About Amir Z
Amir Zainorin is a conceptual and interdisciplinary artist whose work explores history, identity, language, and materiality through a transmaterialist lens. His practice engages with found objects, text, and performative elements, creating layered meanings and unexpected juxtapositions. He gravitates toward art that challenges perception and blurs boundaries, favoring open-ended interpretations over fixed narratives. Through quiet subversion, humor, and poetic abstraction, his work resists easy answers, instead inviting audiences to complete the experience and engage in dialogue.
With a background outside of traditional art education, Amir’s artistic journey began as a means of healing and self-discovery, evolving into an open-ended practice that resists fixed definitions. His work invites dialogue, embracing uncertainty and allowing meaning to emerge organically through interaction. He has exhibited internationally, including in Malaysia, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, and the UK, and is the founder of Jambatan, a platform for artistic exchange and cross-cultural collaboration.
His ongoing projects, such as Rhythm of Identity, reflect his commitment to exploring the intersections of sound, space, and storytelling, using art as a living, breathing process that continues to evolve with time.
His contributions to the arts have been recognized through grants from institutions such as the Danish Art Foundation, Nordic Culture Fond and National Art Gallery Malaysia. His artwork is in the permanent collections of the National Art Gallery Malaysia and Immigrant Museum Denmark.
Encountering Transmaterialism
Transmaterialism is not just about what things are made of—it’s about how they shift, accumulate meaning, and exist in a state of flux. It is the experience of encountering materials that resist fixed definitions, objects that carry layered histories, and texts that blur between presence and absence.
A passport might seem like an administrative document, but in a different light, it becomes a marker of movement, exclusion, or belonging. A drum is not just an instrument; it holds memory, migration, and the weight of tradition. A page from an atlas is both a map of the world and a tool of erasure. In encountering these materials, their meanings are unsettled and reconfigured.
Through transmaterialism, my work invites audiences to engage with objects, texts, and performative gestures in ways that challenge perception and resist singular narratives. It is an ongoing process of recontextualization—one where materials, histories, and identities remain in motion, refusing to settle into a single state.
Contact us for inquiries about exhibitions, collaborations, or commissions. Follow us on social media for the latest updates and behind-the-scenes glimpses.
2019: ‘Climate’, IPOH International Art Festival, Malaysia
Selected Performances
2023: 'The Last Supper remix'-‘Transdicilinary Church’, Alte Handelsschule. Leipzig Germany
2022: ‘Me/We’, Port Perak 59th Venice Biennale , Italy
2020: ‘Covid Surreality’, Home Studio, Copenhagen
2016 : `Media Junkie`, Museum of Contemporary Art Roskilde, Denmark
2015: ‘Batu Api – One Click Art Performance’, Melaka Art Performance Festival, Malaysia
2014: ‘D' art’, Global Village, Brønshøj Library, Denmark
2014: ‘Think Tank’, The Mall, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2012: ‘Sign of Times’, Public Art Performance Copenhagen,
2011: ‘Most Wanted’, Tupada Action Media Art Performance festival, Phillipines
2011: ‘Stateless Border’, Den Fri, Copenhagen, Denmark
2011: ‘Subject To Change’, MAP Publika, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2010: ‘Classification’, Overgaden, Copenhagen, Denmark
2010: ‘X-box’, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2010: ‘Love Stamp’, Brorsons kirke, Copenhagen, Denmark
2010: ‘Love and Fragile’, Vanløse, Denmark
2010: ‘Stamp Over’, Public Art Performance, Immigration Office, Copenhagen, Denmark
2010: ‘Stamp Over’, Public Art Performance, Den Fri, Copenhagen, Denmark
2009: ‘Uncut’, Malaysian Arts Festival, Verdenskulturhuset, Copenhagen,Denmark .
2008: ‘Paradise Now’, Gallery Shambala, Copenhagen, Denmark
2004: 'Live portrait drawing’, Heerup Museum, Denmark
2004: 'Language barrier', Roskilde Festival, Denmark
2003: ‘Journey', Images of Asia Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark
Curated exhibitions
2023: Calling it Home-Stateless Mind Festival-Copenhagen
2022: Pera+Flora+Fauna, Port Perak 59th Venice Biennale Collateral event, Italy
2022: Stateless Mind Festival, Archivi della Misericordia, Cannaregio, Venice, Italy
2021: Space Between-Stateless Mind Festival, Laterna Magica, Museum for Visuel Kunst Copenhagen
2019: Stateless Mind Festival, Sorte Firkant, Copenhagen
2019: Ipoh International Fim Festival, Ipoh, Malaysia
2019: Stateless Mind Festival, Laterna Magica, Museum for Visuel Kunst Copenhagen
2008: Malaysian Arts Festival, Gallery Shambala Copenhagen and Museum of Contemporary Art Roskilde, Denmark
Awards and Grants
2025: Production grant for Rhythm of Identity -Danish art Foundation2023: One Year Working Grant- Danish art Foundation
2019: ‘Climate’, IPOH International Art Festival, Malaysia – Perak State Govt, Malaysia
2018: Mobility grant -SEA artist Research in the Nordic country - Nordic Culture Fund
2011: Production grant – Criss Cross ‘ at, Poetisk Bureau, Copenhagen- Danish Art Foundation
2011: Production grant -‘Generous Gestures’, Den Fri Contemporary Art- Danish Art Foundation
2010: Production grant for ‘X Box’, Performance Art at National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur- Danish Art Foundation
2022: Somalisk Forening- Danish art Foundation
2018: ‘Ude og Hjem’, Rødovre FlygtningVenner, Rødovre – Danish Art Foundation
2017: ‘Kaffe, Kunst og Krydderier’, Somalisk Forening, Rødovre - Danish art Foundation
Residencies