Atlas Collective

A cuisine that lives only in the room where it is served has a short life. The conservation work cannot rest on the cooking alone. It has to be recorded, patiently and faithfully, at the pace the work itself moves. Atlas Collective has been recording alongside the platform since the beginning.

Atlas Collective is the creative studio that has co-produced, filmed and told the story of the Serumpun work since it was founded. Their remit is clearly drawn (promotion, documentary, art and project reporting), and their hand is behind the three bodies of work the platform now stands on.

The Serumpun Story documentary (2025). Co-produced with the platform over the founding year, from Kuching in July through Osaka in August and Mulu in October to the Kuching Finale in April 2026. It is the long-form record of what the work was, set against the indigenous ground it grew from.

The Serumpun Leadership Series. Curated and produced by Atlas Collective. A series of recorded conversations with Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz, Datin’ Sri Dona Drury-Wee, H.E. Axel Cruau, Maria Porro, Lady Linda Wong Davies, Dato’ Jacqueline Fong, Zee Avi, Raven Kwok, Professor Gerard Bodeker and James Won, people whose own work has led them to the same conclusions about heritage, conservation and cultural diplomacy that Serumpun holds. Atlas Collective shapes each conversation into something the public record can keep.

The expedition archive. The photographs from the field: time spent with elders, the work with seed-keepers and foragers, and the indigenous knowledge they so generously shared. Twelve frames are in the public archive, and many more on the Serumpun Sarawak Instagram channel, where the record continues.

The line that protects the work

The limits of the partnership matter as much as its reach. Atlas Collective’s responsibility on Serumpun covers four areas: promotion, storytelling, video and project reporting. The kitchen, the cuisine, the menus, the mentee programme and the standard in the dining room sit outside it. Drawing that line takes nothing away from Atlas Collective. It protects both of us: my authorship of the cuisine, and the studio’s authorship of the record.

Where Atlas Collective has described the cuisine accurately in their own communications, that record belongs to the platform too. Where the studio has generously credited the platform in theirs, our gratitude is permanent.

The Terroir Economy

Atlas Collective has also run a separate workstream, outside the storytelling and documentary, called the Terroir Economy. It covers the project reporting to the Sarawak Tourism Board, the marketing material for our institutional partners, and the case for an indigenous-ingredient economy put to the patrons who support the platform. It is necessary work, and it is theirs.

The studio’s people

I will not list the names behind Atlas Collective here. How they are credited is the studio’s decision. The platform’s part is to say that, whoever they are, the work would not be on the public record without them.

The long thanks

To the team at Atlas Collective, the camera operators, editors, producers, writers and project managers, and to everyone else who has had a hand in the recording: thank you. The cuisine and the conservation work owe their public life to your studio. The people who cooked and the people who filmed have walked the same ground. Without you the cuisine would have had its short life. With you it has a longer one.

The forest feeds our future, and Atlas Collective has recorded it faithfully enough for the future to find its way back.