Gregory Anak Kiyai @ Keai grew up in a longhouse in the interior of Sarawak, an upbringing that shaped both his identity and his life's work. Watching globalization gradually reshape the social and cultural fabric of his indigenous Bornean community, he became acutely aware of how fragile oral traditions, artistic practices, and material heritage can be once they are no longer actively passed down. That awareness grew into a deep, personal conviction: that safeguarding Borneo's cultural treasures and indigenous knowledge is essential not only for preserving identity, but for ensuring these traditions survive for future generations.This conviction carried him from the longhouse into academia, where he has spent his career trying to bridge the gap between scholarly research and the living cultural heritage of his community. He earned his Ph.D. in Arts Management from the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), with a doctoral thesis titled "Conservation of Cultural Artifacts of the Iban Community in the Sarawak Museum." The research combined ethnographic fieldwork with institutional study, examining both how the Iban community uses and understands its own cultural artifacts, and how the Sarawak Museum works to conserve them as heritage. He is currently an academic at the Visual Arts Department, Faculty of Creative Arts, Universiti Malaya, where his research continues to explore heritage conservation, material culture,