CHECK-IN by Art & Market (A&M)

An Art & Market Publication 2021

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Check-In May 2021 artandmarket.net Instagram: @artandmarket Facebook: Art & Market Twitter: @artandmarket Editor Nadya Wang Associate Editor Ian Tee Writer Vivyan Yeo Designer Izz Bachtiar Published by Margins Print ISBN 978-981-18-1275-0 Printed by KHL Printing 57 Loyang Drive Singapore 508968 Advertising and Collaborations If you would like to advertise or collaborate with us, please send an enquiry to info@artandmarket.net. We look forward to hearing from you!

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The views and opinions expressed in CHECK-IN are those of the authors or contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher. For omissions and corrections, please contact us directly.

Copyright © Art & Market 2021 | A Project by Margins Print

Contents 8 9

Boarding Call Prepare for Take-off

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Fresh Faces 12 Anuwat Apimukmongkon 13 Sornrapat Patharakorn

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From the Periphery 16 FIXER 2021: Mapping the Art Collectives in Indonesia

Ajeng Nurul Aini, Ayos Purwoaji, Berto Tukan, Gesyada Siregar 21 “We are at an Exciting Moment”: Reaksmey Yean on

Cambodian Visual Arts

Amanda Rogers 29 Meta Moeng in Phnom Penh

Ho See Wah 35 Myanmar’s Contemporary Arts:

In the Face of a Revolution

Clara Che Wei Peh 41 Thanom Chapakdee: Ubon Agenda, Khon Kaen

Manifesto and MAIELIE

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Fresh Faces 50 Etza Meisyara 51 Faizal Yunus

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My Own Words 54 Working Within And Without A Studio

Haffendi Anuar 60 Matca: Showing, Thinking, and Writing Photography

Ha Dao 67 This Is Not A Corner Store

Dominic Zinampan 73 Between Art and Politics: A Report from Bangkok

Brian Curtin 78 Migrations of Curatorial Work

Carlos Quijon, Jr.

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Fresh Faces 86 Meliantha Muliawan 87 Quynh Lam

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Sustainablity Reports 90 Archiving Practices: Who, How, What, Where, When and Why?

Vivyan Yeo

91 One-Man Art Archive: The Story So Far Koh Nguang How

94 Independent Archive: Spirits Out of Time Bruce Quek

98 The Womanifesto Online Anthology

Clare Veal, Marni Williams, Roger Nelson and Yvonne Low

103 Archive as Ethics: Malaysia Design Archive Lim Sheau Yun 107 Modern Southeast Asian Artists of Note

Ian Tee 115 The Digital Transformation of Auction Houses

Ian Tee 122 Adaptations in Art Handling

Sara Lau 126 Experimentations in Art Journalism

Vivyan Yeo

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Fresh Faces 134 Divagaar 135 Bree Jonson

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Ongoing Conversations 138 Melati Suryodarmo and art naming 奇能: An

Intergenerational Conversation on Performance Art

Vivyan Yeo 148 Tromarama’s ‘Solaris’ at the NGV Triennial 2020

Andari Suherlan 155 On Koperasi

farid rakun and Arief "Arman" Rachman 163 Thai Curator Gridthiya Gaweewong: The Next Chapter

of Jim Thompson Art Center

Ian Tee

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Bill Nguyen on the Fifth Anniversary of The Factory Ian Tee

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Fresh Faces 178 Aziz Amri 179 Alexander Sebastianus Hartanto 180 Azizi Al Majid 181 Adar Ng

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The Road Ahead 185 The Changing Landscape of Artist Residencies

Clara Che Wei Peh 192 An Act of Folding: Beyond a Performative Category of the 'Queer'

Tim Chng 199 Art Collectors: Collecting Habits and A System of Support

Ho See Wah 206 NFTs: The Good, The Bad, The Uncertain Future

Clara Che Wei Peh 213 Gallery Hopping

213 Creative Space Art Gallery and Studio with Osveanne Osman

216 ILHAM Gallery with Rahel Joseph

218 Manzi Art Space with Manzi Team

220 Lawangwangi Creative Space and ArtSociates with Aan Andonowati

222 i:cat gallery with Catherine O’Brien 224 Anti Kolektif Kolektif Klub

Alana Malika

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Crew 228 Contributors 234 A&M Team

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Thank You 237 Prepare for Landing

Boarding Call

Hello, everyone!

Art & Market is chuffed to share with you the first annual issue of CHECK-IN. The title may bring various experiences to mind. We can check in at an airport or a hotel, for one, though we are not quite doing so these days.

We can also check in with someone by, say, paying them a short visit, or making a phone call. With travel restrictions in place, we have continued to check in with our friends in the Southeast Asian art community over Zoom calls and emails, as they have with us. This publication is a record of our conversations about what we have been up to in the past year, and our hopes for the future.

CHECK-IN is the latest project by Art & Market (A&M), a multimedia platform presenting specialist content on Southeast Asian art, featuring its community’s artistic, curatorial and business practices. On the following pages, you will discover the multiple hats that art practitioners wear in the region, and the paths they have individually and collectively taken to navigate the challenges and opportunities in their unique contexts.

In this manner, CHECK-IN is a mid-year review of what has happened in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and celebrates the diversities – and determination – that shape the regional art community. We believe that learning from working models will help us create better systems, and we hope that CHECK-IN will be a useful resource in this regard.

Thank you to our contributors who have generously given of their time to speak with us or pen their thoughts. We are also grateful to our patrons and readers for their support of A&M, and we look forward to offering more compelling content in the years to come. In the meantime, please enjoy CHECK-IN, and do feel free to write to us at info@artandmarket.net with your comments and suggestions. We would love to hear from you, and keep the conversations going.

Nadya Wang, Ian Tee and Vivyan Yeo

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Enjoy the reading material!

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A&M ‘Fresh Faces’ is a monthly series that profiles emerging artists from the region. We speak to them about how they kick-started their career, how they sustain their practice, and what drives them as artists.

For Check-In, we ask 12 ‘Fresh Faces’ artists we have featured from 2020 to 2021 to share a work in progress with us, and to talk about how life has been like for them in in the past year. They also give us a preview of upcoming projects.

You will hear from Anuwat Apimukmongkon, Sornrapat Patharakorn, Etza Meisyara, Faizal Yunus, Meliantha Muliawan, Quynh Lam, Divaagar, Bree Jonson, Aziz Amri, Alexander Sebastianus Hartanto, Azizi Al Majid and Adar Ng, as we transition from one section to the next. We hope you enjoy these brief visits with them!

FRESH FACES

ANUWAT APIMUKMONGKON

Anuwat Apimukmongkon, ‘Thai Headpieces from Waste Material’, 2020, exhibition installation view at YMD Art Space, Khon Kaen. Image courtesy of the artist.

Anuwat Apimukmongkon, ‘Pink Lady and Pink Curry Puff’, 2020, exhibition installation view as part of art festival Khon Kaen Manifesto #2. Image courtesy of the artist.

Over the past year, we have been living in a period of both physical and mental illness.

The outbreak continues to persist and it is not known when it will end. I had to sell my restaurant so I could support my art practice in a country where art is gradually getting weaker. It is sad. Even so, I still have moments where my works get to be displayed, which gives life to my art.

Currently, I am preparing for the art festival Kenduri Seni Nusantara. It was supposed to be held last year but we faced problems because of the pandemic. However, I am sure it will happen this year, in August. Please keep us in mind.

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FRESH FACES

SORNRAPAT PATHARAKORN

Sornrapat Patharakorn, ‘Parenthesis (Monumentum)’, work in progress, 3D rendering. Image courtesy of the artist.

The past year has had me thinking about the potential of art within the dynamics of the wider society, especially in light of the pandemic.

Here is a sketch of ‘Parenthesis (Monumentum)’, which is developed concurrently with the events of Thailand’s state hostilities against their own citizens. This work will be shown at the Jim Thompson Art Centre in Bangkok. There is also a diptych that I have been working on for another show in a disused Stasi building in Leipzig. These works represent an evolution in my practice away from a heavier emphasis on a work’s experiential aspect. Now, I am employing more texts and I aspire to express some kind of hope in these works.

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CHAPTER 1

Spotlight on the work of individuals and collectives

FIXER 2021: Mapping the Art Collectives in Indonesia Ajeng Nurul Aini, Ayos Purwoaji, Berto Tukan, Gesyada Siregar

FIXER is a research initiative to collect and archive the knowledge about operating models and sustainability strategies of art collectives in Indonesia. This initiative started in 2010, when North Art Space, Jakarta, launched the research and exhibition called ‘Alternative Space & Art Groups in Indonesia’, later known as FIXER, curated by Ade Darmawan and Rifky Effendi. This research in 2010 involved 21 art groups and alternative spaces that flourished in several cities in Indonesia between 2000 and 2010.

Gudskul: Contemporary Art Collective and Ecosystem Studies is now continuing it as an endeavour to map and re-examine the development of art collectives over the last ten years, especially in the context of sustainability strategy, and artistic ideas and practices of art collectives from multiple generations and regions. Building upon the previous research, the FIXER survey this time covers 58 art collectives spread across various locations in Indonesia. This research was carried out for approximately 16 months, throughout 2019-2021, by a research team consisting of Ajeng Nurul Aini, Ayos Purwoaji, Berto Tukan, Gesyada Siregar, Dwita Diah Astari, and Gusti Hendra Pratama.

This research will be presented as a book in two languages, Bahasa Indonesia and English, which gathers thoughts from the research team along with guest writers who are artists, activists and curators.

It is the phenomenon of growth that is behind the aspiration to record the dynamics of art collectives in Indonesia. This has been increasingly significant in the development of the Indonesian art ecosystem for the last eleven years. It is marked by the emergence of a multitude of collectives with various artistic practices, some of which have received recognition from international art communities. The growth of art collectives in many regions in Indonesia has led to the birth of numerous artistic events and

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initiatives without facilitation by the state. To cite Ade Darmawan in the 2010 FIXER catalogue: the emergence of these art collectives or groups needs to be seen as “an effort to respond to changes in the society, for the sake of the development of ideas of art practices that are more relevant and immediately involved with the reality in the society”.

The Significance of Art Collectives in Indonesia The history of the development of modern art in Indonesia has in fact never been apart from the spirit of collectivism. It can be dated back to the formation of Seniman Indonesia Muda (SIM, Young Indonesian Artists) in 1946; Lembaga Seniman Indonesia Tionghoa (Yin Hua Meishu Xiehui, Chinese Indonesian Artists Association) in 1949; Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat (Lekra, People’s Cultural Institute) in 1950; Lembaga Seniman dan Budayawan Muslim (Lesbumi, Indonesian Muslim Artists and Culture Activists Association) in 1954; Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru Indonesa (GSRBI, Indonesian New Art Movement) in 1974; Decenta in 1975; Kelompok Kepribadian Apa (PIPA) in 1977; Jaringan Kerja Kebudayaan (JAKER, Cultural Networks) in 1989; up to the emergence of artist groups in the 1990s, including Kelompok Seni Rupa Jendela (Jendela Art Group) (1993), Apotik Komik (1997), Taring Padi (1998), KUNCI Study Forum & Collective (1999), HONF (1999), and Tanahindie (1999). Apart from these, there have also been studios that accommodate artists’ need for space to gather, have a process, and create. Some of these are Sanggar Jiwa Mukti (1948), Sanggar Seniman Kartono Yudhokusumo (1952), Sanggar Bambu (1959), Sanggar Bumi Tarung (1961), Akademi Seni Rupa Surabaya (AKSERA, Surabaya Fine Arts Academy) (1967), and Sanggar Dewata (1970).

This fact can actually serve as a premise for the contribution of artist groups, collectives, or studios and their long history in the development of modern art in Indonesia. And the tendency to gather has continued to the 2000s, and till today. In fact, recently, it has emerged strongly in various regions. In his article in this book, Hendro Wiyanto, quoting Ugeng T. Moetidjo, notes that the emergence of numerous artist groups in the last twenty years has marked a shift in artistic practice from activism to collectivism. A consequence is the positional shift of the public in an artistic work. If artist-activists in the 1980s “presented the individual voice of the artist” and saw the exhibition hall as “a terminal for an activist’s adventures and explorations,” then an art collective of the 2000s “echoes the struggle of identification regarding

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issues of citizenship” and uses the public space as its “arena, target, engagement, victory, and defeat.” An attempt to identify this shift in artistic practice is very likely to be developed in the future, given the wide variety of the practices in Indonesia today that dissolve into everyday life, making them difficult to measure in conventional terms.

The fusion of collective artistic practice with social practice also becomes a crucial starting point for this survey: Is there a rigorous definition of “art collective”? How do we differentiate between an art collective practice and a local neighborhood youth group? How do we measure an art collective’s artistic practice whose members are not artists?

Gesyada Siregar, in her essay in this book, tries to pursue the intertwining insights to be used in detecting art collectives’ practices that are often amphibious and take the form of institutional experimentation.

When comparing our study subjects to those in the FIXER 2010 survey, we found that several art collectives or groups still exist; some have evolved and changed their names, while some have disbanded. However, disbanding here does not mean a dead end because in many cases, members of art collectives that have disbanded form other collectives.

For them, an art collective is not only a medium for channeling artistic expressions, but also a social forum or even a mode of survival. This characteristic answers a classic question: How can a collective’s artwork enter and be accepted by the art market? First, most art collectives do not have an idea about market mechanisms and are not dependent on them. Second, most art collectives position their artistic practice as a method for achieving the social goals they aspire to achieve. Their artworks cannot be framed as commodities, but can include various forms of interdisciplinary work. Ayos Purwoaji, in his essay in this book, describes it as such: “Their process of art creation — and the artworks produced — can only be seen from a certain vantage point because it requires a long timespan and involves the participation of many parties”.

How do these collectives survive? Through various interviews, we discovered that there is a diversity of resources that sustain today’s art collectives’ practices. In the 1990s or even in the 2000s, some art collectives received support through foreign funding or resorted to dues, as described in Berto Tukan’s article on factors for the emergence of art collectives. In it, he argues that in the last ten years, there has been a diversification of resources, ranging from cooperation with the private sector, establishment

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FIXER 2021 team research meeting. Photo by Jin Panji. Image courtesy of FIXER.

FIXER 2021 team research trip to Sinau Art, an art collective based in Cirebon. Image courtesy of FIXER.

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of business cooperatives, securement of access to government budgets, to building independent economic strategies and developing communitybased businesses. The definition of capital for art collectives in Indonesia does not stop at finances. Above all, various forms of social capital turn out to support their survival in more robust ways as an art collective.

One interesting illustration appears in one of the interview sessions with an art collective that is more than ten years old and has not yet received external funding. Their works are not for sale, but they are active in various activities involving dozens of other art collectives in their region.

Through interviews guided by Ajeng Nurul Aini, also published in this book, representatives of these collectives share stories of their survival strategies. How do they survive as an art collective? Some members we interviewed remarked that one thing that keeps them going is a common sense of humor. They fulfill their personal daily needs by working odd jobs, while the art collectives become their social forum and channels of expression. Since they never depend on the global art market, their existence is not influenced by fluctuations in market capitulation and value.

Independence in this case must be understood as a form of resilience and sovereignty to support the social dimension in their artistic practices.

A Multitude of Perspectives This time, FIXER is not only presenting the research team’s articles, but has also invited guest writers to enrich our study of the development of art collectives in Indonesia in the last ten years. They are Dwihandono Ahmad, Hendro Wiyanto, Nuraini Juliastuti, and Renal Rinoza. In addition, FIXER has also invited writers from art collectives of different contexts and practices, namely Jatiwangi art Factory, Hysteria, Komunitas Pasirputih, Ladang Rupa, Rakarsa, Taring Padi, and Tikar Pandan.

This excerpt from the preface of the book 'FIXER 2021', launching in July 2021, was translated from Bahasa Indonesia to English by Ninus Andarnuswari.

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“We are at an Exciting Moment”: Reaksmey Yean on Cambodian Visual Arts Amanda Rogers

A native of Battambang, Reaksmey Yean is an art advocate, art curator, writer and researcher. He has been an Alphawood Scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, an exchange scholar at the Institute of Southeast Asian Affairs, Chiang Mai University, and in 2017 he became the first recipient of the SEAsia Scholars Award at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, where he was also funded by an Asian Cultural Council fellowship. Reaksmey has been a curator for creative programmes at Java Creative Café, Phnom Penh, and has served in several senior posts, including an Assistant to the School of Performing Arts at Phare Ponleu Selpak, a multi-disciplinary arts centre in Battambang where he received his early education. He is interested in multi-disciplinary contemporary art practice and recently opened the Silapak Trotchaek Pneik art gallery in Phnom Penh. As an art advocate, he promotes art and culture in contemporary Cambodia via curatorial practices and art criticism. As a scholar, he is concerned with Buddhist art, contemporary and modern arts, Southeast Asia, and decolonial theory.

Reaskmey is currently finishing a position at the Centre for Khmer Studies as a co-investigator on the project ‘Contemporary Arts Making and Creative Expression among Young Cambodians.’ I am leading this project in collaboration with Cambodian Living Arts, and it is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the United Kingdom, and the Global Challenges Research Fund via the post-conflict research programme ‘Changing the Story’. Reaksmey and I first met when we were both invited to speak as part of a panel on ‘Heritage Arts and the Contemporary’ at the Southeast Asian Arts Festival in London in 2014.

