Creative Heritage: Melaka and Its Past

Despite the celebration and promotion of the creative economy, there is still a “dark” side to creativity. Creativity entails experimentation, chaos and failures. A creative space blends the aesthetics with chaos, sleek design with experimentation, and economic development with failed ideas. This case looks at the ambiguous and ambivalent interfaces of history in the historical city of Melaka (also known as Malacca) in Malaysia. History, by its definition, is a documentation of the past. Any historical documentation can be contested and revised. This case will not engage in the debate on revisionist history. Instead, it will show how history and heritage is negotiated and appropriated under present circumstances in the historic city of Melaka. The re‐interpretation and revision of history is part of the everyday creative response to changing circumstances. Such contemporary responses to the past, however unclear and acrimonious, are the essence of a creative place.