The appointment of JWW Birch in November 1874 as Resident of Perak proved problematic as he was deemed insensitive to Malay customs and culture, and while he had the good intention to end debt-slavery, the way he went about it, among other niggling factors, led to his assassination on Nov 2, 1875 in Pasir Salak, the first time in Malayan history. It led to the outbreak of the Perak War and gave the British an excuse to extend and expand its power. The assassin, Dato’ Maharajalela, who became a local hero, was hanged by the British, and his conspirator, Sultan Abdullah, was exiled to the Seychelles, and his arch-rival, Raja Yusuf, installed as Sultan in his place. Zulkifli won the Major Award in the Young Contemporary Artists (BMS) competition in 1988 and 1989. In 1992, he landed Malaysia’s biggest art award when he won the Grand Minister’s Prize in Salon Malaysia, apart from the 1st and 3rd Prizes in Sculpture. There was a time when he concentrated on his educator’s role at the Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris in Tanjung Malim, and his educating credentials and his artist’s accomplishments won him the National Academy Award (Visual Art) in 2007. He did his Diploma in Art and Design (Fine Art) at the Mara Institute of Technology, Shah Alam (1989), and then studied at the Manchester Polytechnic in England for his Masters (1991). He was selected for the 1997 Venice Biennale under the fringe Modernities and Memories: Recent Works from the Islamic World Venice Biennale, the 1st Asia Pacific Triennial of Art in Brisbane in 1993, and the Singapore Biennale 2013. As a team, he won the 2nd Prize in the Sand Sculpture competition in 1988.