When Art and Sustainability Converge: The Story Behind “Reaction, Reimagination”

By Dr. Yukie Hori

Higher education institutions are increasingly aligning their missions with global sustainability goals by preparing professionals to engage critically and ethically with today’s complex environmental and social issues. Through interdisciplinary learning and transnational partnerships, universities empower students and communities to become active agents of sustainable change.

Science and technology alone cannot meet these challenges. Integrating the humanities and creative disciplines with social, historical, and cultural perspectives is essential, as these shape narratives, influence behaviour, and envision alternative futures. To drive meaningful transformation, we must empower the younger generation to make culturally aware and socially responsible choices.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) comprise 17 interconnected objectives addressing poverty, hunger, health, education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work, industry, innovation, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities, responsible consumption, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace, justice, and partnerships to achieve the goals – a shared blueprint for a better, more resilient future.

Aligned with this, Curtin University Malaysia has organised a range of activities in collaboration with international and local partners. Highlights include the Borneo International Festival of Arts (BIFA) in July 2024, promoting cultural preservation, community revitalisation, and sustainable development through art exhibitions, artisan markets, digital demonstrations, and environmental workshops; and the upcoming Globesync 2025: Community Research and Sustainability Conference in December, which will unite researchers to address urgent challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity, health disparities, and social inequities.

As part of this commitment, the exhibition Reaction, Reimagination – a collaboration between Curtin Malaysia’s Department of Media and Communication and the Sustainability Centre at the Miri Marriott Resort & Spa, from 27 July until 31 August 2025 . It explores the intersection of sustainability and art, featuring works by Britto Augustus, a Curtin Master’s student, and Marcelo Schellini, a visual artist and assistant professor at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. Both present previously unpublished works reflecting thought-provoking perspectives on environmental and social issues.

A Indian artist and comic illustrator in Miri

Britto Augustus arrived in Miri in August 2024 from Tamil Nadu, India. His works include self-distributed comic books such as Threshold of Rupture, Pen Traveller, and Space-Chai, all of which are closely connected to his personal and cultural background.

Specially for Reaction, Reimagination, Britto created a site-specific work entitled “Apai Sumang-Umang Goes Fishing”, transforming the Sustainability Centre façade into a comic inspired by Iban folklore. Told without dialogue, the panels interact with the building’s architecture to immerse viewers in the colourful world of Sarawak’s oral traditions.

Britto also designed icons for a recyclable waste drop-off station and is exhibiting reproductions from his Miri Urban Sketches series. These works are part of his comics-based graduate research supervised by Dr Noraisikin Sabani, exploring visual storytelling, sequencing art, and the integration of Iban iconography into comic book creation.

Visitors engaging with Britto Augustus’s art installation during the opening of the “Reaction, Reimagination” exhibition.

Britto Augustus preparing the art installation “Apai Sumang-Umang Goes Fishing” on the facade of the Sustainability Centre.

A detail of the art installation “Apai Sumang-Umang Goes Fishing” by Britto Augustus.

A photographer portraying a vanishing river

Marcelo Schellini, meanwhile, is showcasing Palar, a 13-photograph visual essay reflecting on the social landscape of a drought-stricken river in Tamil Nadu in India, where he lived for three and a half years. He was previously a lecturer at Curtin University Malaysia and holds a PhD in Visual Poetics from the University of São Paulo and a Master’s Degree in Visual Culture Studies from the University of Barcelona. Documenting encounters along the river’s parched bed, Schellini’s work contrasts the poetic notion of a “river of milk” with its altered, fragile reality.

Schellini has participated in exhibitions worldwide, and among his published books are “Paisagem/Landscape” (2019) and “17window18aisle” (2017). His artistic practice encompasses experimentation with new technologies and is closely connected to visual anthropology.

A photo from the visual essay “Palar” (2020-2022) by Marcelo Schellini.

A creative sustainability at Miri Marriott Resort & Spa

Established in February 2024 through a partnership with the Miri Marriott Resort & Spa, the Sustainability Centre is part of the international lodging company’s broader commitment to “Sustain Responsible Operations”. It aims to reduce environmental impact through initiatives such as minimising water usage and carbon emissions, reducing landfill waste, promoting renewable energy, incorporating sustainable design, and ensuring responsible sourcing.

Managed by PACTS Education Clubhouse under NEEDS Malaysia, it also runs community projects with Curtin University Malaysia, such as the 2025 Summer Camp featuring workshops in drama, journalism, and creative storytelling.

The curatorial vision

The exhibition brings together works that metaphorically respond to the Sustainability Centre’s practices – reuse, regeneration, and upcycling as creative and ecological acts. My own arrival in Miri revealed both the lack of a recycling system and the richness of its cultural and artistic traditions, particularly the deep connection between Indigenous communities and rivers. For this project, I have brought together two artists whose works metaphorically respond to the practices taking place at the Sustainability Centre.

For Indigenous peoples in my home country, Brazil, rivers are not merely sources of water; they are living entities, with their own history and wisdom, deeply connected to life and to nature as a whole. According to Indigenous philosopher Ailton Krenak, rivers grant us wisdom and guide us in how to improve our existence without continuing to harm the life around us. Rivers carry wisdom; they can teach us.

This way of seeing rivers as living teachers resonates with Indigenous traditions around the world, embodying what anthropologist Elizabeth Povinelli describes as the “ancestral future”: a concept rooted in Indigenous cosmologies, where ancestors are not confined to the past but remain active agents shaping the present and future. This concept challenges Western linear notions that rigidly separate past, present, and future, instead presenting the ancestral as a living force, in other terms: ongoing, relational, and entangled with land, kinship, and responsibility across generations.

Inspired by both ancestral and contemporary sustainability strategies found here, we are three foreigners in the visual arts and creative industries, brought together by Miri’s warm welcome. Reaction, Reimagination is our way of giving back, inviting the community to reflect, respond, and reimagine the future in the face of the ecological crises confronting our planet.

Group photo with exhibition visitors, organisers, and artists after the artist talk at the opening event.

Dr. Yukie Hori is a lecturer in the Department of Media and Communication, Faculty of Humanities and Health Sciences at Curtin Malaysia, where she teaches Screen Studies. She can be contacted at yukihori@curtin.edu.my.