Harold ‘Egn’ Eswar
Born 1980, Keningau, Malaysia
Lives and works in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

As a repository for memory and a site for creation, the built environment plays a central role in the work of Harold Reagan Eswar, better known as Egn. Working in the town planning office of the East Malaysian city of Kota Kinabalu, Egn was also an early member of the influential street art collective Cracko Art Group (CAG), producing satirical, cartoonish canvases and murals, organising exhibitions and exploring different tactics for community participation.

Distributed electronically and as sprawling posters, Egn’s ‘spatial biographies’ unite the various aspects of his practice, using his architectural training to draw on the deep well of memory that accumulates around specific structures, spaces and geographies. Expressed through illuminating quotes, recollections, maps and image archives, his collaborative process creates memory banks of individual experiences and collective histories in East Malaysia’s urban centres.