This was to open the exhibition of ‘Fractured/Khmer Passages’ by Thomas Buttery and Jai Rafferty, produced by Annie Jael Kwan. Reaksmey’s interests lie predominantly in the visual arts, whereas mine lie in

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contemporary Cambodian dance. Yet from this first encounter, it was clear that we both felt that a new direction was being forged by Cambodian artists across all spheres. The research project has been an opportunity for us to further explore these ideas, particularly regarding the extent to which the contemporary arts scene is influenced by the legacies of the Khmer Rouge. We have also been considering the prospects for the arts in a country where two-thirds of the population is under the age of 30. In this interview, I ask him to reflect on the current state of the visual arts scene in Cambodia, updating the record from seven years ago.

I want to start with what you call yourself, because I have heard you use many terms: "articurizer", critic, art advocate, writer, scholar, but you also trained in music and singing. It feels like you are experimenting with the terminology!

Yes, exactly! You know full well that I am one of those people who do not like to tag themselves into a particular model. That is why when people ask me what I would consider myself to be, the answer will vary. Before calling myself an art writer and curator, I called myself an art advocate.

But then people who know me in the visual arts say, “Why don’t you just say that you are an art curator?” Well, yes, I am that too! However, I want to be free from the constraints of undertaking a particular career. I want to have a different path in the arts, and that also means being involved in cultural policy. I want to keep things more open because I want to effect change. I have a vision for the Cambodian arts scene and in order for me to realise that vision, I have to be part of the decision-making process.

Before we discuss what that vision is, can you tell me about the visual arts scene in Cambodia right now?

The visual art scene is suffering from the pandemic, but generally speaking, we are at an exciting moment. It is like a spring. We have many people who are practising art, so there are more artists. We have local players who support the visual art scene. There has also been the opening of art galleries that are run by either diasporic Cambodians or local Cambodians, myself included! This increase in human resources and curatorial expertise is crucial in the visual arts. I have fellows to discuss things with, to share ideas with, and that is an exciting moment for me, without Covid-19!

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To what extent is that centred on Phnom Penh?

Historically, Battambang was branded ‘The Art Centre of Cambodia’, and, of course, Phare Ponleu Selpak had a big part in fostering that. However, I am not sure whether it still enjoys that status.

The creative scene in Battambang is quite slow and it is perhaps derivative as well. Battambang is also quite isolated because the infrastructure is always under construction. This means it gets cut out from resources, both financial and educational. Siem Reap is a different story because of tourism, and so artistic production up until the last two years has served the tourist market. Only two galleries – Batia Sarem and Mirage Gallery – defy the scene in that sense.

Phnom Penh is interesting because, of course, it is right in the middle of everything! We have international agencies such as the Institut Français and Meta House, but also other organisations like The Asia Foundation, the Japan Foundation, and Sa Sa Arts Projects. So the dynamic here is vivid and lively. Until 2014, the Phnom Penh visual arts scene was supported by independent international agencies and the expat community, who were also buyers. We had a few Cambodians who were buying art, but they were not a big force for the market. Then the expat community began to die out because NGOs started to move elsewhere. But by then, prominent artists like Sopheap Pich, Leang Seckon, Anida Yoeu Ali and Svay Sareth started to attract a different audience and they put Cambodian art on the international map. Then we had more international collectors. Now, we have the rise of regional arts markets and art fairs led by Indonesia and Singapore. So Cambodian visual art is always travelling abroad representing Cambodia and the scene has become more known.

How has the pandemic impacted that?

We have to remind ourselves that the pandemic is important but it is not the only factor behind the decline of the Cambodian art market. Since around 2016, things also started to slow down because tourism stopped growing so quickly.1 However, no one took action. We need proper research to find out the share of the Cambodian art market’s income that comes from the tourist industry. It is undeniable that the decline of tourism has played a role in the decline of the art market. Covid-19 has exacerbated that decline. Right now, even celebrated artists in Cambodia are losing sales and income. A lot of places also shut down, like Java

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Café, one of the prominent art hubs in the country. Some artists feel like everything is collapsing. But we have the Futures Factory as a cultural hub, and in the last few months we have new art galleries, like Silapak Trotchaek Pneik, which I founded, and then FT Gallery and Pi-Pet-Pi gallery. These are new players. They are not as prominent, but it sends a hopeful message. However, we cannot depend on the international market alone; we need to tap into a domestic market that exists and expand it.

We have Cambodians who are buying art and they sit in the cabinet.

They are rich but they do not want to show it. Nowadays, you also see a lot of millionaires in Cambodia and they are potential buyers. We need to convert them into art patrons. We also have middle-class families, which we did not have previously. If we can find ways to make art trendy and exciting to them, they could also become part of a bigger market.

I know that is partly where you are trying to focus your efforts with your own gallery….

Yes. My hope is to do two things at the same time. The first is for the gallery to have an educational arm. This aims to include everyone in a discussion of contemporary art, especially the younger generation.

I am working with a few colleges and universities to engage students in art, whether they are art students or not. We need to discuss the art that is using Cambodian terminologies and frames of reference. We need to open up that discussion of art as a field of study for everyone.

Art can also create social cohesion, solidarity, dialogue, democracy... things like that. It is an interesting phenomenon and not just a stylistic one. Contemporary art is also not necessarily a Western imposition; it is a platform in which you can include different voices. In Cambodia, we do not have this kind of dialogue, and this culture of debate and discussion. I hope to create that, both orally and in writing.

Then the second thing is that the gallery has a collectorship arm. I have been increasing my personal network among influential and well-to-do families and trying to get them to view artists' works. I send them a lot of information! I hope that if I can convince a few of them to be patrons of the gallery and get them to support one exhibition per year, then we can start to send a different message about the value of the arts more widely.

I also want Cambodians to be exposed to Southeast Asian art, but I think it is important to build local support here first. The Cambodian visual

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Reaksmey Yean in front of Chea Sereyroth's 'Children in Dumpsite', 2013. Photo by Bun Chan. Image courtesy of Silapak Trotchaek Pneik.

Reaksmey leading a session in an 'Arts for the Future' workshop in Phnom Penh, February 2021. Photo by Hem Vanareth. Image courtesy of Silapak Trotchaek Pneik.

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Soft opening of Silapak Trotchaek Pneik art gallery. Photo by Bun Chan. Image courtesy of Silapak Trotchaek Pneik.

art scene has also been dominated by certain individuals. Now that we have new galleries, I hope that some of the artists who have never been presented nationally or internationally will have their voices heard, then we can diversify the story that has been told about Cambodian visual arts.

Who are those voices then?

I am in awe to see that many artistic newcomers are not necessarily painters. They are photographers and performance artists. This is because they have been trained by Sa Sa Art Projects. Thematically, urbansation and environmental concerns are topics that interest a lot of artists, especially newcomers. This is in response to what is happening in Cambodia. Deforestation, climate change, the building we see across Cambodia’s landscape are all pressing issues.

For me, my interest is with people like Pen Robit, Sao Sreymao and Khiev Kanel. They represent diverse backgrounds, mediums and thematic discussions. They are more interested in the current Cambodian sociopolitical landscape, rather than the Khmer Rouge or old history. Not that they ignore that, but they are more interested in the now. For example, Pen Robit is interested in the concept of power, the military, corruption, the Cambodian government, and Southeast Asia. Sao Sreymao is most interested in the issue of water. She has recently

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produced work on how the establishment of dams in Cambodia has destroyed small villages and cultures. Although artistic products are objects of contemplation, the creative process is interesting to me too.

We have talked a lot in our work together about young artists and whether or not the Khmer Rouge is a starting point for contemporary expression. When you read international articles about Cambodian arts, the Khmer Rouge is often used as a framing, whether that is an artist’s subject matter or not. It is also usually the topic that international artists want to explore collaboratively with Cambodian artists. However, it is not necessarily the primary concern of Cambodian artists themselves, particularly the younger generation who did not live through it.

Yes, it is unavoidable to draw reference to the Khmer Rouge and the recent tragedy of Cambodia. Cambodia is, to many people, still a country that just finished a war. 1991 feels recent.2 This means we need to increase scholarship on Cambodian art and that scholarship needs to be decolonised and deconstructed. We need local voices in this scholarship, with insiders who understand the current dynamics of the visual art scene. The more we expose artists abroad and produce publications through galleries across the country, the more we will lessen the narrative framework of the Khmer Rouge and the atrocities of war.

You mentioned earlier about your vision for the arts scene, can you tell me about that?

Well, I want Cambodia to have a stronger art infrastructure. We need spaces, most importantly. One of the models that has inspired me is the Walker Art Centre in the United States because it is a museum, but also a theatre, a movie house, and a sculpture garden. Few people have that vision here. Of course, people talk about funding and we cannot avoid discussing that. But we need spaces. We need both private and public museums. I hope there is an element of government help and support, but institutions should be run independently, by people who are not affiliated with the government. Even the Director of the National Museum of Cambodia cannot make decisions without going to the top level. There needs to be a clear policy around independent decision making, and maybe these institutions need to operate more like charitable bodies. They should be a democratic space. They should be not only a place to enjoy

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art and cultural aesthetics, but a place for debate and discussion. That also applies to the staff members working in these institutions; they should not feel that they are responsible for any government policy. Their job should be to take care of the art, serve what is in the collections, and engage the public in these collections. We also need galleries, definitely commercial galleries. We do not really have commercial galleries in the Kingdom, and I think that is one reason why the market is not very mature. We need to have art collectors, especially local art collectors who maintain and expand the market. We definitely need creative minds, and that means that we need to have a better education system. Schools need to be more progressive and interdisciplinary, and we need to re-evaluate Cambodian art education. We also need to re-think the media landscape in Cambodia to speak about culture and art in a more educational way. All of these need to work together in order to produce a strong market and a healthy arts scene. This is ambitious, but if we have a clear plan and strong cultural policy, we can do it!

Notes 1. See Sok Chan, ‘Report: Tourist Arrivals to Fall’, accessed March 30 2021, https://www. khmertimeskh.com/64026/report-tourist-arrivals-to-fall/.

2. Although the Khmer Rouge were in power from 1975 to 1979, they were ousted by the Vietnamese who occupied Cambodia until late 1990, with fighting continuing between different political factions. In 1991, the United NationsTransitional Authority in Cambodia took over as part of the Paris Peace Accords, with the country’s first free elections held in 1993.

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Meta Moeng in Phnom Penh Ho See Wah

Meta Moeng is the curator of Treeline Gallery, Siem Reap and lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Her curatorial practice focuses on contemporary art in Cambodia, creating dialogue among young artists and engaging in archiving such as through dambaul which she founded in 2019, an arts resource home focused on building the Cambodian Contemporary Art Archives. Her interests lie in urban development, architecture and art. At Treeline Gallery, she curates and manages new commissions with emerging artists in Cambodia.

Meta is also the founder of Kon Len Khnhom (2017), an independent art space focusing on developing a local audience for art. She was previously Creative Producer for Creative Generation at Java Creative Cafe (2017− 2018). She was also Community Projects Manager at SA SA BASSAC (2013 −2016). In 2018, she received the Travel Grants fund by The Getty Foundation. Meta is a member of CIMAM, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art. In this interview, we ask Meta about her practice, and the challenges that the Cambodian art scene faces at the moment.

To start, could you tell us more about your practice as both curator and art manager?

I visited SA SA BASSAC by chance without knowing anything about contemporary art and art history. From there, I became curious about contemporary art and the people involved in this field. Through dialogues I had with artists and galleries, I was encouraged to consider another direction in my career, so I switched from the business field to the arts and started working as SA SA BASSAC’s Community Projects Manager

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from 2013 to 2016. Other than supporting the team, my role encompassed engaging with audiences and developing the audience growth strategy.

During that period, most locals, including my friends and their circles, knew very little bit about contemporary visual art, so I was keen to develop this aspect which I believe to be an important step for a sustainable and thriving art community.

I spent lots of time researching, observing the art scene and learning from people around me. This developed my role and my own personal growth, which led to me eventually wear many hats in the art scene.

What are some projects that you worked on?

Besides working with artists, I also have two exciting projects that allow me to explore my practice. One of them is Kon Len Khnhom, an independent art space dedicated to networking and growing audiences. It is an experimental platform for me to render the invisible visible. The other is dambaul, which is an arts resource home that focuses on building the Cambodian Contemporary Art Archives. It is a lot of homework to do and it also presents a challenge for my personal growth. Both help me to balance my career and my passion. These two projects shape the way that I work, and they have also brought me towards my unexpected role as a curator.

You mentioned Kon Len Khnhom, or "my place", an independent art space that offers a platform for projects and networking, a resource library and a residencies programme in 2017. Could you tell us why you started this space?

Very luckily, I found a charming space in 2017. It is a traditional Khmer house furnished with a new, concrete ground-level building along an alleyway in the city. The house gave me a sense of feeling at home, so I decided to rent the space to work on my independent projects and develop my ideas. But soon after I rented it, I decided it would not be just for me.

Instead, it should be for other people who would need the space as well.

This practical approach of providing a platform for experimentation and for the development of interdisciplinary artistic practices transformed my creative activities. It allowed my visitors and I to learn from one another, and it feels important that Kon Lem Khnhom plays a part in the art ecosystem. From a pragmatic point of view, this project is also part of audience development.

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Exhibition of Phnom Penh's old cinemas by Roung Kon Project along the alley lane of former cinema Kim Son, as part of ‘Currents 2019’. Photo by Miguel Jerónimo.

SA SA BASSAC.

Students-in-residence at Kon Len Khnhom.

From The Periphery

Meta Moeng.

The reading room at dambaul.

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How has this space developed from then?

Kon Len Khnhom was founded in 2017 and for the three years since, we have hosted several events, and more importantly, residencies for architectural and design students who were completing their projects. It was a home and gathering space for many. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, I announced the closure of the physical space but it remains an ongoing project. I believe it will return in a different form in response to the needs of the community.

You have been working as a curator at Treeline Gallery, which champions Cambodian contemporary art and design. Could you tell us more?

Treeline Urban Resort was conceived, designed and owned by one of Cambodia’s leading architects, Hok Kang, who also has an interest in supporting local contemporary art. Treeline Gallery was built as an open-air gallery, and we have our own permanent collection of artworks by Sopheap Pich, Khvay Samnang, Thang Sothea and a few more artists.

The gallery aims to support young and emerging contemporary artists and build an inspiring platform which cultivates a deep appreciation for the arts. My role at Treeline Gallery is to make a yearly exhibition plan proposal and propose it to the management team. Once it is approved, I then curate all the exhibitions. Our exhibitions and programmes focus on supporting and promoting Cambodian artists, advocating the collection of artworks by local and foreign collectors, and helping to craft the contemporary Cambodian art narrative.

Our long-term vision is to create the Treeline Art Foundation and launch an artist-in-residence programme to host artists from Southeast Asia.

What are the positive changes that you witnessed in the Cambodian art community in the past year?

From my observations, there are always challenges for the contemporary art scene in Cambodia. Previously, there were not a lot of art spaces or galleries, and there were few public library collections. Within these collections, the modern and contemporary art archives were limited.

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Still, artists and cultural practitioners often make things happen by themselves to contribute to the art community. Meanwhile, private sectors, local collectors and other initiatives play a supporting role in the arts. There are opportunities for young artists, dancers, architects, filmmakers, writers and curators to develop their skills despite the challenges.

And what are some current circumstances, such as infrastructural support or public awareness that you think could be improved upon?

In Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, there is the National Museum and the Royal University of Fine Arts. However, these do not encompass contemporary art and in fact, there is no government funding for them.

To create the art ecosystem, we need to build a strong foundation together. It is like building a house where everything is connected, and the details are implemented step by step. Some of these steps include creating galleries or art spaces, building a local audience, encouraging local collectors, and having more art publications so as to create more opportunities for artists, audiences, collectors and the art community.

What do you think is an enduring or distinctive factor about the Cambodian art scene?

Although the contemporary art scene in Cambodia is small at the moment, it is at an interesting stage and everyone in the art community supports each other and encourages collaborations between different disciplines. We are committed to the arts and what we do.

An example is the event Currents 2019: Phnom Penh Art & Urban Festival curated by Pen Sereypagna and Lyno Vuth. The programme saw many activities including two group exhibitions, art installations and performances, artist talks, workshops, dance performances and film screenings. However, due to Covid−19, there is no clear plan for future iterations of Currents.

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Could you let us know some local artists or cultural practitioners like yourself whose work we should know about?

Here are the names of local artists that have worked with Treeline Gallery: Khvay Samnang, Yim Maline, Thang Sothea, Eng Rithchandaneth, Sao Sreymao, Prak Dalin, Hul Kanha, Prum Ero, So Vitou, Tyl Kan and Kong Siden. There are also a few more artists that I am interested in, and follow their works: Lyno Vuth, Lim Sokchanlina, Tith Kanitha, Neak Sophal, Kim Hak and Chov Theanly.

For cultural practitioners, I appreciate and follow the works of these individuals closely: Prumsodun Ok who is an artist, teacher, writer and founding director of Prumsodun Ok & NATYARASA; Vuth Lyno who is an artist, curator and artistic director of Sa Sa Art Projects; Sokcheng Seang, writer and Wapatoa’s Co-Founder; So Phina, Cambodian Living Arts’ Knowledge, Networks, and Policy Programme Manager; and Onn Sokny, Epic Arts’s Country Director.

And looking forward, what do you hope for the future of the local art scene?

