To support and honour talented emerging artists, House of Matahati (HOM), Galeri Chandan and SGM had come together in creating the MEA Award. A competition was held for all Malaysian Visual Artists aged between 18 to 35 years old - 39 out of 61 young artists had been chosen to participate – and 94 pieces of artworks had been picked by the organizers to be exhibited at Wisma Kebudayaan SGM from October 4 to18, 2009.

These recent artworks produced in 2008 or 2009 consisted of a variety of mediums, including 2D and 3D works. As such, a interesting display of great diversity was held. They were then judged and five winners were chosen and announced during the opening ceremony on October 11, 2009. The winners were Samsudin Wahab, Gan Chin Lee, Shaifuddin Mamat, Mohd Al-Khuzairie Ali and Mohd Bakir Baharom.

On hand to officiate the exhibition was Dato’ Seri Abdul Azim Bin Mohd Zabidi, Chairman of Board of Trustees of National Art Gallery Malaysia. He emphasised the importance of artists in enriching our life and defining our society in time to come. He also hoped that MEA would grow from strength to strength and in ten years’ time become one of the most coveted awards for artists in Malaysia. Mentioning an article by John Krich which stated that Malaysian Modern Art scene was now ready to receive proper infrastructure in which MEA, he believed, formed part of it.