The journeys of King Kalākaua, memorialized in the wood relief carvings previously encountered in the exhibition, find continuation in a series of prints and a playable metaverse-based game, developed by Simon Soon together with Chuah Chong Yan. These works are grounded in the complex cosmology of different Chinese secret societies established from at least the early nineteenth century in the Straits area of South East Asia, in cities such as Malacca, Penang, or Singapore. These initiation-based secret societies provided broad support to arriving Chinese migrants and traders to these southern lands, functioning also as mutual aid or para-banking structures, triads, cultural centres, or religious fraternities, harbouring distinct beliefs and even cosmologies. The game developed for Musafiri: Of Travellers and Guests simulates an initiate’s journey through different portals, arriving at a mythical ‘city of willows’. This figure was often imagined by Chinese secret societies and here perhaps symbolizes the final destination of lifelong processes of spiritual becoming and quests. Alongside familiar tropes of South East Asian Chinese communities, the worlds travelled in this voyage contain visual elements and seascapes from a broader Austronesian and Pacific cosmology, reflecting the cultural complexities of these intertwined geographies.

The City of Willows (2025) co-produced by Simon Soon, Chong Yan Chuah and Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), 2024–25

Works in the exhibition: Simon Soon and Munirah Mansoor, Papan Soerih Perhimpoenan Orang Melayoe (2021), digital print on paper, three panels each 84.1 × 45 cm; Simon Soon and Chong Yan Chuah, The City of Willows (2025), video game. Courtesy of the artists