Marcos Kueh is an artist from Sarawak, Borneo Malaysia, currently living and working in the Netherlands. His practice centres on textiles as a medium for storytelling — drawing from Borneo’s ancestral weaving traditions to explore themes of identity, labour, and globalisation.
During his residency at esea contemporary, Kueh is developing new work that expands on his ongoing research into labour diasporas and the textile industry. His inquiry resonates with the city of Manchester — whose status as the world’s first industrial city was built on cotton — and will be supported through access to the Whitworth Art Gallery’s internationally significant collections, particularly textiles relating to migrant communities. This residency will culminate in a solo exhibition in October 2025, showcasing the results of his research and creative process.
Growing up in a post-colonial developing country, Kueh has long been engaged with questions of identity and how Malaysia is perceived — whether through colonial depictions in museums or stylised narratives in tourism advertising. His work seeks to reconcile these representations with his lived experience growing up in Borneo, navigating the pressures of modernity and globalisation. He uses weaving to encode contemporary legends from everyday life, just as the ancestors of Borneo did with their dreams and stories before the arrival of written alphabets from the West.
Kueh holds a Bachelor’s in Graphic and Textile Design from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. He was awarded the 2022 Ron Mandos Young Blood Award, and in 2023 was named Young Designer of the Year by the Dutch Design Awards. His works are held in the collections of Museum Voorlinden and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Recent exhibitions include Manifesta 15 in Barcelona, Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam, The Backroom in Kuala Lumpur, and the National Art Gallery Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.
This residency is generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund.
Marcos Kueh is an artist from Sarawak, Borneo Malaysia, currently living and working in the Netherlands. His practice centres on textiles as a medium for storytelling—drawing from Borneo’s ancestral weaving traditions to explore themes of identity, labour, and globalisation.
Growing up in a post-colonial developing country, Kueh has long been engaged with questions of identity and how Malaysia is perceived—whether through colonial depictions in museums or stylised narratives in tourism advertising. His work seeks to reconcile these representations with his lived experience growing up in Borneo, navigating the pressures of modernity and globalisation. He uses weaving to encode contemporary legends from everyday life, just as the ancestors of Borneo did with their dreams and stories before the arrival of written alphabets from the West.
Kueh holds a Bachelor’s in Graphic and Textile Design from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, completed in 2022. That same year, he was awarded the Ron Mandos Young Blood Award, and in 2023 he was named Young Designer of the Year by the Dutch Design Awards. His works are held in the collections of Museum Voorlinden and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Recent exhibitions include Manifesta 15 in Barcelona, Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam, The Backroom, Kuala Lumpur, and the National Art Gallery Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.