“I didn’t even notice the venue existed until the art exhibition was held there!”
by Hani Yasmin, one of Echo Garden’s visitors.
Seen any beautiful paths filled with cats on Sunway lately? Following it takes you to a beautiful spiral staircase, leading to a magical tower where an isolated lost princess resides! Not really. It takes you to “Echo Garden”, an art exhibition hosted by Sunway Echo Media for their flagship campaign Minds in Bloom, which is equally as beautiful as the magical tower.
Across the 18th and 19th of June 2026, the art exhibition “Echo Garden” officially kicked off with an intimate Opening Ceremony. Doors were opened, ultimately drawing more than 300 students across the 2-day event, where it showcased the artworks and creativity of children from 2 different NGOs: IDEAS Autism Centre and Trinity Children’s Home, giving them a voice through the exhibition. The exhibition showcased clay models, painted t-shirts, masks, and drawings symbolizing the children’s inner worlds, carefully gathered and presented by passionate Echo Media members.
This exhibition was not only a love letter from Echo Media to those children, but also a testament to the members’ dedication to creative storytelling. Yet, to truly understand the depth of this passion, looking into the meticulous process that ran behind closed doors was equally as important as appreciating the results. In this article, we aim to show just that, starting with the initial intention.
Minds in Bloom: The Intention
“At Sunway Echo Media, we believe every individual has a story worth sharing and a voice worth celebrating.”
by Ian, President of Sunway Echo Media.
To state what sparked the idea behind Minds in Bloom’s campaign and purpose, we must first introduce Sunway Echo Media as a whole. Sunway Echo Media is a dedicated student-led newsletter that seeks to connect through the expression of storytelling, creativity, and most of all, passion. Through our social media platforms, Echo Media’s ultimate goal lies in utilizing our ability and privilege to amplify the voices of those in need, sparking conversations that push for meaningful change and inspiring those fueled by passion. This is the essence behind the making of Minds in Bloom.
Minds in Bloom centred itself around inclusion, expression, and the celebration of individuality. Our collaborative workshops involved activities that encouraged one’s artistic abilities in storytelling, photography, as well as drawing. They were done in order to create a safe space where every participant felt seen, heard and valued without critique. At its heart, Minds in Bloom encapsulates how creativity can become a language with no barriers, allowing individuals to connect with one another even with the absence of speech.
Four core ideas formed Minds in Bloom’s purpose: creativity, empowerment through art, mental health awareness, and inclusion. To keep it brief, these ideas aim to create a space where creativity is embraced instead of shunned, empowering every individual regardless of background and artistic ability and encouraging connections to form between one another. More than that, it is a reminder that every form of expression should be celebrated instead of evaluated.
“When we create spaces where everyone feels seen, heard, and valued, creativity becomes a bridge that connects us all.”
by Ian, President of Sunway Echo Media.
Minds in Bloom: The 4 Workshops
Throughout the duration of Minds in Bloom, 4 carefully curated workshops were successfully conducted, engaging with 30 children from the 2 different NGOs and creating 60 artworks and creative pieces that would be displayed in an art exhibition.
“Art allows a form of communication for adolescents to convey their emotions, experiences, imagination, and self-identity in ways words cannot.”
by the Minds in Bloom core committees.
This was why Echo Media worked to make the workshops become the medium for the children to engage with themselves introspectively.
Palette
On 13th April 2026, the first workshop, “Palette”, will take place in IDEAS Autism Centre. Instead of “standard” art materials involving paper and pencils, various coloured clays were offered to the children.
Breaking away from traditional paper-based art, the introduction of a tactile medium like clay encouraged the children to mobilize both dexterity and imagination in their creation. This lets them have fun creating while keeping themselves physically and mentally entertained, giving them freedom to build their own models of expression without anyone else telling them what they should or should not do.
For some children with autism, a tactile medium like clay that allows them to physically model and change its shape offers a pleasant sensory outlet designed to help their bodies process and regulate sensory information more easily, making it easier for them to communicate emotions without words. This is further proven by a 2022 study published in Frontiers in Psychology that explained the physical act of children working with clay gives them the internal drive and willingness to start sharing their thoughts and feelings with their peers naturally.
At the end of the workshop, clay models thoroughly constructed by the children lined the tables, each a tangible representation of every child’s unyielding creativity and boundless imagination.
Canvas
The second workshop at the IDEAS Autism Centre, “Canvas”, commenced by giving the children a blank T-shirt as a canvas for expression, telling them it would be a T-shirt made for their parents.