I hope to see more art libraries, spaces, proper galleries and more local collectors. I would also like to see groups in the private sector becoming more dedicated in supporting and promoting art. I also hope that there will be more support from the government in terms of contemporary art education, grants and openness to collaboration beyond their network of schools and museums. I certainly hope to see more curators, writers and leaders in the art field.

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Myanmar’s Contemporary Arts: In the Face of a Revolution Clara Che Wei Peh

In the early morning of 1 February 2021, Myanmar’s military declared a year-long state of emergency. The military junta seized control of the government, after arresting the nation’s civil leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and top members of the elected National League for Democracy (NLD). Parliament was scheduled to hold its first session since the nation’s elections last November, during which the NLD won by a landslide. Claiming electoral fraud and refusing to accept the voting results, the military forcefully took over Myanmar and its infrastructures, restricting telecommunications and internet access, and suspending domestic and international travel.

With that, the military took away the quasi-democracy Myanmar had for the past five years and has held the nation hostage since. As a result, Myanmar’s contemporary arts scene is forced to confront an uncertain path ahead, as artists risk facing increased scrutiny and censorship, as well as stark changes to the arts ecosystem. Based in Yangon, Nathalie Johnston, Founder and Director of Myanm/art, a contemporary arts organisation, says, “Waking up on 1 February, hearing the news, it felt like the bottom fell out underneath the entire country. Whatever future we imagined was gone in an instant.”

Pro-democracy protestors took to the streets in largely peaceful acts of civil disobedience, work stoppages and general strikes. Johnston observed that art played a major function in spreading the messages of the revolution and expressing solidarity. The Association of Myanmar Contemporary Artists hosted an art-making protest event on one of the main roads in downtown Yangon on 10 February, in support of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). Artists across different practices and mediums joined together to create artworks and sold them to raise funds for civil servants partaking in the CDM, refusing to continue to work in service of the military.

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Anonymous (Myanmar Artist). Image courtesy of Raise Three Fingers.

The three-finger salute, which originated in ‘Hunger Games’, authored by Suzanne Collins, has become a symbol of resistance in protests. Adopted by pro-democracy protestors across Hong Kong, Thailand and now, Myanmar, it has risen to be a symbol of global solidarity and the fight for freedom.

The symbol spread rapidly across graffiti on government buildings and protest art painting on hanging canvas murals hung on bridges overnight.

Johnston witnessed that in the first weeks under the coup, the urgency of the demonstrations prompted artists to create, share and spread their artworks with an unprecedented level of openness. “One artist would create a work, upload Google Drive links for download and explain that it was free for all,” says Johnston. “The next day, a group would show up to the protests with large vinyls of that same artwork.

There was this beautiful synergy to the sharing of symbols that created knowledge, community, understanding and disobedience.”

As the movement gained momentum, artists and creatives started Raise Three Fingers (formerly Art for Freedom MM), a movement to gather artworks featuring the three-finger salute, from artists in Myanmar and abroad, to spread awareness of Myanmar’s demonstrations to the global art community. By April, the campaign had gathered more than 1,000 artworks from artists around the world, fuelled by a collective belief in the power of creative resistance and unity.

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Soe Yu Nwe, ‘In Memory of Kyal Sin, A Pure Fallen Star’, 2021, mixed media on arches paper.

Image courtesy of the artist.

Bart Was Not Here, 2021. Image courtesy of the artist.

Myanm/art’s space. Image courtesy of Myanm/art.

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Emily Phyo, ‘Response 365 Day 60’, 2021. Image courtesy of the artist.

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Bart Was Not Here, a pseudonym for a young artist from Yangon who has worked closely with Myanm/art in the past years, explained that many artists instinctively turned towards creating and sharing artworks digitally since the first day of the coup. “A lot of artists were arrested for their physical artworks and illustrations back in the day," Bart Was Not Here cited the 8888 Uprising in 1988 and the Saffron Revolution in 2007, suggesting that “it is relatively safer and easier to spread art or counter-propaganda digitally.”

Although citizens began to experience increased freedom in public expression after 2015, the nation’s first fair elections since 1962, artists continued to be challenged by a lack of public space to show their work, drawing them to present their works online or in the streets.

This led Myanmar artists to develop a strong fluency in utilising digital communications to spread their message across and beyond the nation’s borders. It contributed to the key function played by digital channels in organising and broadcasting the protest and its developments.

Emily Phyo, a performance and installation artist from Yangon, transformed her social media accounts to document and call attention to the protests. In 2015, Phyo photographed 365 portraits of different individuals in Myanmar and posted them online each day. On the first day of the coup, she began a new iteration of this project, capturing her response each day as the coup went on and the military’s violence escalated, often featuring the three-finger salute. By sharing them on social media, Phyo’s images not only spread awareness, but also provide rare on-the-ground documentations of the situation, especially as the military cracks down on journalists and news media.

As the situation exacerbates, the military responded with internet blackouts and new cybersecurity laws that threaten outright censorship. Soe Yu Nwe, a ceramics artist, says, “I now need to be cautious of what I post on my website or online, because you can get arrested or sued if you speak against [the military].” In a commentary published in 'The Arts Newspaper', Johnston also added that print shops have been closed, accused by the military of producing materials offensive to the regime. Johnston stressed that “artists will have to adapt and evolve quickly, to "work in code" and challenge the ways they share and stage their works in the future.”

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In light of the uncertain future, arts organisations such as Myanm/art will also have to adjust their functions and spaces to adapt to a rapidly changing landscape. Founded in 2016, Myanm/art is an independent platform that functioned as an exhibition space, a commercial art gallery and a research archive. The organisation has worked closely with emerging contemporary artists across Myanmar to provide visibility for those whose works and practices are left outside of the nation’s mainstream discourses. Soe Yu Nwe say, “Myanm/art has offered an alternative space to traditional Burmese art or commercial art popular with tourists, and has given room for younger voices to develop by offering them space to experiment”. This ethos culminated in a diverse and evolving events calendar that has brought international attention to Myanmar’s burgeoning contemporary art scene. In a country where arts funding is infamously scarce, and often come with stipulations that only supported and documented limited forms of expressions, Myanm/art has played a central role in facilitating the growth and documentation of a diverse arts ecosystem. Bart Was Not Here adds, “Myanm/art’s mission is to amplify the individuality of the artists.” In addition, the gallery has served as a bridge to connect Myanmar with international art scenes and foster exchanges between visitors and local artists.

Even before the coup on 1 February, Myanm/art had been closed to the public for months, as the nation endured one of Southeast Asia’s worst coronavirus outbreaks. In the face of nationwide shutdowns, Myanm/art moved its focus to the digital, staging the online exhibition, ‘Art - Spaces - Us’ in April 2020. Originally planned for its physical location, the exhibition adapted into a Facebook event page that hosted the multimedia show alongside interviews and live panel sessions.

In parallel to the online exhibition, Johnston and Myanm/art also took the involuntary period of closure as an opportunity to develop their longterm efforts in research and archiving. Myanmar Art Resource Centre and Archive (MARCA) is a growing archive of Myanmar contemporary arts that Johnston and her team had been working on since 2013, with the aim of creating the largest database of Myanmar’s contemporary art. MARCA was part of Asia Art Archive’s Mobile Library programme, and grew as Johnston collected physical archival and research

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materials housed in Myanm/art’s on-site library over the years. When the pandemic hit, Myanm/art applied for and was given the GoetheInstitut’s COVID relief fund, which empowered them to obtain necessary resources to digitise the database and expand its online capacities. The team had initially planned to launch the project online in February.

Moving forward, Johnston shares that Myanm/art will no longer focus on showcasing artists’ works to a wide public audience. The organisation will move out of its current location and into a smaller, private space.

Turning inwards, Myanm/art will consolidate its resources to support its ongoing network of artists and facilitate their art-making, while aiding them in navigating the highly policed realm of the public. "I think it is a smart and prudent move,” says Soe Yu Nwe, who has seen Myanm/art as the main platform for her to share her works with the local audience. “With the political instability and pandemic, it would be rather challenging to support a nice physical space and people aren't coming out to see or celebrate shows opening as much any how. It lowers financial, legal and covid risks for everyone."

Regardless of what may come, artists and cultural workers remain committed to sustaining Myanmar’s contemporary arts. Despite the potential challenges ahead, Bart Was Not Here is confident artists will perservere. “I am looking forward to tackling whatever that comes our way,” he says. “I think Myanm/art has a great roster of artists and we’ll make this a time capsule moment in our own way. I am only worried about censorship making a dramatic comeback. That would hurt everyone across the board, not just Myanm/art. But other obstacles, we can handle with no problem, I am sure." Echoing these sentiments, Johnston adds, “It has always been clear to me that these artists are steeled and strong in the face of adversity. Nothing about their lives – for generations – has been easy. Yet they always manage to find a place for themselves, their art and their creativity. They have a role to play in the fight against injustice, the fight for free expression and human rights, and they know it well. I expect they will have no issues responding on their own terms in the future.”

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Thanom Chapakdee: Ubon Agenda, Khon Kaen Manifesto and MAIELIE

Thanom Chapakdee is an art activist, critic, curator and educator.

In 2018, he launched Khon Kaen Manifesto, a bi-annual art festival that aims to decentralise the contemporary art scene in Thailand, complemented by Ubon Agenda in 2020. We speak to Thanom about his interventions, and plans for the two festivals in 2022.

Manifesto took place from 10 to 20 December 2020 in Khon Kaen. Earlier, you held Ubon Agenda, a sister festival in November 2020 in Ubon Ratchathani. How did you select the artists’ works in these festivals?

The intention was to organise artistic practices, activities and workshops around the Kong-Chi-Moon Rivers in Northeastern Thailand, and they had these names: Manifesto, Agenda and Summit (MAS). We believe that anyone can become an art practitioner without necessarily being an artist. The focus is not on being an artist, but participating in the space of artistic action and being an artistic activist. Therefore, the idea of “choosing” or selection does not apply. Anyone with the courage to present their ideas is welcome as long as it relates to the context of the site and the festival’s main idea. MAS is concerned with socio-political, cultural or environmental problems, and its approach is aligned with the concept of Aesthetics of Resistance and Aesthetic Revolutions.

Could you talk about artworks shown that made a deep impression on you, perhaps for how it encapsulated the aims of the festivals, or the strength of the concepts?

There are many examples of works which I believe can raise questions. I will speak about a few works presented in Tang Jai

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Anukool Suksa School, an abandoned building in the centre of Ubon Ratchathani. Beginning at the school’s main gate, audiences will hear voices cheering them up and the music gets louder until it becomes recognisable. That is a sound piece by Gobpong Khanthapan.

Nipan Oranniwesna’s installation ‘Love Letter’ dealt with the massacre on 6 October 1976. An image of the sky on 24 June 2020 was painted on the classroom floor using powder paint. It is a picture that can be blown away with the wind, and the audience is invited to walk on the sky. A message is also spelt out with block letters: “THEN, ONE MORNING, THEY WERE FOUND DEAD AND HANGED. IT WAS LATER ESTABLISHED, THAT THEY WERE DONE TO DEATH BEFORE.” And at the front of the room was Dr. Puey Ungpakorn's testimony of the incident.

In another room, there was a presentation of works by a group called Humanร้าย Human Wrong, which looked at the remote exercise of power from the central government. Anurak Khotchomphu showed ‘L509 ND 48-2’, a series of aerial maps of Ubon Ratchathani during the Indochina War. It took the form of a 3D stereogram on the board at the front of the class. On top of the board hung a photo of the back of a student’s head. It presents an unusual vision, and if you look closely, you will find the word “Rat”. In this room, there is also a plastic box containing the stories of descendants of migrant workers. They are the students who face being left behind by the Thai education system.

How did Ubon Agenda and Manifesto work together to push against boundaries for change?

The main point is to challenge the mainstream art movement in Thailand. In the case of Ubon Agenda, the event venue was an abandoned private school, which is considered an area controlled by the state through the education system. Instead, we use it as an artistic action space to criticise the state, introducing the concept of The Holy Rebellion or the Pee Boon Rebels as a conceptual model for the event. At the second Khon Kaen Manifesto, we used an abandoned wooden brothel near the Democracy Monument in Khon Kaen to highlight prostitution and the failure of state mechanisms.

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Tang Jai Anukool Suksa School, an abandoned school in Ubon Rachathani.

Nipan Oranniwesna, ‘Love Letter’ at Ubon Agenda.

Anurak Khotchomphu, ‘L509 ND 48-2’ at Ubon Agenda.

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What is the role of these alternative art festivals in decentralising and diversifying the art world in northeast Thailand, and Thailand as a whole?

Agenda and Manifesto’s use of these abandoned buildings and their surrounding wastelands is new to the artistic movement in Thailand. The two editions of Khon Kaen Manifesto (2018 and 2020) as well as Ubon Agenda (2020) raised questions for the artists and the community at large, and caused some controversy. This means we have already created a transformative trend in the region, especially in the Northeast which is a territory lacking in attention from the state. After creating an artistic space, the most important thing is that it allows art practitioners in other provinces such as Loei, Phayao and Sakon Nakhon to join forces with communities and organise their own art spaces without relying on the state.

How did you work with your teams for each festival, and how did you solve the challenges you faced?

Manifesto is run by a team comprising Tanomsak Chaikam,Krisarat Wongworanet, Nibhon Khankaew, Manaporn Robroo and Phayungsil Pasri. Meanwhile, there is a local activist group from Ubon Ratchathani that takes care of Ubon Agenda. They include: Teerapon Anmai, Narasith Vongprasert, Witayakara Sowattara, Saowanee Treerat Alexander, Ram Prasansak, Nutdanai Jitbunjong, Thunwalai Thaiprasert, amongst others.

The problems in each area are different. However, one constant is the issue of interference and monitoring from government officials, conducted through police and military surveillance. We address this by avoiding direct answers or lying to them. We also do not advertise or promote the event because we do not want government officials to disturb us, so if you want, you have to come to see the presentation or artwork for yourself. Many times, we have to conceal a work and let the audience talk and discuss it among themselves.

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Nibhon Khankaew, the owner of HUAK Society, an alternative artistic space in Khon Kaen.

Ubon Agenda.

MAIELIE, Khon Kaen.

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What were the triumphs that you celebrated?

It is just the beginning of this struggle to use art and culture as a tool for the people. In recent times, there is an increase in awareness among art practitioners and advocacy for democratic rights. We cannot celebrate any victory as political activists have been arrested, imprisoned and their freedom of expression is restricted.

How has the opening of MAIELIE, an independent art space in Khon Kaen and an offshoot of the MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Chiang Mai in late 2020 gained momentum for your aims?

MAIELIE is the main venue for exhibitions in Isaan, the Northeastern region in Thailand. MAS and MAIELIE are separate organisations, and the hope is that MAIELIE’s curators will show how independent art organisations are different from the state art gallery, by opening up a space with more possibilities and opportunities. The curatorial team wishes to strengthen the regional art movement through learning and exchange, and sharing an exhibition proogramme with MAIIAM. How did the second iteration of Khon Kaen Manifesto (2020) mature or deviate from the first in 2018?

The main difference between the two editions of Khon Kaen Manifesto is the site and presentation concept. In 2018, the team rented an abandoned building at Mittraphap Road that housed a financial institution. The showcase aimed to point out the federal government’s failed city development policy during the Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat period after 1961. Khon Kaen Manifesto 2018 was launched on 6 October as a nod to the events of 6 October 1976. Therefore, the works presented in that iteration carried strong criticism of the politics of General Prayuth Chan-ocha’s military dictatorship.

For 2020, an old brothel, Hell Club and other buildings served as working spaces for artistic practice, with a focus on the themes of dignity and gender equality. Even though the festival only lasted 10 days, they were 10 intense days.

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Anuwat Apimukmongkon, ‘Pink Lady and Pink Curry Puff’ at Khon Kaen Manifesto 2020.

Khon Kaen Manifesto 2020 at Hell Club. Performance by Pisitakun Kuntalang on the opening day on 10 December 2020.

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Adisak Phupa, ‘Wait for Kill’ at Khon Kaen Manifesto 2020

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What drives you to challenge the status quo, and what keeps you going as an art activist?

From my observation as an art critic for over 20 years, it is clear that the state makes every effort to prevent art from developing into a real creative space. They use the monarchy as well as national and religious institutions to control the artist’s work. Therefore, there are conditions attached to an art activist’s engagement with the public. I do not want to say that the activist art process is an alternative to artistic and sociopolitical movements, but they are all expressions of people’s rights, freedom and democracy. As long as the country is not a democracy, the role of artistic practice is of utmost importance and a necessity.

What in your opinion has shifted in the Thai art scene in the past year?

In the past, many art practitioners had no space to discuss social conditions in their work. The state is totalitarian in its regulations and laws. Thus, many artists and art practitioners came out to join the energy of the student movement. The people’s claim to freedom and democracy in late 2019 is an important turning point. There is a conflict between modern nationalist art and neoliberal art that provoked a strong antinationalist approach. Young curators, who are indifferent to conservative ideas, quietly formed and expressed more progressive ideas.

The phenomena in Isaan is connected to this transformation. I think that artistic expression does not have to be in the centre in Bangkok anymore. Art practitioners can create artistic phenomena or situations all over the country, whether it is in Chiang Mai, Patani or Chiang Rai. Changes in politics and society are fast if practitioners do not follow the situation closely. It is difficult to create works that reflect contemporary stories in Thai society. Therefore, artists from abroad may not be the reason for this transformation in art. I believe that those who work with society and politics are the people who can effect real change.

Could you speak about a couple of artworks that have made a deep impression of you in recent times?

