PACAK Festival Langkawi

Bringing together artists, communities, traditional culture, and contemporary practices through shared experiences, participation, and creative collaboration.

The word pacak carries echoes of the past — of things planted, fixed, or held in place — but here it shifts into something temporary, something that appears and disappears with light, sound, and time.

PACAK Festival Langkawi

PACAK Festival Langkawi is an evolving community-based cultural platform that brings together visual art, performing arts, artistic research, traditional culture, workshops, and cross-cultural exchange within the unique environment of Langkawi, Malaysia.

Developed by Amir Zainorin under Jambatan in collaboration with Kapallorek Art Space, PACAK began as a response to the possibility of creating meaningful encounters between art, culture, people, and place. It sees culture not as something fixed or preserved behind glass, but as something living — shaped through participation, collaboration, experimentation, and everyday experience.

PACAK moves across different environments and communities in Langkawi. Activities may take place at Stateless House Langkawi, in rice fields, beaches, villages, community spaces, schools, and public sites across the island.

The platform includes:

• artist residencies and cultural exchange programs
• workshops and creative learning activities
• visual and performing arts projects
• participatory performances and public events
• collaborations with musicians, performers, and artisans
• artistic and cultural research activities
• site-responsive and community-based projects
• storytelling and documentation initiatives
• youth engagement and skills-sharing activities

Traditional music and cultural practices such as kompang, rebana, angklung, and regional traditions may also be explored through collaborative and experimental approaches that encourage new forms of participation and interpretation.

PACAK also seeks to create opportunities for local communities, youth, and practitioners to engage with broader regional and international networks while remaining rooted in Langkawi’s local context.

The initiative builds upon Amir Zainorin’s experience developing cross-cultural platforms including the Stateless Mind Festival in Copenhagen and the evolving Stateless Mind Pavilion, which continues to connect artists and communities through dialogue and collaborative practices across different regions and contexts.

PACAK Festival Langkawi 2026 serves as a pilot phase toward the future development of PACAK Biennale Langkawi — an expanding platform for artistic exchange, community participation, and cultural experimentation.

PACAK believes culture remains alive through movement, exchange, and shared experience.