For most youth still in the mental stages of development and growth, affection and gratitude may become difficult to articulate verbally. Therefore, Canvas worked to provide a medium where children can freely express their love without pressure or expectations. Every brushstroke, every painted color, and every image drawn on the t-shirts gave us a glimpse into the children’s internalized expressions of love towards their parents and guardians.
Sketch
The third workshop, “Sketch”, was organized in Trinity Children’s Home, where various activities were conducted throughout in order to fully explore the children’s creativity and their ability to express themselves artistically.
The ice-breaker activity for this workshop explored how the children could relate their emotions to different colors, providing them another way to express themselves without directly using words. This ice-breaker would also serve as a foundation for the first activity, “Feelings Garden”, where the children would be given a template and asked to color in a garden filled with their “feelings”.
This activity aimed to help children express both positive and negative feelings they held in the form of colors, where “red” could symbolize “anger”, while “pink” shows “love”. Using straightforward correlations between emotions and colors, the complicated emotions felt by children could be presented in a fully colored page, where “green”, “blue”, “yellow” represent feelings of “jealousy”, “sadness”, and “happiness”, and could co-exist with “anger” and “love”.
Following the activity that allowed children to form connections between internal feelings and external expressions, “My World and Dreams” was introduced. The children were asked what they envisioned their dream world would look like, writing “In my dream world, I…” at the top of a blank paper and asked to complete the sentence.
An alternative to directly drawing and coloring was given in the form of magazines, where children who were not confident in their drawings could choose to cut out images from magazines instead to put into their “world”. This included a diverse community of youth in the activity and discussion, allowing them to think more deeply about their wants and express them through art.
The end of the workshop would be a 30-second dance tutorial of “Lush Life” by Zara Larsson, led by Sarina for the children to follow along, ending the session on a joyful memory to remember.
Sarina leading a dance tutorial “Lush Life”.
“There was a lot of hard work and preparation in order to make it all happen, but it was so heart-warming to see it all pay off in the smiles and interactions I shared with the children from Trinity’s.”
by Sarina, an Echo Media member and one of the leads of the Sketch workshop.
Scene
The fourth and final workshop, “Scene”, would be conducted in Trinity Children’s Home, fulfilling a satisfying end to a series exploring the joys and flexibility of creating art, while telling stories through it. Here, the focus of the workshop shifted from creative expression to narrative storytelling, with the activities teaching and encouraging the children to create their storyboards and masks for the presentation of their stories.
The workshop started with groups of children coming forward to decide the genre of their “story” by spinning the wheel between comedy, fantasy, and adventure. After the genre has been set, the members would explain “storyboarding”, including its purpose and uses, and teach the children how to create their own storyboards for their respective stories as well.
By directly teaching the children how to structure their storylines visually, it gives them the foundational skill to think sequentially and create linear frameworks for their original characters to explore and develop complex feelings within themselves. This would become another tool for children to express the stories in their heads that would otherwise be too difficult to visualize and verbalize.
The activity after that was mask-making, which required not only imagination for children to invent the appearances of original characters, but also the artistic skills needed to bring them to life. By learning how to transform abstract ideas from their minds into palpable, vivid designs, the children would learn how different colors and shapes lead to different impressions of a character, temporarily making every child into a director of their stories.
Then, a concluding acting segment where the children would act out their original stories served as the final activity.
On 16th May 2026, all 4 workshops would be successfully conducted and come to an end, ending this section of the campaign with laughter, joy and feelings of accomplishment.
Minds in Bloom: Giving Back to Sunwayians
Now, we have circled back to the very start of this article, Minds in Bloom’s art exhibition: Echo Garden. This art exhibition was Echo Media’s way of giving back to Sunwayians, the individuals who helped make every workshop possible, and the members who worked hard contributing to every booth, workshop, and now, the exhibition. It showcased all clay models, painted t-shirts, drawn inner worlds, and coloured masks gathered from the 4 creative workshops.
At the opening ceremony held on 18th June 2026, representatives from both IDEAS Autism Centre and Trinity Community Children Home were brought along for a tour around the exhibition showcasing the children’s work. The proud faces and pride they held for the children were obvious at a glance, and the members’ hearts only grew at hearing sentiments of appreciation for the work they did. Following that, a donation ceremony was held where Echo Media donated RM1,000 to each NGOs, contributing a grand total of RM2,000 to the causes.
