Melayu Palsu (est.2023) is an art collective formed by three different artist, all bound together on each of their government-issued, identity cards.

Our practice is rooted in the unremarkable textures of everyday Malaysian life, the kind of details so familiar they've become invisible.

Through zines, print, and illustration, we sift through the ordinary and put it through something slightly stranger. Reframing, exaggerating and reassembling it until the mundane starts to feel a little absurd, a little funny, and hopefully, a little uncomfortable.Print is where it lands naturally. A zine, for instance, doesn't ask to be taken seriously. It's cheap, it's small, it ends up in tote bags and in your drawer, collecting dust. But that's exactly the point.

The format carries the same energy as the things we're looking at: easy to overlook, passed around without ceremony, and quietly saying something anyway. We mean it, we just don't make a big deal out of it.Our work doesn't take itself too seriously, but it does take the everyday seriously. There's always something worth poking at in the things we've all agreed to stop noticing. We just prefer to say it a little sideways.

Melayu Palsu