Co-learning Circle
CO-LEARNING CIRCLE
Think & Tink, Kuching | August 2026
What does it mean to learn together?
Our Co-learning Circle brings together artists, designers, researchers, students and practitioners from different places, disciplines and generations to spend time together in Kuching.
Rather than a workshop with a fixed curriculum, the circle is an invitation to share practices, exchange knowledge, listen deeply and learn from place.
Over the course of our gathering, conversations moved between textiles and weaving, soil and biomaterials, food and fermentation, cultural heritage, memory, craft, artistic research and non-extractive ways of working.
Some participants came with established practices and years of experience. Others came as students, emerging practitioners or simply with questions they are still exploring.
What connected us was not a single discipline, but a curiosity about how we might make, think and live differently through relationships with people, materials, culture and place.
We are grateful to everyone who travelled from different parts of Malaysia, Taiwan, Australia, Canada and beyond to spend this time with us.
List of the practitioners with us on the Open House event hosted on 15th of August, 2026
Abe Lim — climate / environmental practitioner
Allie Jabing — fashion / textile / cultural practitioner
Anna Noel — designer, artist and researcher
Antonia Isabelle — textile / sustainable material researcher
Breck Roberts — environmental practitioner
Chia Hui Lu — textile artist / researcher / educator
Jill Morgan — artist / curator
Lee Mok Yee — contemporary artist
Marzie — fashion / textile researcher and educator
Min Jou Lee — interdisciplinary artist / performer
Nadrah Nabiha — sociology student / emerging creative practitioner
Pei Shan Wu — textile artist / researcher / educator
Shia Yih Yiing — visual artist
Wendy Teo — architect / curator / researcher
Zhu En Wu — emerging textile practitioner
Environmental lawyer, climate activist and entrepreneur. Founder & Managing Director of Responsible Projects Ventures, a climate venture studio working across circular economy, clean energy and climate storytelling in Southeast Asia. Her practice connects environmental policy, climate communication and creative storytelling.
Allie Jabing | Kuching, Sarawak
Kuching-born fashion and creative designer of Iban-Chinese heritage. Her practice works with textiles, contemporary batik, clothing and cultural references, often described as “neo-culture chic”. She runs Jabing Studio, with work spanning fashion, craft, workshops, pop-ups and art installations.
Designer, artist and researcher working across object design, material generation, graphic design and video. Her practice combines environmental research with hands-on material experimentation, exploring relationships between people, materials and the natural environment. She holds a BFA in Design with a minor in Urban Planning from Concordia University. She was a 2026 Borneo Laboratory resident.
Antonia Isabelle Arthur Robert | Sarawak, Malaysia
Designer / textile researcher whose work focuses on sustainable materials, textile innovation and cultural heritage. Her recent research explores kombucha bacterial cellulose reinforced with agricultural waste for woven craft materials, alongside research into Bidayuh Kasah weaving and cultural continuity.
Breck Roberts | Australia
Environmental science practitioner with experience in ecological fieldwork, flora and fauna surveying, native plant identification and environmental data management. His interests sit close to ecological observation and the relationship between people and natural environments. His background brings a scientific and field-based perspective into the wider creative exchange.
Taiwanese textile and fibre artist, weaver and academic. Assistant Professor at the Department of Material Arts and Design, National Tainan University of the Arts. Her practice centres on weaving and textile art/design, translating personal memories and everyday materials into woven forms. She has exhibited internationally and received awards at the Cheongju International Craft Competition and Taiwan Weaving Craft Competition.
Jill Morgan | Kuching / international
Artist and curator associated with Seed Contemporary Art Projects, a contemporary art studio and project space in Kuching. Her wider curatorial history includes significant work supporting feminist, Black and working-class artists in the UK, including her period as curator of Rochdale Art Gallery. There is a particularly interesting connection between her current Kuching work and her long-standing interest in socially engaged contemporary art.
Lee Mok Yee | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Contemporary artist whose practice is strongly process- and material-oriented. He often works with readymade or commercially produced objects, rearranging and transforming them to question uniformity, function, mass production and structures of everyday life. His work has been exhibited in Malaysia and internationally.
Marzie / Dr Marzie Hatef Jalil | Sarawak, Malaysia / originally Tehran, Iran
Fashion and textile researcher, educator and designer at UNIMAS. Her research centres on eco-fashion, clothing life cycles, sustainable materials, waste reduction and culturally grounded design. More recently, her research has expanded into Indigenous material culture, Bidayuh weaving and sustainable reinterpretation of traditional craft.
Min Jou Lee (李珉柔) | Pingtung, Taiwan
Taiwanese interdisciplinary artist and performer. Born in Pingtung in 1994, she studied in the MFA programme at the Graduate Institute of Applied Arts at Tainan National University of the Arts and began studying Butoh in 2021. Her practice sits between movement, performance and material/artistic research.
Nadrah Nabiha | Singapore
Sociology student at the National University of Singapore, with a minor in Data Analytics. Her interdisciplinary interests bring together social research, cultural observation and creative practice. During the residency, she has been reflecting on non-extractive approaches to art-making, the relationship between art and craft, and how we might create space for observation, reading and thinking rather than constant production. NUS confirms her Sociology major and Data Analytics minor.
Textile and fibre artist, researcher and educator. Assistant Professor at the Graduate Institute of Applied Arts, Tainan National University of the Arts, specialising in fibre art. Her practice and research engage contemporary fibre art, materiality and craft, with an extensive exhibition and curatorial history. She received the Silver Award at the Valcellina International Textile Art competition in 2009.
Shia Yih Yiing | Kuching / Kuala Lumpur
Established Malaysian visual artist from Sarawak. Her painting and mixed-media practice explores femininity, motherhood, family, cultural memory and identity through vivid, often playful and allegorical imagery. She studied at the Malaysian Institute of Art and holds an MFA from the University of Western Sydney. Her recent work also engages Dayak Indigenous imagery, nature and cultural memory.
Malaysian-born UK ARB/RIBA Chartered Architect, curator, researcher and tutor. Founder of Wendy Teo Atelier and Borneo Laboratory, and director of Think & Tink. Her interdisciplinary practice moves between architecture, material research, cultural research, curation and regenerative practice, with a particular interest in social-cultural dialogue, ancestral knowledge and place-rooted ways of living.
Zhu En Wu | Taiwan / Malaysia
Emerging textile practitioner and student whose practice is situated within textile and material-based making. Her participation in the residency forms part of a wider exchange around textiles, craft, material knowledge and place. She has been developing her practice through hands-on making, shared learning and engagement with other textile practitioners during the residency.
Different practices. Different places. Different ways of seeing.
One shared space to listen, exchange and learn together.
This is our Co-learning Circle. See you all next time.
