Ahmad Fuad Osman is of a generation that came of age in a Malay world whose artists were eager to speak about socio-political issues on terms that broadened questions of nationhood, ethnicity, faith, and historical fact, doubtful of the grand narrative that had been propounded since the race riots of the late 1960s. Such qualities provide the grounding framework for the establishment of acclaimed artist collective Matahati (1991-2011), of which Fuad was a co-founder, believing such issues were valid on a universal platform. Trained as a painter and printmaker, Fuad’s practice embraces multiple forms of media; he is drawn to the impact of political narratives, their materiality, their psychological imprint, their social repercussions, and their symbols. Fuad’s work calls attention to the dubious fragility between fact and fiction, and how memory and its values can be easily monopolized. His practice speaks to the immense distrust of the 'official' record that is currently present in much art across Southeast Asia, in addition to the rising investigation of the arrival of the Islamic world in this region and its legacies.