The Skin Project uses creative ways to highlight human trafficking

In 2015, an interactive theatre performance called SK!N made its debut in George Town, Penang.

SK!N is a contemporary performance based on true stories about human trafficking.

Audience members got a full-on experience of how human trafficking victims are treated by authorities in the country.

In June 2023, Govin Ruben and Terence Conrad, co-directors for TerryandTheCuz launched an interactive website called the Skin Project.

This website is a collaboration between TerryandTheCuz, new media art collective Filamen and several Malaysian human rights NGOs.

Govin is a performance maker, designer, director and creative producer based in Melbourne.

TerryandTheCuz is a Malaysian/Australian international theatre company formed in 2004 in Kuala Lumpur that produced interdisciplinary arts projects around the world.

These include ‘My Lingam Speaks’ - a hybrid work in comedy; ‘Klue,Doh!’, a work in theatre; ‘The Bee Project’, a site-specific work set in a functioning café; ‘Flatland; An Adaptation in Dance’; ‘Welcome2Flatland,’ an Interactive Public Art Installation; ‘SK!N’, a work in contemporary performance based on true stories about Human Trafficking; and ‘Citrawarna, Colours of Malaysia 2017’, a cultural spectacle set in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

Theatre spawned a website

In an interview with Malaysiakini, Govin explained how a theatrical production inspired a website.

‘SK!N’ was a live performance done in shipping containers. The production company worked closely with NGOs to create a provocative work that got people to understand how human trafficking happens.

“But the idea was that we worked with NGOs in each city to really give the people who come to the show an idea of what is happening there in those cities. After that, we planned to start touring in Europe, America, and so on,” explained Govin.

‘SK!N’ premiered in Kuala Lumpur in 2016, followed by Adelaide in 2016, and then Melbourne in 2018.

When Covid-19 hit, plans to recreate ‘SK!N’ in New York took a backseat.

“The last thing that anybody wanted was to be inside shipping containers with 50 other people,” he said.

Thanks to funding that Govin described as being survival grants, TerryandTheCuz didn't want to put shows online during the pandemic like other companies.

“We decided to use some of the grant money that we got to imagine or rethink a few different projects. ‘SK!N’ is one of them. We went back to that idea that if this work was about creating awareness, then, how much awareness were we creating with 60 people watching the show at a time? So that was how the idea started,” explained Govin.

With more online usage during the pandemic, many people were doing interesting things with websites.

“So we knew that the technology had sort of improved and people were spending more time on their devices.

“So this idea came about that no matter what, if we were to do a show in a particular city, we would have to engage with a human rights organisation or a few human rights organisations in those cities. So, regardless of whether we were doing the full show, we would still have to spend at least five to six months with NGOs there.”

They replicated the process with Tenaganita and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR), as well as other organisations they worked with for ‘SK!N’ here and in Melbourne.

“So we often found that that process was quite hard because you're walking into a human rights organisation dealing with real day-to-day rescuing people work.

“We're telling them to put resources into helping us create artwork for the city. So often they're very sceptical,” said Govin. Essentially, a lot of convincing had to be done before the NGOs would get on board.

Information and resources

This website provides information and resources on fighting human trafficking in Malaysia by combining resources from Tenaganita, North-South Initiative, Project Liber8 and Sahabat Wanita. TerryandTheCuz hopes to add more partners to the website soon.

TerryandTheCuz felt that by creating a website, they could showcase their work interactively.

There is even a quiz that can tell you what kind of human trafficking you might be unknowingly participating in.

The website will be maintained by freelance consultants who are not a part of any NGO.

Since they had already built a relationship with Tenaganita and other Malaysian NGOs, they decided to use the grant money to build the Kuala Lumpur website.

This site would be useful when they travel to other cities around the world, something to show the NGOs there.

“We'd like to do the same thing in New York. This website is something tangible for organisations to see and read and kind of go -’ Oh, wow, this is kind of great, I never thought I would buy into the idea’. So that's how it started.”

Work on the website started in mid-2020 and finished in July 2023.

There was a lot of reviewing, checking and making sure all the technical aspects were sorted out.

Theatre with a difference

‘SK!N’ was unique from the get-go. “The idea of the show is kind of a bit different," began Govin.

“We interview them (the audience) and then we decide if they're good enough to watch the show. Then some of them are given their money back and told they can leave because they're not good enough. That whole process is the first part of the show even before they see the dance floor," he goes on.

The audience has to sign a document, hand over their valuables, go through a physical check, get blindfolded and be taken to another spot. There is even a giant cargo container involved.

"After they go through that experience when they have their privilege and agency taken away from them, they suddenly start to understand what it is like to be a migrant worker with no documents," Govin explains.

“And it was how easy it was for them, an educated audience, to just speak exactly what was told by just some data people. So imagine if the other side had a gun or a uniform or something, you know. So I think the effect of the show was profound. And the idea for the website is, you know, it'll never be similar to a physical experience.”

Website users have to answer a couple of questions and the algorithm works out what kind of trafficking they contribute to in Kuala Lumpur. From there you can start to get a soft idea of understanding how vast human trafficking is.

Govin said most people think human trafficking is about sex trafficking, but it is also about the waiters in the restaurants, nail polishers at salons, the guy fixing cables, or someone renovating your home.

“I think that's what the site hopefully tries to open up. It’s not going to stop trafficking, but hopefully going to get people to ask more questions,” said Govin.

Storytellers, not activists

When asked what got him interested in the subject of human trafficking, Govin is quick to emphasise that he and Terence are not activists.

“We are just storytellers,” he said before explaining that they used to frequent a bar in Damansara where they enjoyed really good cocktails made by a Bangladeshi bartender.

After frequenting the place for over three months, they started asking him questions about what he was doing before he became a bartender and found out he was previously a waiter and, before that, worked on a construction site.

Before that, this man was in limbo after being smuggled in as his passport was taken away from him.

This led them to ask more people similar questions and found that a good 60 to 70 percent of workers in the service industry were victims of human trafficking.

“They just came in without papers. There was an agent and there was debt bondage to get out of,’ said Govin.

Realising that there was a story to tell after they started digging around even more in 2013 and 2014, someone told them to approach Tenaganita.

That was when they realised the real horrors human trafficking victims undergo.

“I think what shocked me was my ignorance," said Govin, who added that we live in a bubble not realising that there is a community out there that takes care of our needs when we go out to eat, go to shopping centres and so many other services.

“SK!N is a work about our privilege, and our agency, you know, but based on stories about human trafficking.

“So that's kind of a very clear point in the artwork. The artwork is about our privilege, how we take it for granted, and how ignorant it has made us,” Govin said. - Mkini