KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 16): Red Hong Yi got basketball fans — and even those not into the sport — on their feet in 2012 with her portrait of Chinese star player Yao Ming, created using red paint and a basketball. Last April, her project for TIME, whereby she lit up a map of the world pieced together using matchsticks, made the magazine’s cover.

The ingenious Sabahan artist’s latest project, Memebank, spoofs the banking system: Hong Yi has printed banknotes using memes, to critique how central banks continually print money, knowing it can lead to inflation. Memebank, an exhibition featuring six copper plates and printed banknotes, plus limited number (but not complete) prints of these notes, is on at APW Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, from Jan 21 to 23.

Penang-born Cheah Phaik Yeong made the country proud when she was conferred a full professorship by Oxford University in December. Cheah, now a professor of global health based at the university’s MORU Tropical Health Network in Bangkok, leads research relating to the health of populations in a worldwide context. Her focus is bioethics and engagement — embedding community voices, especially that of vulnerable groups, in research to better understand and serve their needs.

Over at Datai Langkawi, chef Johnson Wong of gēn, Penang kicked off the resort’s Chef Series with a seafood menu early this month. Wong’s gēn made the list of Asia’s top 100 Restaurants in 2021. The Chef Series, on the theme “Eclectic Malaysia, will feature exclusive menus prepared by Masaki Arakawa (Sushi Azabu), Azli Ahmad (OpenHouse), Raymond Tham (Beta and Skillet), Masashi Horiuchi (Entier) and Lee Zhe Xi and Soh Yong Zhi (Eat and Cook).

TV personality Paula Malai’s new label, Gypsy, offers handmade, curated and commissionable jewellery and home décor. Describing herself as “slightly nomadic”, she says the name is apt because gypsies are always colourful. Even more so is the fact that her creations reflect her own liking for oversized statement pieces. Jewellery is powerful and says a lot about the wearer, adds Paula, a veejay for more than two decades before moving into sports reporting, presenting Formula 1 on Fox Sports Asia.

Read more about it in The Edge Malaysia weekly’s January 17 edition.

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