Daily Express Subscriber
Sign in to your account.

Kota Kinabalu: Kinabalu International School (KIS) students defied expectations recently when their artworks for a school art contest revealed not a future of flying cars and towering skyscrapers, but one built on sustainability, cultural heritage and equal opportunity for all.

What set the winning entries apart was not technical skill alone but the depth of thinking behind them. 

Each piece imagined a future where technology and nature work side by side, where the past is honoured rather than erased and where no community or individual is left out of the world being built.

A prize-giving ceremony at the school’s hall on Thursday wrapped up the “The Future I Want to Live” Art Contest 2026, which was organised by the KIS in collaboration with Kota Kinabalu-based property developer Jesselton International, which supported the initiative as part of its community engagement efforts.

Group D winner JingQi Liu, 15, titled her piece Layers of Time, a fusion of traditional Chinese architecture with futuristic buildings and vehicles that immediately set her work apart from what judges might have expected.

“When everyone talks about the future I want to live in, they probably think about modern technology and stuff.

 “But I want to combine buildings and architects from the past and bring them together,” she said. 

The artwork sends a message, that moving forward does not mean leaving everything behind. The past, present and future can exist side by side and the best kind of progress is one that grows from where we came from rather than pretending it never existed.

Group C winner Aaliyah Chen, also 15, approached the theme from a different angle but with no less heart.

In her piece, A Vision of a Sustainable Tomorrow, she used copic marker and gel pen to paint a picture of cities that run on clean energy, produce less waste and work with nature rather than against it, all without giving up the comforts and conveniences of modern life.

“I think my future is built on sustainable and futuristic technologies. But at the same time, it is not like I want anything too futuristic. 

“I want something that is still maintaining what it is now, especially with nature and people in peace with no poverty. The future I want is people having equal opportunities with the same technologies given to everyone,” she said.  

The contest also recognised several finalists whose works reinforced the same recurring themes of sustainability, coexistence and wonder. 

Derek Ru Hengtai’s The Roots of Future, rendered in watercolour and poster colour, featured solar panels, windmills and a hydroelectric generator set within a city still richly surrounded by nature. 

Amy Zhen Jin Liu took a more imaginative approach with Dramatic Future, using watercolour and artline pen to paint a massive jellyfish floating serenely among the gleaming buildings of a futuristic city. 

Strange as it sounds, the image carries a simple and sincere wish: that one day, animals and technology can exist in the same world without one threatening the other.

Sabrina Maichel’s acrylic piece Breaths of Green imagines cities where nature and humanity no longer compete for space but grow together in quiet harmony, where urban life moves at a gentler and more sustainable rhythm. 

Nikita Yam let her imagination run free with Pipe Dream, a poster-colour painting that she cheerfully describes as Venice and Atlantis having a baby.

The result is a dreamlike city of sweeping architecture and musical touches, a place that exists purely for the love of beauty and creativity and one that is even more delightful for it.

Jesselton International Director Ryan Chu, whose company put up the prizes for the contest, admitted that he had not quite expected to be as moved as he was by what the students had created.

“When we think about the future, it is easy to imagine technology, new buildings or even new cities. But the most important part of the future is the people who will create it and that is all of you here today. 

“As a property developer, my work is about building places where people live, work and gather. But the real future of our cities will come from the ideas and imagination of the next generation,” he said. 

He added that Jesselton International’s involvement was driven by a desire to cultivate forward-thinking minds. 

“The future of Sabah is in these students’, the younger generation’s hands. We encourage them to adopt this forward-thinking mindset,” he said. 

For KIS Principal Sam Gipson, the contest may not have been a grand event by any measure, but its meaning ran deep. With so much happening around the world in recent weeks, he felt that a moment to pause, dream and look ahead was not just welcome but necessary.

“We live in quite an uncertain world and sometimes it is important that we take a moment to really think about the future, rather than simply dwell on what is happening day to day,” he said. 

“It might seem like a small art competition, but what it symbolises and what it represents is something really, really big. It is about thinking about the future, about a better world and the role that each of you can play in making our local environment and the big wide world around us, a much better place.

“What can we each do to create that brighter future and that better city of tomorrow? Whatever that pathway is, if we all maintain a view on a better tomorrow, a brighter future, the world will always become a better place,” he said.