In her work ‘Wait for Kill’, Adisak Phupa used waste materials from traditional activities of people from Sarakham Province.

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Her wooden mannequins look like women who are dressed and waiting for customers at a brothel, representing the physical and spiritual stress of the Sarakham locals who are banned from holding their own traditions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Anuwat Apimukmongkon’s ‘Pink Lady and Pink Curry Puff’ looks at sex and its associated social pressures through the mediums of drawing, installation and performance. It deals not only with sex trafficking but also dehumanising discourses that people use to oppress each other.

Whose work within the Thai art scene do you admire?

I believe in the power of art and the culture of all people. If a society has no rights, it is hard to talk about aesthetics. I look to any artistic practitioner or artist who advocates for the people's democratic rights.

FreeArts (ศิลปะปลดแอก), art’n in Chiang Mai, Esan Writer, Humanร้าย Human Wrong, Radsa Drum (ราษฎร์ดรัม) are some of the groups and creators I respect and believe in.

Next year, you are planning to hold festivals in Si Sa Ket and Surin in Thailand, and further geographically in Siem Reap, Cambodia. What lessons have you learnt from the editions in 2018 and 2020 that you will bring with you to the organisation of next year’s events?

Areas in South Isaan, such as Sisaket, Surin Province and Buriram are considered for next year. Managing finances is not an easy task in the current downturn. Even though we cannot get funding from the government, it is not a big deal. We will look for practitioners who are willing to collaborate and work together, just as we have done in 2018 and 2020. I am convinced that MAS art practice will be an artistic phenomenon that raises questions and concerns. No matter how difficult it is, it will happen.

This interview was translated from Thai to English by Kris Lim.

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FRESH FACES

ETZA MEISYARA

Etza Meisyara, ‘Eternal Duality’, sulfur asphalt on brass plate, 120 x 120cm. Image courtesy of the artist.

As an interdisciplinary artist, the mixed-media in my works is heavily connected to the notion of energy transition. I use copper, brass, and bronze since they are characterised by their reddish tint. To amplify my artistic expression, I scratch, burn, erase, and overwrite the colors with sulfur, asphalt, and acrylic paint.

The pandemic has allowed me to pause, understand, explore, and express myself even deeper. I have been experimenting with materials, especially for printmaking and sound installation. Art should expose our senses to diverse mediums and explore a broad range of emotions.

I will have my second solo exhibition in August. I want to capture the psychological state of the current situation with a sense of deep personal contemplation, highlighting digital disruption and transition to the new normal. However, the artworks still revolve around harmony between realities, the theme to which I keep returning.

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FRESH FACES

FAIZAL YUNUS

Faizal Yunus, ‘Seem Like You All Know What I’m Talking About’, 2020, oil, metallic and lacquer on canvas, 240 x 330cm (four panels). Image courtesy of the artist and Richard Koh Fine Art.

Faizal Yunus, 'UOS2', 2021, resin fibreglass and automotive paint, 175 x 101 x 58cm.

Image courtesy of the artist and Richard Koh Fine Art.

‘Unprecedented Order’ is my latest solo exhibition that was conceived as a response to the pandemic. I found the uncertainty of today’s world to be both beautiful and harsh. Hence, I wanted to convey this compelling contrast of nature’s unpredictability and human’s search for structure through this exhibition. While my forte is in painting, I am also incorporating sculptures for the first time in my career to allude to a new beginning.

2020 was surreal. It will not be easy to overcome this turmoil but I believe that rising above the unexpected circumstances placed on us is what gives life purpose. For 2021, I am excited to be exhibiting in a winner showcase for the Malaysia Emerging Artist Award in June. My fourth solo exhibition is a part of the Malaysia Emerging Artist Award programme, which was supposed to happen last year. It will now take place this year. Do look out for it.

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CHAPTER 2

Art practitioners deliberate on their locality’s present circumstances

Working Within And Without A Studio Haffendi Anuar

This past year has been such a complex learning experience.

At the time of writing, it has been a little more than a year since the arrival of the first Covid-19 case in the United Kingdom and the subsequent implementation of a nationwide lockdown by the government on 23 March 2020.1 I had recently relocated to Oxford for graduate studies at Oxford University in the fall of 2019, desiring to take a break from professional practice and to focus on research and playful making. I picked up sewing as a process of drawing and experimented with constructing anthropomorphised structures using kain pelikat (‘Pangkor ’, 2020). I decided on the university as I wanted to place my work in varying contexts and modes of thinking. I was also attracted to the intensity of the programme and the wonderful tutors.

I was on track to complete the Master of Fine Art (MFA) at the Ruskin School of Art and was in the final semester, termed Trinity in the Oxford calendar, when the first restrictions were enacted. In line with the government’s assessment to curb the swift rising cases, non-essential retail, offices and educational institutions were closed, and in a short period of time I lost access to the valuable studio, project space and workshops, among others. Each MFA student at the Ruskin was assigned to a white-walled partitioned space measuring 5 square metres within the larger MFA space.

Here, two rows of individual studios open like wings from a central social space, equipped with a sofa and lockers. I then finished the programme in my college bedroom, with lessons conducted over Microsoft Teams. I remember this period to

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be exceptionally stressful. Even though it was spring outside, with birds chirping happily in a sun-filled environment, I felt a sense of dread and doubt hovering in the crisp air.

That feeling was also propagated everyday by the constant barrage of dire news and the uncertain future that awaited.

The discussions in the virtual critiques and tutorials in the final semester were mostly centred on the motivation of art-making in this time of global crisis, art’s “utility”, practising outside the traditional format of the art school studio and the utilisation of the screen as an exhibition format. Beyond class, we discussed as a cohort whether to demand compensation from the school and to join the ‘Pause or Pay’ movement, a student-led action

Haffendi Anuar, ‘Pangkor’, 2020, wood, metal, nuts and bolts, jesmonite casts, kain pelikat fabric, felt and adhesive, 155 x 60 x 60cm.

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Studio at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University prior to moving out.

group that had arisen in April 2020 as a response to the disruption of studio-based learning in art academic institutions by the pandemic.2 It was also the first time the course, which had been running for around five years, shifted entirely to a virtual platform. The initial delivery was slightly clumsy, littered with connection issues and problems with file sharing, and I had to quickly readjust my expectations of the course.

As an artist who works with various materials and whose practice has a close relationship with craft and making, I found this abrupt switch from physical to digital platforms of making and sharing very challenging. I still believe my work is best received in the flesh, so that the audience is able to appreciate the tactile qualities and engage with the work in a space from multiple perspectives and physical distances. The traditional final show at the end of any art school degree was also scrapped, and we celebrated the completion of the course via a festive online broadcast, accessible to anyone anywhere. The final assessment was based on a submission of a digital document.

Losing the studio made me think about its significance to my practice. I remember that I mourned its loss, a somewhat substantial feeling that was detrimental to my creative fitness at the time. Furthermore, prior to returning to formal art education, I had been a practising artist for years, and in a

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privileged mindset, had always assumed I had access to mine.

Losing one also made me think of its purpose throughout art history. The very early studios were the heavily staffed Renaissance workshops and in the period of modernism, the sexy urban lofts in art centres were idealised as spaces for the male heroic genius to “perform”. In the post-studio era with dematerialised art objects of Western art in the 1960s and the 1970s, tight finances made having a studio difficult, so a number of artists practised without having one.3 I have also thought about what constitutes an art studio now; for an emerging artist like myself, the basics I suppose are some clean walls to photograph works, floor space, ample storage area and a source of light, whether natural or artificial. I also thought about its function beyond a place to make work, as an element of legitimisation and a social space to connect with other practitioners.

Though most art schools’ workspaces are generally governed by a plethora of rules and regulations, the tutors in my undergraduate course at Central Saint Martins in London were very concerned about the condition of the floor and required students to place coverings when working. And at the Ruskin, there was a curfew, and we were required to leave by midnight. The studio at the Ruskin was a productive space of sharing and connections. It was great to work next to other practitioners at various stages of their practices and I genuinely missed that social component.

Thinking of the studio as a vector for possibilities for social interactions and as a constantly shifting thing, I thought of the British artist Dave Beech’s YouTube lecture on the studio that I watched in the first month of the pandemic. Instead of attempting to move beyond it, it would probably be productive to think of the studio beyond a single fixed social relationship, and as a thing that is formed and re-formed in different situations and by varying social relations.4 In the final months of the course and in an attempt to be resourceful, I converted the dining room table in the graduate hall where I was staying into a makeshift studio, as well as working on the carpeted floor of my room. The

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Haffendi Anuar, ‘Pentas Bina Badan (Bodybuilder’s Stage) IV’, 2020, sand, adhesive, acrylic, oil, receipts, newspaper on paper, 29.7 x 21cm.

spatial limitations dictated the scale of the work. I was also thinking about bodily and economic health which were constantly discussed in the news and made small collages and paintings of over-flexed male torsos, such as ‘Pentas Bina Badan (Bodybuilder’s Stage) IV’ (2020). The cropped body parts appear as though they are trying to burst out of their tight rectangular frames. After some time, the work began to expand in my room. Unable to tame it, the boundary between the mixed media work and objects in my life became less clear, and pieces of clothing intermingled with images, newspaper cut-outs and painted surfaces. It was during this time that I appreciated the artistic necessity to create. Beyond the romanticised notion of the studio and even without an official one with its rudimentary “architecture”, any surface I found was a potential studio and as Sharon L. Butler observed, making art beyond one is evidence of human resilience.

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Makeshift studio in my graduate accommodation during the first UK lockdown.

Right now, I have taken up a new studio in a shared compound in Oxford and have decided to stay in town for another year to focus on my work. Fortunately, this new studio was allowed to stay open during second and third lockdowns as it is classified as a workspace. The studio for me has served as more than a place of art production; I conduct my online art lessons for youngsters there, and it has also served as backdrops for digital sharing sessions. It is also a place I go to think. I am fortunate to still have access to a studio amidst restrictions. I have realised that it is important for me to be able to separate my workspace from living, and appreciate that I have the privilege to do so. As I mature as an artist, I know that I will always be accompanied by a studio in my art journey, in its various forms and permutations.

Notes 1. “A Timeline of UK Lockdown Measures since the Pandemic Began,” Express & Star, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.expressandstar.com/news/uknews/2021/01/04/a-timeline-of-uk-lockdown-measures-since-the-pandemicbegan/.

2. “Pause or Pay UK”, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.pauseorpayuk.org/.

3. Sharon L. Butler, “Lost in Space: Art Post-Studio,” The Brooklyn Rail, June 2008, accessed March 30, 2021, https://brooklynrail.org/2008/06/art/jamesharithas-with-raphael-rubinstein.

4. Dave Beech, “The Lockdown Studio Lecture”, April 21, 2020, video, 16:00, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3JnOef7a4U.

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Matca: Showing, Thinking, and Writing Photography Ha Dao

When flipping through the pages of our worn-out family album, I came across a portrait of my sister and me. It brought up vivid memories of a Sunday morning. I was around four, and my sister was nine. We clutched each other on the back of mom's bike as she pedaled through narrow alleys to a neighborhood studio. At home, she had put me in my best ruffle dress and painted our lips red with the same lipstick she wore every day to work. A lady there had my sister slip on a piece of fabric with clips on the back to give off the impression of a tube dress. The photographer must have told us to smile for the camera.

Childhood portrait.

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Anthropologist Christopher Pinney once described photo studios as "chambers of dreams"1 where the participants' fantasies play out without inhibition. In our case, the desire was to appear feminine, bourgeois, agreeable, more so than we actually were. Our innocent childhood portrait runs contrary to the common perception of photography's efficiency to capture reality.

Apart from nostalgia, it gives me a sense of discovery which is much needed to keep going. The photography scene in Vietnam is small and sometimes feels like an echo chamber.

Over the last five years with Matca, I have had multiple requests from art journalists and scholars for insights, as if we were the local experts in a poorly documented area. In fact, it has been a learning curve for us, with peaks and valleys.

In late 2016, I received the invitation to manage Matca's editorial content from the co-founder Linh Pham, one of Vietnam’s few freelance photojournalists. He told me about his difficulties gaining access to the scene when starting out. The irony remains that it is still much easier to familiarise oneself with Western household names than contemporary practitioners right in our country. Google results for "Vietnamese photographers" are fluffy at best and stereotypical at worst. While rising social networks have enabled photographers to freely share and discuss their photos, practical information regarding educational and professional opportunities is often kept on the downlow. With the dearth of photographic centres like museums, galleries, or schools, many crucial conversations take place at coffee shops and beer gardens. These casual third spaces have seen knowledge and names passed down and circulated. But like any circle, the cliquish nature means membership has to be approved.

With humble resources, Matca first took the form of a bilingual online journal, which was mainly aimed at Vietnamese readers but also opened doors to interested audiences beyond the country’s borders. As a newcomer myself, I was eager to utilise it as a viable excuse to approach photographers. The

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initial focus was on self-initiated works which were created out of personal urgencies, regardless of their genres. Without a proper outlet, these micronarratives slip under the radar.

Matca team as of January 2021. From left to right: Ha Dao, Le Xuan Phong, Linh Pham, Hanoi, 2021.

At a glance, this attempt could be interpreted as an act of resistance against local mainstream newspapers that favours photographs showcasing the beauty of Vietnam, often with praises for their formal qualities and nationalist overtone.

While I regard the hunt for perfect compositions as restrictive, I have little interest in proving one kind of photography is better than another. My wish is to hear photographers speak about their motivations and creative processes, which public coverage often leaves out and as a result, further perpetuates the myth surrounding artmaking. With that in mind, we built Matca to become a utilitarian platform that amplifies the voices of practitioners, writers, and researchers from different disciplines. It is a vessel for showing, thinking, and writing photography.

Fast forward to 2021: our scope of interests has expanded, resulting in a physical space, an imprint, and many educational initiatives in collaboration with local and international organisations. The website has been updated to reflect this whirlwind of development. As for our editorial content,

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Matca remains the only publication in Vietnam specialising in photography, hosting an ever growing archive of more than 200 stories to date. We have interviewed photographers aged from 18 to 85, including emerging talents, pictorialist masters, and world-renowned contemporary artists. Needless to say, this would not have been possible without a supportive network of contributors who share our vision. On the one hand, I feel inspired by the fact that the more we see, the more we understand how much is missing in the full picture. On the other hand, I have become conscious of the ostensibly unbridgeable gap between current international discourses and the state of photography in Vietnam.

Elsewhere in the world, photography is going through relentless questioning. In the so-called post-truth era, the documentary tradition seems to crumble under critical deconstruction of its social impacts and ethical ramifications.

At the same time, as photography gains a foothold in the art world, galleries welcome works created in a studio, woven together from archives, produced as a unique piece using an alternative printing process, those that move away from their photographic nature. "Straight photography" — to record without intervention — is implied to be a mechanical act that lacks intent.

These heated debates and movements, however, seem irrelevant to most Vietnamese practitioners. In our exchange, the conversation consistently comes back to how to sustain one's practice. The pandemic has just brought under the spotlight practical issues such as mobility limitations and dwindling resources. That is the daily reality of the majority of photographers who juggle between a day job and family responsibilities. They work on a story for some time, leave the photographs on a hard drive, then put an end to it under the pressure of providing for their family. It sounds all too familiar.

What is the tangible outcome for personal projects after all in a vacuum-like environment? What opportunities are there for non-English speaking photographers, who have neither the experience writing grant proposals nor the appropriate

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vocabulary to gain recognition? Are only people without financial burdens allowed to pursue their craft full time?

These questions remain unresolved. I am not an art historian with valuable hindsight. I do not have enough input to speculate about the future. As cheesy as it sounds, when faced with uncertainties, it helps to stay rooted in the present.

I have recently had the pleasure of introducing two young talented photographers on Matca. We have been in conversation for some time, through in-person interviews and Facebook messages. Nguyen Thanh Hue, then a student at Vietnam Academy of Journalism and Communication, portrays migrant workers in their private living spaces for her graduation project. Hoang Cao, a university freshman, reconstructs memories with his own father by staging family photos.

Nguyen is aware of the well-covered topic but persists in seeing for herself. The strum and drum of life are neither aestheticised nor dramatised in her photographs. She took time making her presence known and captured with tenderness intimate details of the workers' dwelling places.

In unplastered concrete rooms, each family comes up with their own way to give the temporary residence a homely feel.

Nguyen Thanh Hue, 'Life In Boxes'.

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Hoang Cao, 'Dream Away'.

Cao's acting skill shines in this debut work where he asks his estranged father to pose with him in fictional situations.

Its playful, comical facade hides the dark truth behind their strained relationship. “Perhaps I don’t need him; I need unreal ideals of him,” the 20-year-old wistfully confesses.

Their photographs and words remind me of several crucial things at the moment when the banality of getting tasks done comes crashing down on me. One of the greatest joys

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of photography is that it can either be a window or a mirror to help one make sense of the world. It is refreshing to see the results of their experimentation, to take a chance, follow through and see what comes out in the end. And last but not least, while vastly different, their distinct visions are both built on vulnerability, a willingness to put themselves on the line in an attempt to understand. Perhaps what excites me about their works, and similarly the rediscovery of my childhood photo, is the rich possibility for genuine connection.