The art exhibition was decorated and designed to fit the motif, “Minds in Bloom: Echo Garden”, indicating nature, flowers, and a garden. As you walk into the venue, a towering, snowy tree greets you, standing as the core of the exhibition as it stands at the centre of all 4 sections. Bamboo trees were installed to serve as dividers between sections, decorated with vines and flowers, adding to the immersion of visitors walking through a garden.
Section 1, The Seed: Where It All Began, revealed itself as visitors walked through the blinds, showcasing the 3 special T-shirts designed by Sunwayians. The 3 T-shirts represented 3 distinct themes that we invited Sunwayians to express themselves through art and words: “The World through Your Eyes”, sought to ask Sunwayians what they would like to see more of in the world and draw it out; “Leave a message” which turned a T-shirt into a note board for individuals to write a heartwarming note to anyone who might need it; and “Your Time in Bloom”, which offered a blank canvas for Sunwayians to let their creativity flow, adding scenery based on their imaginations onto the T-shirt.
In the same section, boards about Minds in Bloom’s purpose and messages to the public lined up on the bamboo walls decorated with imagery of flowers. Walking further in would show you a video filled with clips recorded from the workshops, showing the process of the children creating and their energy throughout it.
The second section of Echo Garden, Roots & Clay: Shaped by Feeling, displays the clay models from the children of IDEAS Autism Centre and the face masks painted by Trinity Children’s Home. In this section, a sensory zone, “Calming Petals”, is placed at the end, where camping chairs are placed around a table filled with different textures: kinetic sand, rocks, twigs, and many more, encouraging visitors to touch whatever they wish, with a sign “Touch everything”.
The third section, In Full Bloom: Worlds and Dreams, fills your ears before you even see it— the sounds of gentle rain echoing through the exhibition venue. This section featured the drawings of the children’s worlds and dreams on the walls, with diligently painted T-shirts hanging from the ceiling. The lights are dimmer, and the heavy atmosphere created by the sounds of rain and lightning offers the visitors a more intimate, emotional moment for them to explore and understand the different art pieces created.
This section offers “The Overwhelm Zone”, where visitors are encouraged to put on the displayed headphones to “experience” how being overwhelmed feels, seeking to build empathy and awareness within visitors.
Stepping into the final section of the exhibition, After The Rain: Celebrate & Carry It Forward, a photobooth greets you. It is the biggest and most elaborate photo spot in the venue, offering a flowery umbrella as a prop.
This section is designed to look like lined-up market stalls, introducing visitors to Echo Media’s merch booth, mini game, and “Note Garden”, all at once. “Note Garden” is placed as the final activity of the exhibition, at the very end of the exhibition. Pre-cut note cards and variations of pens are offered at this booth, encouraging visitors to pick a pen and write a heartfelt message to the children at both IDEAS Autism Centre and Trinity Children’s Home. Then, putting these notes into a memorable red mailbox that you see right at the start of the exhibition.
When asked about the experience visitors had visiting the art exhibition, one expressed satisfaction, “The decorations followed the theme of the event perfectly, and I could tell it took time to plan it out and then execute it. I loved the interactive activities like writing notes for the kids that we could also decorate. We even got free ice cream at the end if we managed to collect all the stamps!”
A Conclusion, but not an end
The closing ceremony of the art exhibition was held on 19th June 2026 at 5 pm, gathering dedicated club members, alongside the core committee members who were most fervently involved in the preparation, initiation, and conclusion of Minds in Bloom, together for group photos, both as a token of an important memory and as appreciation for each other’s efforts. However, it would not be the end of the Minds in Bloom campaign.
“The planning started since January, and we had weekly meetings leading up to the event day. It truly wouldn’t be made possible without everyone’s dedication and hard work.”
By Felicia, a core committee member.
Following the end of the exhibition, some committee members will be visiting both NGOs again in order to deliver the notes Sunwayians have written for the children, while returning the artworks created by them to both organizations.
Looking back across the entirety of Minds in Bloom, a project funded not only with money, but also with vibrant, burning passion shared across every single Echo Media member. None of the workshops, nor the exhibition, would have gone as successfully as it did without the departments: Design, Event Management, Finance & Sponsorships, Logistics, and Publicity working hand-in-hand, each as a vital piece in a finely tuned machine, pushing forward the initiative with their painstaking efforts.
Their results paid off in full bloom, as the showcase of creativity worked great in connecting visitors to children’s imagination, inciting exclamations on how well-executed and beautifully decorated the exhibition was.
“More than that, we hope this campaign encourages more people to embrace inclusion and celebrate the beauty in every unique mind.”
by Ian, president of Sunway Echo Media.
Written by: Yu Xin
Edited by: Felicia
