The 1998 exhibition Schools: Textual Works examined the educational institution as a framework for cultural control, featuring the work of Hayati Mokhtar, Simryn Gill, and Liew Kung Yu. Using text as a primary medium, the artists investigated how language and pedagogy shape identity and carry colonial legacies into the present. The presentation moved beyond the literal meaning of words to treat text as a site of “aesthetic tension,” reflecting the friction between official narratives and personal experience in post-colonial Malaysia.

Hayati Mokhtar’s installation utilized audio recordings of Malaysian schoolchildren reading excerpts from Enid Blyton, documenting the linguistic disconnect of students navigating an “unfamiliar context” of British literature. Simryn Gill’s work continued her inquiry into displacement and the legacy of colonialism, often using found text to address themes of loss and cultural erasure. Liew Kung Yu further interrogated these systems, using textual elements to examine the structures and architecture of state authority. The installations positioned the classroom as a contested terrain, demonstrating how language functions as a tool for both assimilation and resistance within the nation’s social fabric.