This exercise in reflection has made me a little weary, considering that I have not gone far enough to look back. But after navigating through the pandemic, it has become more apparent that the online platform to share works and ideas has always remained central to everything Matca do, driven by an underlying belief in an open exchange of opinions. By sharing my own conflicts, concerns, and blind spots, I hope to dissolve the impulse to speak as the final authority and invite others to push forward this unfolding conversation

Note 1. Christopher Pinney, “Chambers of Dreams,”’ in Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs (London: Reaktion Books, 1997), 108–209.

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This Is Not A Corner Store Dominic Zinampan

On 4 December 2020, the Papaya Shop, a project of Green Papaya Art Projects, was officially launched on Instagram (@greenpapaya.shop). Developed towards the end of a tremendously difficult year marked by various tragedies on top of the global pandemic and the worsening political situation in the country, the shop signals Papaya’s resolve to persist, despite having decided to close numerous times in the past.

Papaya, the Philippines’s longest-running independent and multidisciplinary platform, was founded on 1 May 2000 by Donna Miranda and Norberto “Peewee” Roldan primarily as an exhibition space before broadening its range of activities. It has organised screenings, gigs, discussions, performances, and off-site projects, initiated collaborations, facilitated residencies for local and international artists, and developed special projects like publications. In 2017, Papaya decided that it would close on its 20th anniversary and, in preparation, started working closely with the Asia Art Archive (AAA) to archive its materials. Although the date of closing had been moved to 2021 prior to the pandemic, it has since been postponed indefinitely in light of the devastating turn of events.

Aside from an exhibition to celebrate its 20th year, Papaya had aimed to get a section of its archives uploaded on the AAA website within the year, as well as publish two books on the Visayas Islands and Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference (VIVA ExCon), the country’s longest-running artistsrun biennial which Peewee co-founded in 1990. However, on

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Papaya members. From left to right: Yuji de Torres, Jel Suarez and Touki Roldan, helping out in producing the screenprint Green Papaya 20 Years Commemorative Posters.

Image by Kiko Nuñez.

15 March, after months of unease, the Philippine government confirmed the first local transmission of COVID-19 in the country and enforced strict quarantine measures in Metro Manila. Archiving came to an abrupt pause and work on the publications progressed slowly as the team began working remotely.

It was around late March when it became apparent to us that the 20th anniversary exhibition could no longer proceed.

We started to realise that it was going to take a much longer time for things to get better. For the first few months of the lockdown, there was barely any activity as we were individually adjusting to the disturbing “new normal.” Given how the government was responding then, it is unsurprising — but nonetheless infuriating — how a year has passed and nothing has changed. If anything, things just became worse.

On 1 May, despite the terrible situation, we proceeded to commemorate Papaya’s 20th anniversary online, albeit in a tenor far from celebratory, by launching ‘Death is a Portal’, a series of 20 black-and-white text-based posters that sought to amplify demands for justice, criticise the government’s response to the pandemic, and express support for frontliners, activists, and oppressed sectors. Less than a week after, the first text in our ‘Throwback Thursday’ series, an ongoing series intended to activate Papaya’s archives through personal recollections from our community

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The first poster for Death is a Portal.

along with other archival documents, was published. Both ‘Throwback Thursday’ and ‘Death is a Portal’ indicate Papaya’s reorientation and renewed focus on online projects.

A month after, on the morning of 2 June, a fire broke out in the furniture store next to Papaya’s space. The fire quickly spread to Papaya’s second-floor backroom where most of the archives were stored. Although the space was decimated, 70% of the archival materials narrowly survived the accident. Our community was shocked by the news and many instantly extended their support through messages, donations, and various offers to help, from providing a new space to pitching ideas for fundraisers. Among these offers was one from the Lopez Museum and Library (LML) team who generously offered their facilities and expertise in restoring the materials. From June to November, Papaya worked alongside the LML team in taking inventory, drying, fumigating, and cleaning the surviving materials.

Shortly after the fire, we were also invited by the GoetheInstitut to apply for their International 2020 Relief Fund for Organisations in Culture and Education (Hilfsfonds). We received news that our application was approved in the

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Papaya’s former office at Kamuning where most of our archival materials were stored.

middle of September. Aimed at recovering the archives and resuming archival work after the fire, the grant enabled us to re-establish our office and archives facility, continue with the digitisation of archival material, and develop online platforms designed to broaden the accessibility of knowledge and resources to our community and the greater public.

As such, we were able to renovate our satellite location along Scout Rallos Street to accommodate the return of the archives from LML. Additionally, we were also able to design and launch our website as well as a wiki for ‘VIVA ExCon: The Community Archives Project’ in late December.

It was from these conditions that Papaya Shop emerged: it was a part of Papaya’s shift to online projects designed to engage its community in response to both the pandemic and the fire, and it was also launched at a time when the grants we had received shortly after the fire were about to end.

There was a need to augment the donations we had received so as to proceed working on archiving and publications.

We began conceptualising the shop in October and a team was assembled ad hoc to handle production, online promotion, orders and shipping. Among the first items

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The Death is a Portal zine containing all of the 20 posters posted on our social media.

Green Papaya 20 Years Commemorative poster by Bacolod-based artist Ginoe.

Available at @greenpapaya.shop on Instagram.

A poster in production at Papaya’s Scout Rallos space.

Image by Kiko Nuñez.

made available were Papaya’s studio assistant Ramie “Apid” Jiloca’s assemblages from 2018 as well as Peewee’s collages. The ‘Death is a Portal’ series was revisited, and designed by TOFU Projects in the format of a zine. In the following month, the production of limited- edition '20 Years Commemorative' posters commenced, a series that was created in lieu of the 20th anniversary physical exhibition.

Papaya commissioned 20 artists to contribute designs.

Similar to recent Papaya projects like ‘Throwback Thursday' and 'Right People, Wrong Timing’, which was a series of 23 texts on defunct and dormant Asian arts initiatives published

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on Papaya’s digital platforms from August to December, the shop is influenced by an archival impulse that emerged from the predetermined death of Papaya lingering in our headspace. The shop is likewise inclined towards activating Papaya’s archive, albeit obliquely: for one, the commemorative posters feature artists who have worked with Papaya both long ago and in the recent past. Many were also overjoyed to see the works of Apid, who has been with Papaya since 2000, foregrounded in the shop. Additionally, aside from plans to include typical merchandise like bags and T-shirts, we are also in the process of putting forward more products inspired by materials from the archive, such as documentation of previous exhibitions and projects mounted at or by Papaya, in addition to works in its collection.

But the shop could not have been brought into fruition, and Papaya would not have survived the year, had it not been for the overwhelming love and support we received from our community in a year with a global pandemic and worsening political climate. The situation was compounded by a devastating fire and a painful dis-association with a former colleague. These events should have forced us to close prematurely. However, the responses we received after the fire bolstered our spirits and strengthened our resolve to continue. As such, we count ourselves fortunate. After 20 years of sustaining itself primarily through grants, its members’ own pocket money, the occasional fundraiser, and post-fire donations, Papaya remains hopeful for its future, and the shop helps Papaya pursue this future.

Green Papaya Shop.

Instagram: @greenpapaya.shop.

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Between Art and Politics: A Report from Bangkok Brian Curtin

In March this year, the Thai pro-democracy activist Chaiamorn Kaewwiboonpan, a musician who goes by the nickname Ammy, was arrested after publicly burning a portrait of the incumbent king of Thailand, Rama X Maha Vajiralongkorn, in Bangkok. This incident took place a few days earlier in front of a prison, to protest the detention of four activists there on accusations of lèse-majesté, the country’s notorious criminalising of insult to royalty. The incident was part of a groundswell of youth-led activism since early 2020 which is demanding reform of the Thai monarchy, the dissolution of the current government, and a new constitution. Bangkok has since seen mass rallies, violent stand-offs between protestors and the police and the declaration of a state of emergency.

Ammy’s iconoclastic action is remarkable not only because it explicitly solicits the ferocity of the regularly used lèse-majesté law. This affront to a traditionally revered, sanctified, figure — a reverence rooted in premodern notions of divine kingship — is so unprecedented and taboo that rumours of a possible execution of Ammy have circulated. And here we can recall how the infamous October 1976 massacre of leftist protestors at Thammasat University in Bangkok was partly provoked by (untrue) media claims that they had mocked an effigy of royalty, with members of the public then joining the actions of police and paramilitaries.

But, however, the young man’s belligerence could be seen as inevitable, or not entirely a shocking surprise, or not, as some commentators have suggested, an exceptional, youthful

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revolt. While the protestors initially organized last year because the current parliament, led by military strongman Prayut Chan-o-cha, dissolved the progressive, youth-oriented Future Forward Party, their agenda then led to open criticism of Rama X’s increasingly imperious conduct and called for reform of the monarchy. International media have regularly reported on the monarch’s lavish spending and crude political maneuvering to consolidate power since his coronation in 2019. Moreover, the current protests can be linked to recurrent popular unrest since the early years of the new century which “led” to Prayut’s coup d'état in 2014. In that earlier context, the academic Somsak Jeamteerasakul, an opposition figure, publicly issued an eight-point proposal to reform Thailand’s monarchy.

In a word, there has been a steady thread of near-republicanism for some time as part of Thailand’s fractious political landscape. And, anyway, how convincing could the notion of divine kingship be in the contemporary world? What role are artists playing amidst this radical shift? And what types of artists have emerged in its longish shadow? My book ‘Essential Desires: Contemporary Art in Thailand’ (2021) broadly maps the evolution of the splits and divisions among artists and curatorial projects that have grown since the political meltdown began in the early years of this century.

Pertinent examples for the current crisis include an exploration of how certain events became legible in regard to context.

These include the new Bangkok Art Biennale which was inaugurated during the time of military rule (2014-2019) and, in spite of claims of subversiveness by curator Apinan Poshyananda, arguably functioned as a spectacular panacea to autocratic governance. Prayut segued from dictator to Prime Minister in widely criticised elections after military rule officially ended. Jim Thompson Art Centre’s on-going support for projects related to the Northeast of Thailand, known as Isan, assert a firm claim of cultural difference for a region that has been historically disenfranchised by Bangkok elites. Isan is the powerbase of the so-called ‘red-shirts’ who led the initial protests against the dissolution of a democratically elected government in 2006.

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Many contemporary artists are critically rethinking tropes of nationalist sentiment and the range of ideologies that have been formed under a mantle of “Thainess” such as tradition and Buddhism. They are approaching local politics in subtly deconstructive terms. Be Takerng Pattanopas and Jakkai Siributr have complexified Buddhist iconography and questioned the role of belief and spirituality in contemporary life. And Pratchaya Phinthong marked the “anniversary” of the coup in 2014 with an installation on one of the public protest sites in central Bangkok, a sealed space that suggested exclusion and surveillance.

Jakkai Siributr, 'Health', 2011, sequins, embroidery, hand-stitching on canvas, 105 x 105cm. Photograph

by Smit Na Nakornpanom.

Image courtesy of artist.

Be Takerng Pattanopas, 'My Heart Is on the Right Side (HAL-O 2)', 2015, mixed media, 210 x144 x 35cm.

Photo by Oat Rujeraprapa.

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Pratchaya Phinthong, 'Who Will Guard the Guards Themselves', Bangkok, 2015. Image courtesy of gb agency.

And yet others are pointing to, or staging, issues of antagonism and conflict with a sense that the current upheaval is an aberration and will pass. There has been much metaphorising of the symbolism of different political factions among certain artists, without insight into the problems that caused the rifts.

Therein lies the significance of Ammy’s public burning of a sacred icon. The alleged importance of the King of Thailand as a figurehead of unity and securer of the nation’s future has become so entrenched in the modern era that to attack it is to demand an entirely different type of society. That difference is one where citizens would be agents of rights and representation, not expected to be enthralled to a given, profoundly hierarchical power. As one means of thinking about how and why this is desirable, we can note recent reports on Rama X’s budgeting of billions of Thai baht for merely one year of royal duties, the disappearance of eight prodemocracy activists since 2014, and the regular intimidation and imprisonment of individuals on trumped-up lèse-majesté accusations and charges.

As my book argues, the more interesting of contemporary Thai artists typically unsettle what art critic Max Crosbie-Jones perceptively characterised as the “smooth image” of Thailand1,

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the country’s famed international profile as halcyon, tolerant and liberal. Only last year, Bangkok mounted the sprawling (and ironically titled!) exhibition ‘Spectrosynthesis: Exposure of Tolerance’, an unprecedented showcase of Asian LGBTQ artists-and, indeed, Thailand is one of the few countries in Asia that could allow an exhibition with this theme. But within weeks of the opening night, Ohm Phanphiroj’s harrowing film ‘Underage’, in which he interviews teenage male prostitutes about their miserable lives in Bangkok, was quietly removed due to complaints. With this example, and though Ammy’s fate is still unknown, we can see that the influence of the Thai state’s concern to guard against uncomfortable truths is clearly steadfast and thorough. But perhaps now we can begin to ask less about the artists who are challenging the political status quo, and rather why any artist interested in supporting it would continue to do so.

Ohm Phanphiroj still from 'Underage' film, 2012.

Note 1. Max Crosbie-Jones, “Why Are They Here?’ – Bangkok Art Biennale, ‘Escape Routes’, Review”, ArtReview, February 17, 2021, https://artreview.com/whyare-they-here-bangkok-art-biennale-escape-routes-review/

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Migrations of Curatorial Work Carlos Quijon, Jr.

During the pandemic, it became necessary to reconsider the primacy of the physical exhibition as the privileged outcome of curatorial work. The exhibition was a site of encounter for art and its publics, and it required a discrete space where artworks and people gathered and interacted. This was a situation that in the context of the global health crisis became unfeasible, even life-threatening. The political and productive potential of the exhibition, ascribed in its capacity to animate and foreground the making public of art and the social contexts and relationalities that emerge from this assembly, coincided with the risks that came with the highly communicable airborne virus. This crisis required us to rethink the logic of curatorial work and the necessity of the physical exhibition as its culmination, and to imagine ways curatorial and artistic work may thrive in the time of the pandemic.

How do we reimagine curatorial labour in this context?

How do we cultivate art’s publics and its publicness in response to the timely and necessary problematisations of the exhibitionary form that the pandemic has forced us to recognise and respond to? How do we interrogate the unquestioned buzzwords about relationality thrown about in relation to contemporary art and exhibition-making, such as hospitality, collaboration and digitalisation, among others?

Most importantly, how do we foreground their undeniably urgent ethical and pragmatic implications in the time of Covid?

I attempt to think through these questions in relation to exhibitions and curatorial projects that I have been part of

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during the pandemic: ‘Figure-proof’ (August – September 2020), ‘Minor Infelicities’ (August 2020), and ‘In Our Best Interests’ (January – March 2021).

The first few months of the global pandemic forced galleries and art spaces to rethink their programming. For a gallery such as A+ Works of Art in Kuala Lumpur, whose institutional framework centred on working with artists and curators in Southeast Asia, this necessitated rethinking collaboration and ways to persist despite the hard lockdown in the city.

Upon invitation by Joshua Lim, owner of A+ and as part of their online-exclusive programming in 2020, I curated ‘Figure-proof’, an exhibition that presented works by young artists based in the Philippines. The migration of exhibitions to digital platforms might be taken as the initial response of art spaces worldwide to the global pandemic. Moving exhibitions to digital spaces ensured that despite the limited mobility and the constrained modes of production, the institutional life of the gallery and its support to artists and curatorial practices continued. While constraints and limitations definitely shape how the exhibitionary form pans out, what I decided to focus on were works by young artists from Manila and more importantly places outside of it.

Detail of Celine Lee’s ‘Composition of Red, Yellow, and Blue Under the pH level of 12’. Lee’s painting installation used household bleach, a material that became ubiquitous during the pandemic. Image courtesy of the artist.

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Pam Quinto’s ‘Of Great Value; Not to be Wasted or Treated Carelessly’, 2019, for the exhibition ‘Figureproof.’ It consists of a bralette dipped in resin and ornamented with pearls.

Quinto’s works explore female intimacies and sexuality using stoneware, text, photography, and performance. Image courtesy of the artist.

Since the digital context necessitated a rethinking of modes of participating in the exhibition and the exhibition’s circulation, we thought that the presentation of works also needed to change. Artists Miguel Puyat and Celine Lee made works out of resources available to them: for Puyat, found wood; for Lee, bleach. I asked Pam Quinto, who works with ceramics, to revisit and exhibit already existing works that were still in her possession. Since the exhibition was not constrained by costs and the pragmatic challenges of shipping, I invited artists Jan Sunday, who was then based in Cebu, and Ginoe, who is based in Silay, to participate in the exhibition, as well. The exhibition brief asked these artists to rethink the viability of figuration, particularly in a climate of shifting urgencies of artmaking and artistic production. What they presented were works that reimagined materials and processes: Sunday worked with aerosol paint and the ubiquitous basahan (dish cloth), Ginoe referenced the iconology of online messaging apps that shaped his social life during the quarantine, and Puyat made a toy that required sunlight in order to create figures.

Collaborative ways of working became challenging for the most part, but we found ways around it. The exhibition ‘Minor Infelicities’ was planned before travel became

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impossible. Its aim was to gather young queer artists and curators from Asia (Bangkok, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, and Manila) in Seoul to meet and get to know one another.

While the possibility of traveling to Seoul soon became out of the question, the organisers pushed through with an on-site exhibition in Post Territory Ujeongguk in Seoul, and commissioned new works from the artists involved. The planning of the exhibitions, the production of works and the curation all happened remotely via video conferencing and Zoom meetings. A curatorial team, led by the exhibition organiser, the artist Jinhee Park, worked on-site while the curators directed the installation of works online.

