared “historical and social contexts” of a multi-cultural society.