There are many places in Kota Kinabalu that you can do activities while making friends, socializing with the friendly people of Sabah. Not only we have nature, we also have varieties of activities that we can do while travelling around Sabah!
The Sabah State Museum involves the history of Borneo and the ethnicity of the people of Sabah. It was established on the 11th of April 1984 and is located in Bukit Istana Lama, Kota Kinabalu city. The distance between the museum and Kota Kinabalu city takes about 10 minutes. Therefore, the KKIA (Kota Kinabalu International Airport) will take a 15-minute drive by car to reach its destination.
The building is shaped like a Rungus longhouse. It exhibits our local traditional wear, a collection of prehistoric artifacts, stories of our political history or heroes of Borneo, and a huge whale skeleton that is larger than us. There will also be a small replica of a bird’s nest cave that shows how our local laborers collect these bird nests. On the outside of the museum, you can find old vintage vehicles and trains parked outside of the building.
Lastly, when you walk down the stairs beside the souvenir shop, you will see a land that has traditional houses that are very authentic to visit. This area is called the “Heritage Village” and you can learn about how people in our rural areas live in houses that are made with dried leaves, bamboo, wood, and more. It is recommended that you bring a camera and let your imagination run wild with the beauty of our Sabahan culture!
The Sabah Art Gallery is the first “Green Building” in Borneo because the building is powered by the sun and rain. It has solar panels to be able to consume the light source from the sun, and also, from the consumption of rain, the building uses nature’s source to be able to get electricity running for the lights to power up the building. The location is about 11 minutes from Kota Kinabalu city and 15 minutes from KKIA (Kota Kinabalu International Airport).
Next, the art in the gallery has supported many local and international artists of all ages since the year 2013. The artworks consist of many different talents and techniques, such as painting, photography, drawing, using traditional media art, multiple installations, and more. There are many types of genres in their artworks, like Borneo’s nature, abstract art, the culture of Sabah, animals, and scenic landscapes of Kota Kinabalu.
Many who are creative in their hearts and minds would love to pay a visit to the art gallery. There were many photos to be taken for memories, forming emotional connections with their artworks, and even being inspired by our wonderful artists from around the world.
The twenty-eight old shops at Taman Foh Sang Yuen had been painted, sculpted, and drawn into beautiful, imaginative graffiti to look more colorful, inviting, and welcoming to their customers. This project was organized by a youthful community of twenty-five local artists, who transformed our authentic shops with colorful street art that reflected the shops’ businesses with different uses of media art.
The mural art and sculptures were created with hours of painting, sculpting, drawing, and other installations around the blinders, shutters, and walls (even the staircases). Many businesses started gaining more customers with the help of these young local artists. Next, this project was completed in September of the year 2019, which became viral on social media, which helped their businesses grow rapidly at the time. The artwork has made a lot of the locals excited to take photoshoots together with friends and family.
It is recommended to be there early in the morning or at noon when the sun is brighter. Some of the owners of the coffee shops might pull down the blinders for a better view of the street art. It takes about 10 minutes from Kota Kinabalu City to Taman Foh Sang Yuen, and if you take a ride from the KKIA (Kota Kinabalu International Airport) to the destination, it takes about 13 minutes by car or a taxi.
If you are searching for something new that was handmade by our local artists, try to stop by the Art Attic in Lorong Dewan, Kota Kinabalu city. This shop would sell many kinds of handmade keychains, stickers, art, and so much more. It is also a café for you to relax and drink in a calm environment while enjoying the view of various artists in the shop. It also became a tourist attraction where the foreigners and locals would come to buy and support our local artists’ community because of their specialty of selling various forms of art that can only be found in Kota Kinabalu.
The shop closes on Mondays, so you can visit them from Tuesday to Sunday between 10 am to 8 pm. The business is also owned by the owner of the Tao Art Studio, her idea was to bring the art community together to create their business together as a group, sharing and showcasing their creative minds, and their talents as an artist themselves to the public.
So don’t forget to bring your books to sit in a café to relax your mind or just shop for items that are originally made by local people that cannot be found in any other place during your visit to the East of Malaysia. A gift bought by anyone would be so much appreciated by the artists to support them through this tough time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The studio was established in 2017, at the time, it was located in Asia City the studio was named the “Sabah Pottery”. In the same year, they moved out and are now located at Taman Foh Sang, Luyang. A two terrace house that is filled with beautiful handmade potteries, you can apply for classes which only cost about RM100 per session a day. The owner of The Tao Art Studio said that she was looking for a place to learn the art of pottery, but there were no businesses that teach handmade potteries, because of her vision to open a studio to teach people about pottery skills, that is when The Tao Art Studio had been built and it is the only pottery making class in Kota Kinabalu city until this day.
There are many teaching techniques such as learning to wheel throw clay with a potter’s wheel or by hand-building clays involving pinching, rolling, and creating shapes and curves. Next, the pots that have been molded or thrown will be dried under the sun outside of their studio and after that, the pots will be taken into a heated oven called the “Kiln” and fired at about 1,400°C for nine to ten hours. When the temperature of the Kiln drops down to about 100°C – 200°C, they will take out their pottery for the Glazing technique which they put colors and shine on the pottery itself, this too would have to be put into the Kiln again to harden the glaze.
By learning to make pottery, there was a student who is at the age of 22, said that it takes a lot of concentration and patience to build it and that it was fun to make them as gifts for her and her family during seasonal celebrations. Another student who was at the age of 30, actually lives in Kudat, came all the way to Kota Kinabalu City just to create pottery as there were no other studios that can teach her interest in the art of pottery. A child at the age of 9, found that creating pottery from her creativity and imagination was fun and exciting for her. Come by to the Tao Art Studio for learning to meditate as a therapy, to try something new while traveling, to create your own handmade souvenirs, and mostly, you get to have tons of fun using your own creativity!
In conclusion, there are many talented Sabahans that want to show the world the culture of the people in Sabah in different ways, forms, and knowledge through art because they are proud to be part of the people in Sabah. It is recommended that you could walk around the city to find hidden art forms that were painted by Sabahan artists. Thanks to the Sabahan Art community, our state has come to life because of their efforts to make Sabah more beautiful than ever.
For more information, contact Borneo Calling at info@borneocalling.com or simply click here.