Most recently, I co-curated the exhibition ‘In Our Best Interests: Afro-Southeast Asian affinities during a Cold War’ (January − March 2021), a research and contemporary art-driven exhibition that looked at the legacies of Afro-Asian solidarity discourses and movements and their conceptualisations in the contemporary moment. The plan for the exhibition was initiated before the pandemic happened, and like the previous exhibition, we had to adapt. My co-curator Kathleen Ditzig and I had met through the platform Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia (MAHASSA) initiated by the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories project. The platform invited young scholars from these regions to present their ongoing research and Installation view of Isola Tong’s ‘Vivarium of Agencies’, 2020, for the exhibition ‘Minor Infelicities.’

The work looks at how ecosystems and wildlife elaborate queer agency and relationality. It expands Isola’s research on the Arroceros Forest Park, a pocket of forest located in the middle of urban Manila.

Behind Isola’s video work is Isaac Chong Wai’s installation titled ‘Disguised Camouflage’ (2020) that explores performativities of the queer bodies in the hypermasculine space of military infrastructures. Image courtesy of Jinhee Park.

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Kathleen and I were part of the cohort for Southeast Asia.

We conceptualised the exhibition during our meeting in Dhaka for the Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) in February 2020, which hosted one of two meetings of the MAHASSA. During the DAS exhibitions, it became clearer that the affinities between Africa and Southeast Asia were not explored in contemporary art history as much as connections between South Asia and Africa or South Asia and Southeast Asia.

‘In Our Best Interests’ simultaneously problematised the pragmatic limits of solidarity and elaborated on the persistence of its aspirations. In August, the National Gallery of Singapore and the Singapore Art Museum initiated the platform Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, which aimed to think about “new ways of being as we grapple with a new reality brought about by [the] pandemic”.1 The platform ensured the thriving of the Singapore art scene during the pandemic by supporting projects and exhibitions of local art institutions. Here, the physical exhibition becomes a productive site wherein parallel considerations about the possibilities of collaboration and coming together in the face of pandemic-related constraints are allowed to play out. It also foregrounds the social contexts of curatorial labour that spans everything from research to talking to artists, contractors, and vendors, exhibitionmaking and being in the actual space to install works.

The exhibition presented works that looked at contentious histories of diplomacy and transregional affinities. It involved artists from Singapore, Okinawa, Sabah, Manila, Phnom Penh, and Berlin, and an archive of videos and materials from the 1960s to the 1990s. The scope of the exhibition is extensive, even under normal circumstances. Thus, having the timeframe for preparations coincide with the global shifts and changes in how people work and travel and what kinds of support were available became more challenging. From the history of the understudied and shortlived Southeast Asian confederation Maphilindo (Malaya, Philippines, Indonesia) based off a pan-Malayan ethnos, to the zones of contact in Okinawa between African -American

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Fyerool Darma’s ‘Flags for the Failed 1963 Maphilindo Confederation’, 2021, reproduces internet fan art of flags for Maphilindo, a short-lived confederation established in 1963 based on a pan-Malayan ethnic regionality.

The flags are installed alongside an imagined exchange between fictional characters from important novels from the Philippines (Jose Rizal’s ‘Noli Me Tangere’) and Indonesia (Ananta Pramoedya Toer’s ‘Bumi Manusia’).

Image courtesy of the NTU ADM Gallery.

Simon Soon’s ‘Papan Soerih Perhimpoenan Orang Melayoe’, 2021, draws from iconographic and symbolic references from the Malay world to imagine a mnemosyne atlas of the masonic organisation Perhimpoenan Orang Melayoe, which shaped the discourse of pan-Malayan ethnos that informed the establishment of Maphilindo in 1963. Image courtesy of the NTU ADM Gallery.

Yee I-lann’s ‘Dusun Karaoke Mat’, 2020, is a collaborative work between Sabahan local weavers and the artist. The woven mat, tikar in Malay, presents excerpts from the lyrics of Kadazan Dusun popular songs. The songs became anthems of populist resistance against the intrusions of Federal nation-state politics in Borneo and carried with them what the artist considers as mnemonic triggers of a genetic memory that she and her generation have lost.

Image courtesy of the NTU ADM Gallery.

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soldiers, locals, and migrants, to the peacekeeping missions in Cambodia that left behind biracial children, ‘In Out Best Interests’ fleshed out the pragmatic histories of affinities alongside their more poetic and aspirational logics.

While the project was originally planned as a one-off exhibition, the ASEAN Foundation through KONNECT ASEAN offered to fund the travelling of the exhibition to Manila and Busan. Fulfilling its premises to think about notions of solidarity, affinity, and collaboration, the curatorial labour involved in the project became an earnest working together with us, the curators, the artists, and the institutions that support it. From planning, research, to installing, decisions relating to the exhibition were discussed via Zoom. The pragmatics and potential of collaboration informed the curatorial work. I remotely participated in the exhibition’s programming and in the curatorial tours via a disembodied representation through a monitor that welcomed the guests in the exhibition. I also conducted curatorial walkthroughs for classes and networks, including a history class at the Nanyang Technological University, and a curatorial class for the University of Bergen, the scholars network Global (De)Centring, and MAHASSA at the University of Heidelberg.

The insistence of the exhibition to travel elsewhere also became an important part of the exhibitionary and curatorial framework exploring the limits and aspirations of solidarity and affinity, all the more because of the constraints in mobility and mobilisation of resources during the pandemic.

Surely, the practical, conceptual, and infrastructural frameworks of 'In Our Best Interests' play out limits of the exhibitionary form, but also flesh out the ways in which the exhibition might persist in a post-Covid climate.

Only time will tell how the Manila and the Busan iteration will shift and rethink the persuasions of the physical exhibition, particularly its edition at the Vargas Museum in the Philippines, which as of the time of this writing is experiencing the longest ongoing pandemic-related lockdown in the world that started in March 2020.

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In these projects, curatorial labour becomes responsive to the times. While it mutates and migrates in the digital realm in ‘Figure-proof’, the physical exhibition persists in ‘Minor Infelicities’ and ‘In Our Best Interests’. In all these cases, the curatorial has found ways to remain interventive. Definitely, the labor involved shifted and demanded a lot more in these two recent projects, but perhaps it is equally true that in this context the words hospitality and collaboration, bandied about for the longest time by the global contemporary artworld, fulfills their promise and reorganises how we work together. They re-emphasise the poetic and political capacity of working among plural and prolific agencies — the artists, the curators, the institutions — that the urgencies of the exhibitionary form situates itself in. The collaborative ethic is here not just an empty signifier of accumulation or centralisation, but becomes a way of thinking about relationalities and socialites thriving despite constraints.

Note 1. “Proposals for Novel Ways of Being,” accessed April 1, 2021, https://www.novelwaysofbeing.sg/#about.

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FRESH FACES

MELIANTHA MULIAWAN

Meliantha Muliawan, untitled project, work in progress, broken Ming Porcelain. Image courtesy of the artist.

The artwork I am sharing is an imitation of a broken Ming Porcelain a friend gave to me. We shared our experiences of being Chinese descendents in Indonesia, and how to cherish our tradition. Inspired by joss paper, which my family still uses, I am aiming to make the likeness of porcelain from Tyvek paper as a symbolic gesture towards my ancestors, and to connect with them in my own way.

The past year for me, as an artist, gave an opportunity to rethink my practice and process. Although the current situation has forced us to do everything online, it does not mean that I have to adapt my medium towards the digital. Instead, it made me yearn for tangible results in my work. This is similar to my longing for visiting public spaces, enjoying artworks at the gallery, and meeting people in the flesh. After all, we need something more than just an electronic screen.

I have some projects and exhibitions coming up in July and August, with details to be confirmed.

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FRESH FACES

QUYNH LAM

Quynh Lam, ‘Quarran-tea’, 2020-2021, white marble, wood, used teabags, 84 x 76cm. Image courtesy of the artist.

I returned to the United States of America after the opening of my three-month sitespecific flowers installation at VCCA (Hanoi) in December 2019 due to the early COVID-19 rumours. 2020 forced me to reconsider and reconceptualise my current projects and still be truthful about this period of time.

'Quarran-tea' is made from the tea bags that I used each day during the pandemic. I started keeping my teabags on the first day of the lockdown as a way of marking time.

I framed all the lockdown dates under the teabags in marble, like gravestones. This reflects my past year: unpredictable, lonesome, ruminative.

In 2021 or 2022, I will return to Vietnam and continue my long-term project. Currently, I am working with coffee pigments for the 'Peripheral Memories Project' in Italy. I extend the concepts about art and nature from my previous practice as I have a long history using plant-based pigments.

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CHAPTER 3

Analysis of the viability of current art practices and businesses

Archiving Practices: Who, How, What, Where, When and Why? Vivyan Yeo

Without the preservation of artwork or original documents, we would not have art history today. It is the act of amassing information, including artwork and exhibition images, sketches, administrative records, purchase notes and others, that help us understand the lives and work of individuals and communities. At a time of information overload, however, we may ask: what is the larger purpose of archiving? Who has the agency to choose the contents of an archive, and exactly who or what is worth remembering?

In this section, we ask four representatives of various archives to write about their experiences. First, artist and researcher Koh Nguang How shares how he built his one-man archive documenting Singapore art since 1999, and the ways his methods have changed with developments in technology. Artist and writer Bruce Quek writes about Independent Archive (IA) as a space for experimentation, and elaborates on its digital transformation since the passing of its founder, artist Lee Wen. Focusing on how women have tackled gender-based obstacles, the art collective Womanifesto sheds light on its latest project, the communityled Womanifesto Online Archive (WOA). Lastly, Lim Sheau Yun, Research Lead at Malaysian Design Archive, reflects on a collection of material that presents a counter-narrative to the government-led stories of Malaysia.

The following essays reveal archives as ever-changing entities, continually growing and adapting to circumstances. Whether they are managed by an individual or a collective, focused on a particular country or an underrepresented community, these archives are vital to identifying gaps in knowledge and providing a more comprehensive view of our material cultures.

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One-Man Art Archive: The Story So Far Koh Nguang How My one-man archive was named ‘The Singapore Art Archive Project (SAAP)’ in 2005 when I participated in a residency at the new curatorial collective and art space p-10 in Little India. It started from my three-room HDB flat in 1999, which was both my new single-home and a resource space for my growing materials related to art and culture in Singapore.

Installation view of SAAP, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, March 2015.

Before I became an artist and independent art researcher in 1992, I learned about the art world as a curatorial assistant at the National Museum of Singapore. At the time, I enrolled in a distance learning program named ‘An Introduction to Museum Studies’ under the Commonwealth Association of Museums. I also attended two three-month training courses in Thailand organised by SEAMEO Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts: ‘Preventive Conservation of Museum Objects’ in 1989 and ‘Documentation of Non-Print Materials on Culture’ in 1990. Several exhibitions at the museum and private galleries, including events during the Singapore Festival of Arts, allowed me to photograph and collect related ephemeras, adding to my collection of newspaper cuttings I started in the early 1980s. The contents of the SAAP were created between the early 20th century to this day, and they centre on topics ranging from art education in Singapore to international art exchanges, and from traditional art mediums to performance art and digital media.

Then, I did not have the money to buy the relevant publications for

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my archive. Instead, I collected materials at art events and exhibitions, and accepted those given away by artists and book collectors. Some were discards from homes, schools and closing bookstores.

During my residency with p-10, I was invited by Hong Kong’s Asia Art Archive (AAA) to write about the story of my archiving activities for their online project. I titled it ‘From Photographing to Archiving Contemporary Art in Singapore: The Singapore Art Archive Project@p-10’.

Subsequently in 2010, I was also invited by AAA to participate in the international workshop ‘Archiving the Contemporary: Documenting Asian Art Today, Yesterday and Tomorrow’ in Hong Kong. I then started using Facebook to host my digitised archives, especially images that I photographed. Although the name of SAAP was inspired by AAA, it cannot be compared with the established institution. As such, I intentionally included the word “project” in the name to signify that it was a work in progress, or an ongoing artwork.

My archiving approach is almost compulsive. In the late 1980s, I would record the sounds from performance art and other outdoor events.

Rather than documenting two-dimensional works as they were, I would capture them in their individual contexts. My approach differs from most official records, which focuses primarily on the guests-of-honour and politicians. Instead, I include materials on the preparation process, audiences involved and the tearing down of exhibitions. When I learned how to use a personal computer and image scanner in 1999, I began taking video recordings and started scanning paper-based materials.

As such, I started collecting in both physical and digital formats. At the same time, the priorities of my documentation practice soon shifted to the fast-disappearing works and archives of older artists.

I have presented about 15 artworks and exhibitions under the SAAP in Singapore and abroad. The first was a group exhibition ‘Performance Week’ at the new Gallery 21 in 1992, which showcased a selection of performance art archives that I documented from 1987. Next was the show ‘ERRATA: Page 71, Plate 47. Image caption. Change Year: 1950 to Year: 1959; Reported September 2004 by Koh Nguang How’ at p-10 in 2004, which focused on how a dating error in a significant publication would alter the course of Singapore art history. With the naming of my archive in 2005, I continued to showcase different materials such as newspapers in the Singapore Biennale in 2011, entitled ‘Artists in the

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Installation views of ‘ERRATA: Page 71, Plate 47. Image caption. Change Year: 1950 to Year: 1959; Reported September 2004 by Koh Nguang How’, 2004, p-10. Image courtesy of Koh Nguang How.

News’; photographic images in ‘Art Places’ at the Jendela Visual Arts Space in 2015; and printed ephemeras with audio and video materials in many subsequent exhibitions. For some of these initial exhibitions, I calculated the risks of damaging the more fragile documents and allowed visitors to handle a few rare archival materials. There were also usually no temperature or humidity controls where my archives were stored, unless when they were exhibited in museum and gallery spaces.

The most recent project based on my archive is a virtual reality (VR) work under the National Arts Council’s Digital Presentation Grant for the Arts (DPG). For this, I was approached by digital media designer John Ng, who had previously created a few short videos of me introducing my collections as part of 'ERRATA'. The VR work ‘The Singapore Art Archive Project (SAAP) – VR Series 1 (Collections)’ launched in April 2021.

This act of curating and presenting the archives in different ways and themes will continue as long as it is financially possible and perhaps the project could transform into a physical space or institution in the future.

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Independent Archive: Spirits Out of Time Bruce Quek In 2012, the late artist Lee Wen founded the Independent Archive (IA) with the mission of documenting contemporary visual art, focusing on performance and other ephemeral practices in Singapore. For seven years, IA’s shophouse space on Aliwal Street served not just as a library and repository, but also as a site of continuous encounter, and a space for experimentation and collaboration. In 2019, as we grieved his passing, a number of us had another question to face: what would become of IA, to which he had devoted so much of the last years of his life?

The IA extended family discussing the future at 67 Aliwal Street. Image courtesy of Bruce Quek.

To simplify the tangled events of those first few weeks, I took charge of a portion of the Archive’s memory, in the form of boxes filled with hard drives, optical discs and tape cassettes of various types, alongside documents, posters and other printed matter, photographs, negatives, slides, and so on. Transporting these materials to the offices of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art (NTU CCA) was an inflection point in a tendency that had been growing gradually over the past few years.

For much of my time at IA, digitisation was but one amongst many of my responsibilities. From this point onward, it grew to become my overriding concern.

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Secondly, the materials that did not depart westward in a delivery van then formed the framework of what we might call the embodied Archive.

After a brief respite at IA’s original premises of 67 Aliwal Street, which was made possible by an anonymous donor, the embodied Archive found safe harbour at the studio of collective Ichinen Sekai, which counts IA communications manager Jireh Koh as a member. Here, we reconstituted a portion of the Archive’s library, a seed of the performative encounters characteristic of IA.

Kai Lam performing at 67 Aliwal Street. Image courtesy of Bruce Quek.

New programmes and events were devised by co-directors Kai Lam and Shaiful Risan, working alongside the artists, musicians, and other creatives I think of as IA’s extended family. The scene may have changed — a flatted factory instead of a shophouse with an inexplicable collection of chairs, and the occasional cat — but much of IA’s energy found itself renewed.

Similarly, the materials in my care found themselves in a quiet corner of the NTU CCA offices, likewise dislocated from their original context.

Several months of painstaking digitisation and annotation followed, during which these fragments of memory came to seem like a digital ghost being

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teased forth from a physical substrate, ever-growing in size and complexity.

I imagined it as a monument both enduring and ephemeral, and I rather fancied the idea of Lee Wen as the most exhaustively documented artist in Singapore.

In Asia Art Archive’s online journal ‘Ideas’, I wrote previously about the curious sensation of catching glimpses of Lee Wen’s thoughts, practice, and personality through some of the more oddball titles in IA’s library. Sifting through the thirty thousand or so documents in this project’s history to date, however, has been markedly stranger.

Much of the material is, of course, precisely what one might expect to be part of the Lee Wen Archive: photos and videos of his performances, some amount of his correspondence, his sketchbooks and notebooks, reviews and other texts related to his work, and so on. Other documents trace, in a relatively straightforward fashion, the way he moved amongst people and places: postcards from the world around, flyers and catalogues for one festival or another, and snapshots of street life interspersed with performance documentation.

IA's temporarily reconstituted library at Ichinen Sekai. Image courtesy of Bruce Quek.

