Firstly, it was a visit to his hometown Gopeng, Perak just before the Covid-19 movement control order. When he got together with some of his former classmates and businessmen, they came up with an idea to preserve the rich heritage in the town using his talent.
Second was the long lockdown which saw the 72-year-old former creative director in the advertising industry start to paint the old sceneries of Gopeng from photographs.
And to his surprise, and that of the family too, he managed to bring life into his art of the 150-year-old town steeped in history.
“My re-discovery of art began in early 2019, when I visited a couple of art exhibitions together with one of my former advertising colleagues.
“I had not painted for more than 45 years since leaving school as I was fully occupied in the advertising industry,” he told FMT.
He said after visiting his hometown, he found the old buildings and the sceneries around the town and the Kinta Valley quite fascinating but at the same time discovered that the buildings were slowly becoming dilapidated.
“As I was born and bred in this small town, I decided that something must be done to preserve the heritage of Gopeng which at one time was one of the richest tin mining towns in Malaysia.”
He then founded the Gopeng Heritage and Tourism Association (Ghata) together with the CEO of the Gaharu Tea Valley David Ho, managing director of Kopi 3 Chen Kong Hoy, and Gopeng Heritage House manager Vin Loo See Mun.
Siva said he then decided to paint some of the old buildings and sceneries around the town to eventually hold an art exhibition to highlight the plight of this dying town.
To date, he has painted 10 sceneries of Gopeng’s old façades with another dozen in progress and once completed, his group will launch their plans officially by holding an art exhibition in the town.
He said Ghata had planned to draw murals on public walls depicting the olden tin-rich Gopeng with the permission of the local authorities and pre-war building owners, to breathe life into the otherwise dying township.
“However, this had to be shelved due to the Covid-19 lockdowns. But we are now ready to re-start this and hope to complete the first mural by the end of January.”
Chen, the Chairman of Ghata, said the town had a lot of potential to attract local and foreign tourists with its rich history.
“Using art, we intend to redevelop the town’s rustic charm. There are many attractions that will fascinate the new generation of Malaysians, Singaporeans and other international tourists.
“Gopeng has great potential for tourism. However, there is no concerted and focussed effort to develop the tourism products in the town. We have started a drive to get the authorities to help in our endeavours,” he said.
Chen said the tourism products of some significance in Gopeng include the world’s largest aquarium fish-exporting company, Kopisan Coffee Village with its unique community coffee and plantations and the Gaharu Tea Valley.
Other attractions are the heritage buildings and trails, white water rafting or nature tourism and the caves of Gua Tempurung.
“We are forming a committee to coordinate all tourism activities and centralised planning and operations for the rebirth of Gopeng,” he said.
He said Siva’s art is expected to be the catalyst to their plans to make Gopeng the choice of tourists soon.