In 1996, amidst rapid Vision 2020 industrialization and the construction of a streamlined national identity, Wong Hoy Cheong’s Of Migrants & Rubber Trees was staged at the National Art Gallery as a critical intervention into Malaysia’s historical amnesia. This exhibition marked a definitive shift in Wong’s career, as he transitioned from traditional painting toward a more research-heavy, multidisciplinary practice that utilized charcoal and organic matter as archival tools. Produced with Five Arts Centre and curated by Valentine Willie, the work unearthed the subaltern histories of the migrant laborers who fueled the colonial rubber and tin economies.

By integrating raw materials like rubber seeds and soil into his installations, Wong transformed the gallery into a space of historical reconstruction, confronting the audience with the physical and systemic violence of the plantation plot. The exhibition challenged the mid-90s triumphalist narrative of progress by grounding it in the long, often invisible trajectory of displacement and extraction. It also was an early indication of how VWFA would continue to engage with institutions, itself performing a para-institutional role in pushing for more challenging artworks in national spaces.