Beyond this, demarcations and boundaries became increasingly blurry, and the information grew increasingly fragmented. Among the most affecting finds, to me, are a handful of photo albums, where all we may

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be certain of is their order in a given roll of film. One such album begins with the sea shore. Waves roll in; boats sit idle in the sand. Lee Wen sits in a single image, sharing beers with two men. The sequence continues with scenes of domesticity: children in a home, closeups of windows. One has a typewritten admonition, asking, in German, that the back door be kept closed. Thereafter, there are scenes of a train platform, some red flowers, and a close-up shot of a street sign depicting a woman and child. Another sequence consists mostly of barely legible snapshots of a CRT television screen, and a frog.

Individually, such unknown images could be reduced to one-off oddities.

The film strip, however, strings them along a timeline, and brings to mind the sense of momentarily sharing the photographer’s perspective as the shutter opens and closes, with no other point of reference, engendering a feeling somewhere between camaraderie and voyeurism.

This sense of communing with spirits imaginary and electronic was in some sense amplified by the circuit breaker period and the months that followed, as I joined thousands who found themselves abruptly siloed, communicating with other drifting black boxes with squawks of digital noise. The energy that had accumulated in IA’s temporary home also faced this same obstacle, as plans and programmes were detained at the pandemic’s pleasure. To my mind, the flatlining of almost all social life during the circuit breaker period brought about mass discombobulation on an unprecedented scale. Even as restrictions gradually eased, the shock still reverberated, seeming to distort the very perception of time itself.

A collective fugue has settled over the year unmoored from time. It has not quite ended and might not do so entirely. There are few certainties to be had in the wake of such a perturbation. In tending to this digital ghost, however, two such stand out: one is that the digital Archive will be, to some extent, open-ended for some time to come. Perhaps someone will come along with the story of the television and the frog. The second is that while this free-floating informational ghost is a resource of considerable depth, it truly comes into its own through the interaction and interrelation with IA as a living, working space.

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The Womanifesto Online Anthology Clare Veal, Marni Williams, Roger Nelson and Yvonne Low Since 2017, the Gender in Southeast Asian Art Histories research network has organised symposia and publications focused on intersections between feminisms and art histories of the region. In 2019, we organised a number of events around the evaluation of women’s labour and ephemerality in art practices, which led to exhibitions of the Womanifesto archive in Bangkok and Sydney. Womanifesto is a women’s art collective with a significant but understudied legacy of artistic, exhibition and residency projects that engage culturally and otherwise diverse participants. Womanifesto began in 1995 with the artist-led feminist exhibition ‘Tradisexion’, staged at the alternative art space Concrete House in Bangkok. The goal of increasing women artists’ visibility continued as a series of exhibitions staged biannually in various locations in Thailand, with later iterations moving to online platforms.

Roundtable at the opening of ‘Archiving Womanifesto’ with Varsha Nair via Zoom, 2019, The Cross Art Projects, Sydney, Australia. Image courtesy of Yvonne Low.

One of the reasons Womanifesto emerged as a site of scholarly attention is because its position as a formative transnational feminist network has yet to be fully apprehended within art histories of the region.

Yet from our engagements with some of the founding members of Womanifesto — the artists Varsha Nair, Phaptawan Suwannakudt and Nitaya Ueareeworakul — the history and ongoing ethos of Womanifesto is undoubtedly one that speaks to and illuminates the many creative ways women have overcome gender-based challenges to achieve self-determination. While studying the histories and networks of

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Womanifesto, we have encountered methodologies and strategies for feminist engagements that are generous, collaborative, hospitable and resistant to canonising frameworks. These are approaches we now see reflected in our own collective practice as researchers.

Womanifesto’s potential to offer new models for network building, arthistorical research and feminist collaboration became clear during an exhibition of the group’s archive, curated by its founders and organised as part of the two-part symposium, ‘Gender in Southeast Asian Art Histories: Art, Digitality and Canon-making’, in Sydney and Bangkok. The exhibition, which was shown first at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and later at Cross Arts Projects in Sydney, was accompanied by public conversations with the founders where they spoke frankly about their motivations and the various strategies they used to build long-lasting collaborative relationships. These conversations, and the broader discussions of the symposium, foregrounded the potential for digital tools and methods to not only highlight a diversity of perspectives but find ways to represent new voices without submitting them to the totalising effects of canonisation.

Installation view of ‘Archive Womanifesto’, 2019, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.

Image courtesy of Roger Nelson.

The Womanifesto Online Archive, a project of Asia Art Archive, was conceived from these conversations, as well as from the long-standing desire of the Womanifesto founders and participants for greater recognition of the project’s key achievements, and for it to be placed in dialogue with related feminist and independent collectives in the region and beyond. Importantly, the Womanifesto project has continually evolved, from exhibitions to residencies to digital projects and diverse

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other forms of collaboration. The upcoming Womanifesto Online Anthology (WOA) may be considered another iteration in this series of shifts and pivots by the project’s founders. The changes that have been made over Womanifesto’s evolution have occurred in response to new digital technologies or parallel discourses of process-based or socially engaged practices. However, they have also acted as pragmatic and serious acknowledgements of emerging priorities within the collective itself, such as a conscious allowance for family-oriented pauses in some years or periodic moves away from in-person engagement to address an increasingly geographically dispersed core team and community.

Prompted to some extent by our research collective’s efforts to put a spotlight on Womanifesto within the context of our work in building a wider gender-focused history of the region, recent years have seen the collective take stock of its own history by documenting and exhibiting its archive. An intended next shift would have seen Womanifesto return to its roots as a Thailand-based residency program, recreating something of that original space and time for in-person interactions with an emphasis on hospitality and exchange over production. However the pandemic caused a different one: now our Gender in Southeast Asian Art History research collective and Womanifesto have joined with Marni Williams at Power Publications to form an editorial collective where we will attempt to apply the same open approach to the process of publication.

Informed by Womanifesto’s ethos, WOA adopts feminist principles of horizontally collaborative co-production, intellectual and creative generosity, and long-term investments of care in order to produce voices, stories, histories and exchanges that are of, for and by the community itself. Unlike academic publications written solely in English for Western-centric scholarly audiences, WOA will treat archives, objects, visualisations, artworks, oral histories, conversations and translations as community-focused content, presented equally alongside scholarly essays rather than embedded within them. These and other materials will be developed concurrently with the scholarship, a process informed by Womanifesto’s tradition of encouraging conversation across practices and documenting process in multimodal forms.

We are in the process of identifying and asking the Womanifesto communities — past and present, internal and external — what they would most like to see reflected in this collected history and how it

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Dr. Siobhan Campbell presenting a paper at the symposium ‘Gender in Southeast Asian Art Histories: Art, Digitality and Canon-Making?’, 2019, University of Sydney. Image courtesy of Yvonne Low.

will be useful to them. We anticipate this will not result in a collection of essays driven by an academic theme, but a non-linear space where scholarly ideas, creative responses and personal reflections are treated equally, and presented flexibly as translated texts, videos, sound, images, data visualisations and other formats. Community engagement with and (intellectual and emotional) investment in our open process of workshopping, commissioning, writing, recording, and ultimately producing a new form of scholarly publication will be reflexively reviewed throughout the project in organic and structured ways. This will include evaluating the participation of Womanifesto’s local, regional and international networks and considering new collaborative relationships that may come out of the process — just as other Womanifesto projects would do. Once content and navigation structures have been designed and tested with our audiences, that same diversity of audiences and contributors become the project’s core audiences. Accordingly, our success will be measured not just through user analytics but with qualitative and quantitative feedback loops. In our most optimistic visions, the WOA will not only serve Womanifesto’s histories and communities, but make the case for a co-produced model of academic publishing that can realise art history’s value as a transmedial conduit that has social impact and might, if taken out of academic publishing echo chambers, be itself a productive spark for transcultural exchanges.

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WOA will not only deliver new research in more traditional, scholarly forms but will adopt Womanifesto’s ethos of experimentation to develop new ways of presenting community-led histories of arts and culture on a dynamic platform. It will produce inventive and imaginative outcomes that are polyvocal, anti-authoritative, decentralised, generative and open.

The platform will drive the exploration of digital storytelling through mapping and visualising data, and, depending on community needs, could enable the crowdsourcing of annotations for archival materials and the collation of otherwise understudied biographical and exhibition data, with the potential to be remixed with other collection databases in other cultural contexts. The success of this co-production process and the innovative digital outcomes intended remain to be seen, However, it already speaks to the impact of Womanifesto’s legacy that there seems to be no better history with which to undertake these experiments, or perhaps, that the history demands we do things differently.

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Archive as Ethics: Malaysia Design Archive Lim Sheau Yun In her book ‘Death of a Discipline’1, literary critic Gayatri Spivak makes a case for close reading as the starting point for a revolutionary politics. Close reading, she argues, creates an “experience of the impossible”, where readers intimately engage with an artefact, allowing them to suspend current socio-political realities and delve into the aesthetic world of the object. Spivak contends that the ethical is grounded in this act of making and exploring new worlds, a fulcrum to forge new possibilities for the future.

The Malaysia Design Archive (MDA) was founded in 2008 by graphic designer Ezrena Marwan and activist Jac sm Kee with a similar aspiration.

They were joined in 2017 by art historian Simon Soon, and in 2018 by archivist Nadia Nasaruddin. I came onboard in 2019. Tucked away in an upper floor of the Zhongshan Building in Kuala Lumpur, MDA is a library, a living room/event space, and an archive. Archival thinking at MDA serves a double function; it is both a method of historical thinking and a frame for political action. By collecting and preserving materials related to marginal stories such as material related to LGBTQ experiences, Pulau Bidong, New Villages, the Labour Party amongst others, we recognise experiences and hold community memories.

We felt the urgency of our mission acutely in 2020. It was a year of estrangement, especially so for those inhabiting the worlds of Malaysia.

The pandemic both underscored and exacerbated social inequality.

Continued political crises have put civil society on edge and, combined with lockdown-justified police presence on the streets, have contributed to a growing climate of fear. It was also a year where we were acutely aware of history being in the making. We felt the need to cast a net on this historical moment, even as it continued to morph before our very eyes.

To this end, we started a 2020 collection, archiving artworks, memes, protest posters and anti-racist imagery. Nasaruddin trawled Twitter and 'The Star' alike to reconstruct a visual history of events: from the pandemic and its Movement Control Orders to the mass arrests of migrants and refugees and the ensuing #MigranJugaManusia movement to the Selangor water crises. Our other initiative, ‘Projek 555’, goes a step further in opening this exercise in history-writing and the curation of the archive to

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the public, asking them to move from consumer to maker. We launched an open call for participants and mailed each person a blank 555 notebook, to be filled with drawings, musings, and observations, and returned in two months. The project is a play on the 555 notebooks which are traditionally used like a ledger, journal, or convenient scrapbook by Malaysians from all walks of life; for many, the little notebooks are representative of the little details in quotidian life that, when accrued, make up meaningful memories.

‘555 Notebook’ by Nazmi Anuar, from the Projek 555 collection at Malaysia Design Archive.

Image courtesy of Nazmi Anuar and Malaysia Design Archive.

We also founded a Wawasan 2020 collection, which gathers the fragments of Malaysia’s national vision to achieve developed nation status by 2020, first articulated by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in 1991.

The circularity of 2020 was not lost on us: in March, Mahathir, having emerged from retirement to lead the opposition to victory, was ousted in a backroom coup. To make an archive of Wawasan was to begin constructing a counter-narrative of a time dominated by government narratives: how do we tell the story of the shadows cast by glitzy skyscrapers?

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There is one image in the archive I come back to, time and time again.

It was donated in 2019 by KS Yuen, a now-retired graphic designer.

These materials sat in our ‘To Be Filed’ waiting room for a time until we found them a home in our Wawasan 2020 box. The image is from a series of photographs taken on the opening of the 1994 exhibition ‘Warbox, Lalang, Killing Tools’, staged at Balai Seni Negara when it was still at Majestic Hotel. The photograph is undated, but it is safe to assume that it pictures the punk rock band Carburetor Dung’s concert that night: the white walls of Majestic Hotel are in the background of another image in the series, as are the Indo-Saracenic arches of the Malayan Railway Administration Building. It is a dark night, and the lights from the stage shine on the faded blue jeans of punk rockers huddled in small circles. Legs are in motion; arms are tightly wrapped on shoulders; boys cling to one another as if holding on for their lives.

Like 2020, the 1990s were a time of rising inequality; the boom of the Asian Tigers had minted millionaires but also entrenched urban poverty. Activists and artists were still reeling from the mass arrests of Ops Lalang in 1987, to which Wong Hoy Cheong’s work ‘Lalang’ (1994) makes a direct reference. There was a sense that Kuala Lumpur

A Twitter meme in response to Anwar Ibrahim’s 23 September 2020 announcement that he had a “strong, formidable, convincing majority” in Parliament to form a government. Image courtesy of Malaysia Design Archive.

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was changing with each bell ringing the stock market open and with each property deal signed in a private room of a restaurant.

In 2020, while police sirens were ringing, signalling people to stay indoors, I used to sit at home and stare at this image of Carburetor Dung’s concert on my laptop screen. It is a microcosm of the archival project: to bear witness to stories of resistance, large and small. When the world is burning, sometimes, all you can do is dance. In 2020, it felt like a taste of the impossible.

‘Untitled (Carburetor Dung Concert on Opening Night of ‘Warbox, Lalang, Killing Tools’)’, October 21 1994. Image courtesy of Malaysia Design Archive.

Note 1. Gayatri Spivak, Death of a Discipline (New York : Columbia University Press, Chichester, 2005).

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Modern Southeast Asian Artists of Note Ian Tee

Art history is a form of social history recorded through objects and gestures. While artworks speak to the specificity of its time, the history of its reception is equally important as a means of understanding the social climate of its audiences. This article looks at some of the modern Southeast Asian artists who gained prominence in the past year, by focusing on two key angles: institutional presence and market activity. It aims to understand the motivations and implications of recent critical and commercial interests in their work.

Female artists given due recognition The stories and contributions of female artists are gaining mainstream recognition as institutions seek to re-evaluate and expand the artistic canon. The three female artists spotlighted below were not only highly accomplished, but also shared a broad international outlook. Further study of their work unveils a richer discourse of cultural syncretism informed by travel and immigration.

Tate Britain hosted 'Kim Lim: Carving and Printing' (7 September 2020 − 5 April 2021), as part of its collection route 'British Art 1930 - Now'. The exhibition of prints and sculptures by the late Singapore-born Londonbased artist explored her engagement with the two mediums, and showed how specific forms are imbued with contrasting qualities based on her choice of material. 'Carving and Printing' built on the momentum of recent interest in the artist, beginning with ‘Sculpting Light’ (2018) her first major solo show in Singapore at STPI − Creative Workshop & Gallery; followed by a prominent inclusion in the National Gallery Singapore (NGS) blockbuster show ‘Minimalism: Space. Light. Object’ (2018-19), and a solo exhibition at Sotheby’s S|2 Gallery in London (2018).

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‘Kim Lim: Carving and Printing’, spotlight display at Tate Britain. Photo by Johnny Turnbull, © Estate of Kim Lim.

Georgette Chen, ‘Femme nue (Nude)’, 1937, oil on canvas, 73 x 54cm. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s Hong Kong.

Georgette Chen is another Singapore artist with strong institutional presence. The highly anticipated retrospective exhibition ‘At Home in the World’ (27 November 2020 – 26 September 2021) at NGS surveys various periods in Chen’s life: her student years in New York and Paris, the turbulent Japanese Occupation in China, and her time in Southeast Asia. Chen’s cosmopolitanism is evident in the different influences and locales reflected in her paintings. Among the pieces on view is ‘Femme nue (Nude)’ (1937), a rare early work which achieved the hammer price of HKD1.3 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in July 2020, less than six months before the exhibition opening. Now part of the NGS collection, it is the only nude oil painting by Chen held in a public collection.

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Similarly, travel was a key facet of Pacita Abad’s life. Married to a developmental economist whose work brought them around the globe, Abad’s work wove together her transnational experiences and diverse cultural traditions. She is best known for her intricate and exuberant ‘Trapunto’ paintings, where layers of embellishment and collage objects are attached to quilted material. Silverlens, which represents Abad’s estate, featured solo presentations of her work at the ‘Woven’ Section of Frieze London 2019 and in Art Basel 2020 OVR:20c. In 2021 alone, Abad’s pieces would have been included in the 13th Gwangju Biennale (South Korea, 1 April – 9 May 2021), and will also be shown at Haus der Kunst (Munich, Germany, 11 June 2021 – 9 January 2022), the Kathmandu Triennial (Nepal, 27 October – 27 November 2021), as well as in a solo exhibit at the Jameel Art Centre (Dubai, October 2021). A major retrospective of Abad’s paintings is planned to open at the Walker Art Centre (Minneapolis, United States) in 2023, and it is expected to travel to other North American museums.

For Lim and Abad, their estates played crucial roles in protecting the artists’ legacies and keeping their work in the public eye. Lim’s sons Alex and Jonny Turnbull not only worked closely with curators and galleries such as STPI and Sotheby’s S2 to realise exhibitions in Singapore and London respectively, but also created Turnbull Studio, a purpose-built space to properly showcase the work of their parents, Lim and William Turnbull. Abad’s nephew, artist Pio Abad, co-curated two of her major institutional solo exhibitions: ‘I Have One Million Things To Say’ at MCAD Manila (Philippines, 12 April – 1 July 2018) and ‘Life in the Margins’ at Spike Island (Bristol, United Kingdom, 18 January – 5 April 2020).

