In A Notional History, a performer, a journalist, and an activist pore through school textbooks, inherited memories, and video interviews of exiled revolutionaries – uncovering erasures, exclusions and questions around the Malayan Emergency. Part of a series of works known as the Emergency Projects which examines that era in our history, the performers investigate and speculate on the possible histories for a different Malaysia, intersecting the personal, the national, and the notional. We discuss the documentary performance with documentary filmmaker and performer Rahmah Pauzi, and A Notional History's director Mark Teh of Five Arts Centre Malaysia, to discuss how the team are relooking into our history in imaginative and speculative ways. 

Image Credit: George Town Festival