Who am I? How should I define myself? What is my identity?

In the last 30 years, the so called Community Art became a very common and widely used artistic praxis. The methods to stabilise the artistic process of involving the small communities included the highlighting of their social and ethnical situation on the one hand and using the new media for documentation on the other hand. Often, the artistic process also included an intense research of social phenomenon and led sometimes to a discovery of unknown or hidden information.
I Am.. is a project responding to the artistic and media development.
It is a response to the numerous works about the recording the "I" identity in a globalized world that are trying to explain their situation. I Am... project is an experiments to develope an alternative way to handle the questioning of belonging in multi ethnic and cultural Malaysia specially in Penang..
I Am... project will open a natural view to "looking for" those minorities without creating an "Artistic self portrait of the community".
I Am... project will offer the possibility of interactivity so that the audience can make its own portraits of the community - reflecting the information given by the community itself without the director's "censorship".
I Am... will invite the audience to participate in the project during the search to find the "Penang community".
I Am Shahram Entekhabi. As an Iranian-born artist who left to study in Europe, I am a product of Persian-Islamic culture enriched with a deep insight of European culture and its everyday life. As I travel the world and witness the similarities and differences between various cultures, I observe my surroundings without consuming it. People and their cultures intrigue me and in my study of them, of us and how we are, I attempt to also understand myself.
Throughout my journey and stays around the world, I’ve come to realize how our cultural belonging is to a large extent shaped by our childhood. For it is during our childhood that we are able to discover, understand and experiment in what is usually a secure and protected environment. At least for me, that was the case. My surroundings was deeply imbued with a strong sense of spirituality and this was where my impressions of Self, of others and how I engaged with the world was formed.Now living in penang and having an assortment of so-called identities imposed on me, e.g. ‘foreigner’, ‘Persian’, ‘Muslim’, etc. has made me realize how one’s personal identity is really a hybrid and not monolithic at all. We are who we are, made up of and influenced by a variety of inter-playing elements.
My consciousness about being an artist has definitely given me the opportunity to work with Joe sidek and Hasnul J Saidon to discover experiences of being in contrasting environments and understanding how this impacts one’s identity. Fascinatingly enough, it has allowed me to come ‘home’…Through reflection and introspection, I’ve come to appreciate how the spiritual, Muslim and Oriental aspects of my upbringing are very much a part of who I am as an individual.
Indeed, I see the artist as a hybrid, a very elastic sort of identity, of having access to what ‘was’ and ‘is’. I also believe in the necessity of cultures opening up to each other and to mutually contribute towards the thought and production of contemporary art.

* Text by Shahram Entekhabi

I AM... © UNITY project 2009This project is a process of self-definition that addresses the question of Identity amongst Penang’s peoples who are made up of a variety of ethnicity, faith, gender, age, education and social status.
Here, we are curious to learn how members of Penang's vibrant community identify themselves in a heritage city that traces its roots to various parts of Asia and Europe. Functioning as a video recording studio in which people enter to narrate their identity to the public, the cargo container that is placed in the heart of Penang's Street of Harmony also symbolizes the voyages and mobility of diverse peoples who have travelled to the shores of Penang.
In encouraging people to discuss and experiment their notions of identity with one another in the public space, the ‘I AM’ Project hopes to foster a sense of openness and dialogue  amongst people, while inspiring them to celebrate the diversity that is unique only to Penang.

* Text by Damina Khaira

Central to the diverse collections in the Muzium & Galeri Tuanku Fauziah (MGTF), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) is the notion of convergence. Key to such convergence is a holistic approach towards designing a sustainable lifestyle based on a multidimensional, trans-disciplinary and cross-cultural paradigm. Amongst the paradigm include non-linear, modular, multi-center, focus on context, flexible, and many more. It is through the spirit of such paradigm that the MGTF has designed its multifarious activities, especially those related to audience research and development.
MGTF’s engagement with this project is another testimony of its commitment to an inclusive, organic and empowering form of engagement to unveil voices of the common people (rather than just the so-called ‘experts’ or ‘custodians’). These voices may contribute in providing a more rounded interpretation of self, culture, heritage, history and identity, as opposed to those given, prescribed, constructed and propagated by institutional and state narratives. They may also challenge and deconstruct certain frozen notions of self and identity, as well as historical narratives based on colonial constructs (or even post-colonial ones).