Artwork Title: weight in mama's palm 

Medium: Single-Channel Video 

Dimensions: 16:9, 18-minutes

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Using the act of massage and the Malay  wedding ritual Tepuk Tepung Tawar (with rice flour water and turmeric rice), this work explores  inherited bodily scripts such as Anak Dara (unmarried virgin girl) that are publicly inscribed  and privately internalised within the Malay Muslim female body. The body becomes a site  where ideals of purity and propriety are read,  judged, and reproduced, beginning first within  the domestic space. These inherited scripts  function as moral markers, shaping the Anak  Dara’s maruah (honour), regulating her through  malu (shame), and anchoring her to adat (customs). 

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The Malay-Muslim community demands  conformity and sees non-conformity as a threat.  What once promised harmony, becomes  distance, silencing those beyond its moral  bounds.