Chong Kim Chiew mischievously challenges the idea of a nation as a permanent entity, presenting it instead as a political and aesthetic construct whose control of geographies and populations is transient. Using strips of tape applied directly to canvas, he recreates historical currency from past and present ruling structures in Malaysia.

Cocos (Keeling) Islands features a 1902 two-rupee note from a place that is now an Australian external territory. Geographically located in South-East Asia, the islands’ population is majority Malay, the descendants of plantation labourers transmigrated in the mid-nineteenth century, who have maintained connections to their hometowns in present-day Malaysia. Annexed by Britain in 1857, with administration shifting between Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Singapore, the Cocos Islands came under Australian sovereignty in 1955. Tape is often used to repair torn paper currency, but in the case of Chong’s work, with its material distortions, the notes appear to be falling apart.