Artwork Title: Weight in Mama's Palm

Medium: Three-channel Video Installation; Bamboo Poles (1.8m each), Bricks, Cloth

Videos: 7:45 min, 5:37 min, 7:39 min loop

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Drawing on feminist phenomenology, Laila’s work understands shame (malu / haya) as an embodied, relational force regulating honour within Malay customs.

Her ongoing performance film series, Weight in Mama’s Palm, engages Malay sayings and peribahasa (idioms) as carriers of communal knowledge, encoding moral teachings and social expectations. “Bagai isi dengan kuku” evokes intergenerational closeness, “Cubit paha kanan, paha kiri terasa sekali” reflects shared pain within community, while “Syurga di telapak kaki ibu” situates the self within faith and duty.

Through translating these into embodied gestures, Laila examines womanhood and the Anak Dara through inherited practices of care, pain, and discipline, negotiating transformation while remaining accountable to the collective.