'Pacita Abad: Life in the Margins', 2020, installation view at Spike Island, United Kingdom.

Image courtesy of the Pacita Abad Art Estate and Spike Island, photo by Max McClure.

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Renewed appreciation for overlooked artists An institution leading the way in exploring plural modernities is Centre Pompidou. As a respected museum in the domain of 20th century art, its efforts bring about a ripple effect that cannot be overstated. For instance, the market for Malaysian artist Latiff Mohidin’s work has heated up following a focused presentation of his ‘Pago Pago’ series in 2018.

To date, demand for this series remains high due to its rarity, not just from collectors in Malaysia and Singapore, but also prominent international museums.

Beyond its implications for the market, Centre Pompidou’s interest in the region is particularly impactful when resources for research and conservation are lacking in the artist’s home country. The second Southeast Asian artist to have a solo exhibition at the Parisian institution is Bagyi Aung Soe, a maverick figure who espoused modern art as a “living tradition” that constantly negotiates between the inherited past and the new.

Though Aung Soe’s philosophy and vision extends beyond borders, knowledge and appreciation of his oeuvre has been largely confined to Myanmar. Outside of the country, Gajah Gallery and National Gallery Singapore have the largest private and public collections of his work respectively. Co-curator Yin Ker comments that this impediment is partly due to the stereotypes perpetuated about Myanmar and the tribulations

Bagyi Aung Soe, 'KALI' with 'om' in Bengali script, c. 1986, mixed media on paper, 45.5 x 30.5cm. Image courtesy of Gajah Gallery.

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since her independence, as well as the artist’s disinterest in pursuing networks of patronage. The fact that Aung Soe’s work does not conform to conventions of the art world also contributed to its exclusion, as his preferred medium of felt-tip pen on paper commands little currency in the international art market for modern art. Thus, the show is pivotal in bringing much-needed scholarship and global attention to this unfamiliar name.

Outside of major institutions, there has also been increased commercial interest in promoting the work of undervalued female artists. Against the backdrop of New Order era conservatism, Balinese artist IGAK Murniasih stood out with her unapologetic depictions of sex and violence.

Her paintings also break from the traditional Pengoseken style of her mentor I Dewa Putu Mokoh in their unusual colour palette and naïve sensibility. Gajah Gallery inaugurated their exclusive representation of her estate with a solo exhibition ‘On Beginnings’ (Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 19 October – 10 November 2019), and originally planned for a presentation at the Kabinett sector of Art Basel Hong Kong 2020.

Umi Dachlan holds her own as one of the few female modern Indonesian abstract artists of consequence. She studied under Ahmad Sadali at the Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB) and was its first female lecturer in 1969. Anchored by the publication of a new monograph, Art Agenda, S.E.A. organised a series of exhibitions and online programmes featuring

IGAK Murniasih, ‘Saat Itu (At That Time)’, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 69.5 x 70.5cm.

Image courtesy of Gajah Gallery.

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Umi Dachlan, ‘Contemplation’, 1996, mixed media on paper mounted on board, 36 x 40cm.

Image courtesy of Art Agenda, S.E.A..

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the artist. Their project at Art Fair Philippines 2021 connects Dachlan and the Spanish-Filipino painter Fernando Zobel as two of the most accomplished modernist artists for whom abstraction proved a generative visual language to interpret landscape and the world around them.

Chen Cheng Mei represented the classic archetype of a 20th century travelerpainter. She was a founding member of the Ten Men Art Group, a loose collective that included second-generation Singapore artists such as Lim Tze Peng, Seah Kim Joo and Lai Foong Moi. Active in the 1960s and 1970s, the group came together for painting expeditions around Southeast Asia, China and India. Their activities and works evinced a regional outlook during the postwar decolonisation period. With her passing on 19 December 2020, there has been renewed critical attention to study Chen’s role in the group, which is often eclipsed by its informal leader Yeh Chi Wei.

Global demand for Vietnamese painting Undoubtedly, the biggest market story for Southeast Asian art in the past year is the growing demand for Vietnamese modern paintings. Though this trend was initially boosted by Vietnam’s economic growth and strengthened spending power, it is no longer limited to “home buyers”. Michelle Yaw, a specialist for Southeast Asian art at Sotheby’s, observes that heightened competition is driven by a powerful combination of local and international bidders.

French auction houses are also highly competitive in this field as they draw consignments from sellers in France who collected art from their former colony and wish to sell locally. Two of the five top hammer prices for Le Pho in the past year were achieved at the Parisian auction house Augettes: ‘Young Girl with Peonies’ at €910,000, and ‘Les deux sœurs au balcon (Two Sisters on the Terrace)’ at €460,00. In the genre of lacquer painting, Drouot set a record price for Van Ty Nguyen when bidding for ‘Hoi Dinh Chem’ closed at €650,000, more than four times its high estimate.

While Vu Cao Dam, Mai Trung Thu and Le Pho are the names dominating auction activity, the market has also turned to other key artists who contributed to the development of silk and lacquer painting. These are two distinctive 20th century modern art mediums closely associated with Vietnamese artists. New auction records were achieved at Christie’s Hong Kong for Nguyen Phan Chanh and Luong Xuan Nhi. Nguyen’s ‘Les couturières (Seamstresses at Work)’ (1930) hammered at HKD8.9 million while Luong’s

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Nguyen Phan Chanh, ‘Les couturières (Seamstresses at Work)’, 1930, ink and gouache on silk in its original Gain frame, 65.6 x 88cm. Image courtesy of Christie’s Images Ltd.

‘Le repos (Resting)’ (1936) closed at HKD4.2 million. Art Agenda, S.E.A., which has a specialism in Vietnamese modern paintings, has also placed a few significant Vietnamese paintings through private sales; the latest work they are bringing to the market is Tran Van Can’s ‘At the Temple’ (1945).

Across the board, early pre-war pieces created in the 1930s and early 1940s, a “golden period” of Vietnamese painting, are most sought after.

The market outlook for Mai Trung Thu is set to reach new highs with an upcoming retrospective exhibition at the Ursulines Museum (Mâcon, France, 16 June – 24 October 2021). It will be the most important show dedicated to the artist, featuring nearly 140 works, the majority of which are on view for the first time to the public. Two months ahead of the Mâcon retrospective, Mai Thu’s ‘Portrait of Mademoiselle Phong’ (1930) hammered at Sotheby’s ‘Beyond Legends’ Modern Art Evening Sale for HKD20 million, achieving the world record price for the most expensive Vietnamese painting sold at auction. Its price is more than double of the previous record held by Le Pho’s ‘Nude’ (1931), which sold at HKD9 million at Christie’s in 2019. Both pieces are historically significant

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early oil paintings made just after the two artists graduated from the Hanoi School of Fine Art. ‘Portrait of Mademoiselle Phong’ boasts an impeccable provenance, having been exhibited at the prestigious Exposition Coloniale Internationale, Paris in 1931, a pivotal moment signalling Mai Thu’s entry into the European art world. It was also the first piece by the artist that was exhibited and sold in Paris. As the market for modern Vietnamese works grows, one can expect more visibility in the public eye as well as scholarship on their cultural significance.

Ultimately, institutional and commercial forces feed off each other in conferring value to works of art. A healthy balance of the two is necessary to maintain an artist’s place in the long arc of history. The renewed attention given to these modern Southeast Asian artists is not merely a recognition of their contributions, but is also indicative of the region’s increasing importance on the global stage today.

Mai Trung Thu, ‘Portrait of Mademoiselle Phuong’, 1930, oil on canvas, 135.5 x 80cm.

Image courtesy of Sotheby’s Hong Kong.

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The Digital Transformation of Auction Houses Ian Tee

If necessity is the mother of invention, then the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many aspects of the art industry to adapt to rising tides or risk going under. For auction houses, this disruption is especially hard as they traditionally organise their sale seasons around key events in the art calendar. I speak to representatives from various Southeast Asian and international auction houses, who shared their observations on the pulse of the secondary market as well as the challenges they see in the near future.

Digital acceleration at different capacities Even though the business was already making efforts to build its online capabilities, the pandemic has sped up digital acceleration across the board. Digital initiatives range from more modest upgrades of existing websites to the development of mobile apps catered to specific markets.

David Fu, Director of Singapore-based 33 Auction, comments that the transition process was smooth for them because their revamped mobile interface went live prior to the start of the pandemic. “We saw encouraging results from online-direct sales, from both privately and through online exhibitions,” Fu adds.

Similarly, Larasati started their first online-only auction in December 2014 and has been working with the third-party platform Invaluable since 2016. “The challenge was to convince clients that what they see online are accurate representations of the artworks,” says Chief Executive Officer Daniel Komala. As clients gain trust and familiarity with the online platform, he expects that digital marketing will take over physical presentations, especially for artworks at the lower end of the market.

New digital features are also rolled out to enhance user’s online experience.

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Augmented Reality (AR) is adopted by the international auction houses as an alternative to in-person viewing. Accessible through their websites and mobile apps, the technology allows clients to examine details of selected lots and visualise how an artwork might look in their space. For a more personalised experience, clients can also track, save and share their favourite lots on the Phillips and Christie’s apps.

New formats for online sales With the shakeup, specialists see the online sale as an opportunity to experiment with new formats. Phillips introduced Gallery One, a “next-generation” auction experience where a fresh selection of artworks is available for bidding on their website and app on a weekly basis. “This new streamlined business model enables clients to buy and sell works beyond the constraints of the traditional auction calendar,” says Sandy Ma, International Specialist for 20th Century and Contemporary Art at Philips. She also notes positive results from their cross-category sales in Hong Kong, and in particular, an uptick in watch collectors buying art for the first time.

Another major innovation is the pivot from saleroom auctions to livestreamed and multi-city relay events. Happening both in person and online, the new hybrid format compresses the traditional auction season usually held across different cities into a marathon of successive sales. “It is an opportunity for us to unite our global specialist teams and curate a sale that offers global collectors the best pieces from around the world,” says Dexter How, Vice President and Senior Specialist of Southeast Asian Art at Christie’s Asia Pacific. While the hybrid format continues to evolve, he sees its potential to become the best platform to offer artworks.

Support of local collectors is vital for regional auction houses For Southeast Asian auction houses, the support of local collectors is vital for regional artists. Even as art events are expected to return in the coming months, travel restrictions mean that regional collectors are likely to only engage with them online. “Our short-term interest is in expanding the Singapore art category and working more closely with local collectors,” comments Fu. In Malaysia, Henry Butcher Art Auctioneers (HBAA) brought in a total of RM8 million from three auction sales in 2020,

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Ahmad Sadali, ‘Symmetry in Violet’, 1967, oil on canvas, 62 x 42cm. Image courtesy of Larasati Auctioneers.

Liu Kang, ‘Street Scene (Cheng Hoon Teng Temple, Malacca)’, 1954, oil on canvas, 120 x 70cm.

Image courtesy of Phillips.

INTERSECT cross-category online auction by Phillips, March 2021. Image courtesy of Phillips.

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achieved through a core group of local clients. “This would not have been possible without our loyal supporters,” says Director Poleen Sim. However, he also shared that private sales at HBAA have dropped drastically, with tougher buyer negotiations resulting in a low number of transactions.

As the Southeast Asian market matures, clients are becoming more discerning with their acquisitions. “We have become more selective in bringing Southeast Asian works to market and this is reflected in higher sell-through rate in recent years,” comments How. He cites Christie’s Spring 2020 Sale in Hong Kong, where the Southeast Asian group brought in more than HKD42 million, exceeding its pre-sale high estimate.

Additionally, Ma observes that collectors from the region are looking to develop their collections in a two-pronged approach. “They are strengthening their Southeast Asian collection, whilst concurrently developing their international contemporary art collection,” she elaborates.

“This trend coincides with a growing number of private museums in the region.” Indeed, the private collections such as MAIIAM in Chiang Mai and Museum MACAN in Jakarta showcase pieces by Southeast Asian artists, alongside their contemporaries from around the world.

Exceptional works continue to sell at strong prices Despite the challenging climate, Southeast Asian artworks of exceptional quality and provenance continue to sell at strong prices. At HBAA’s Malaysian and Southeast Asian Art sale in August 2020, Ibrahim Hussein’s acrylic on canvas painting ‘Calama Desert’ (1991) sold for the artist’s second highest auction price, at RM820,000. Srihadi Soedarsono’s ‘Dalam Meditasi Bedhoyo Ketawang’ (1998) hammered at HKD3.5 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art Evening Sale in July 2020, a new record for a figurative work by the Indonesian modern master. In Sotheby’s Paris, Le Pho’s ‘Autoportrait dans la forêt (A Self-Portrait in the Forest)’ (1929) achieved €720,000, more than three times its high estimate. The self-portrait is a rare early work made during the artist’s time in the Hanoi School of Fine Art, before he earned a scholarship to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1932.

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Srihadi Sudarsono, ‘Dalam Meditasi Bedhoyo Ketawang (State of Meditation – Bedhoyo Ketawang)’, 1998, oil on canvas, 140 x 300cm. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s Hong Kong.

Ibrahim Hussein, ‘Calama Desert’, 1991, acrylic on canvas, 182 x 180cm (diptych). Image courtesy of Henry Butcher Art Auctioneers.

Another coveted early oil painting is Mai Trung Thu’s ‘Portrait of Mademoiselle Phong’ (1930) which hammered at HKD20 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong ‘Beyond Legends’ Modern Art Evening Sale in April 2021. I had earlier written about Mai Thu’s work and the growing market for modern Vietnamese painting in the previous essay ‘Modern Southeast Asian Artists of Note’.

Christie’s achieved a string of new world records, establishing itself as a market leader for modern Southeast Asian works. A highlight was the Jean-Marc Lefèvre Collection of Vietnamese art offered at their Hong Kong Modern and Contemporary Art Morning Session in December 2020. In

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Vincente Silva Manansala, ‘Tiangge (Market Scene)’, 1980, oil on canvas, 124 x 195cm. Image courtesy of Christie’s Images Ltd.

Vu Cao Dam, ‘Femmes au bain (Women Bathing)’, 1944, ink and gouache on silk, 50 x 60.3cm. Image courtesy of Christie’s Images Ltd.

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Christine Ay Tjoe, ‘Layer as a Hiding Place’, 2013, oil on canvas, 180 x 200cm. Image courtesy of Phillips.

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the group of 15 paintings, two records were achieved for Vu Cao Dam’s ‘Femmes au bain (Women Bathing)’ (1944) at HKD6.5 million, and Nguyen Phan Chanh’s ‘Les couturières (Seamstresses)’ (1930) at HKD8.9 million. In their July 2020 Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Luong Xuan Nhi ‘Le repos (Resting)’ (1936) hammered at HKD4.2 million, five times its high estimate. In their December 2020 Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, ‘Tiangge (Market Scene)’ (1980), a late work by Philippines National Artist Vincente Silva Manansala, resurfaced in the market and sold for HKD6 million. This is an increase of more than 600% from its previous hammer price of HKD850,000 in November 2005.

In the contemporary category, Christine Ay Tjoe’s works remain in great demand. On 8 July 2020, Philips hammered ‘Layer as a Hiding Place’ (2013) for HKD5.5 million, while ‘The Flying Balloon’ (2013) closed at HKD4.8 million at Sotheby’s, establishing the artist’s second and fifth highest prices respectively. Notably, ‘Layer as a Hiding Place’ sold through an online-only sale, at a price nearly 50% higher than the one it had achieved in April 2014.

Looking ahead, the cultivation of new audiences is paramount for the sector. “The challenge is to stay relevant and build a generational collector base,” says Michelle Yaw, Specialist in Southeast Asian Art at Sotheby’s. To do so, they are maximising their online sale platforms and social media appeal as a means of reaching millennials who are accustomed to learning about and acquiring art in the digital sphere. Even though art is always best viewed in person, the future auction house is one where the physical saleroom merges seamlessly with online experience. In the meantime, the business is poised to continue innovating on the technological front.

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Adaptations in Art Handling Sara Lau

The impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on the arts has been welldocumented worldwide. While galleries, museums and artists have had their fair share of coverage, the pandemic’s consequences for art handling companies have been less reported. With the shutdown of international travel and the cancellation of major events such as international exhibitions and art fairs, these companies have experienced significantly reduced revenue streams. The International Convention of Exhibition and Fine Art Transporters (ICEFAT), which referred to the industry as the “unseen engine room of the art world”, released a three-part report in July 2020 detailing the extent of the pandemic’s impact, sharing insights from their members about the decrease in business, the restrictions and increased costs of air freight and the shifts in art handling protocols and systems.

In Southeast Asia, there have been similar consequences for art handling companies. Several countries in the region have been badly hit by the pandemic and are struggling to recover. Harry Wibowo, Managing Director of Bowo Logistics, says that they have had to rely on local art moving assignments in order to sustain their business, although the income from this is not enough to cover their monthly office overheads. The company relied heavily on art fairs as their main source of income, an unsurprising fact given that the country was steadily growing as a regional art centre prior to the pandemic.

While the situation in Singapore has been more stable, art handlers here have been affected as well. Vincent Ng, Business Development Manager at Malca-Amit, reports that art handling requests have declined by approximately 20 to 30 percent for their company. “Collectors are also much more cautious in purchasing art and hence there has been a decrease in shipment frequencies, which has had a significant

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impact,” he shares through an email. “To sustain the business, we keep manpower and operations lean. There has also been a significant increase in requests for private viewings due to government restrictions, which is easy for us to manage.” He also indicates that the company is focusing its energies on other specialised logistics services that they provide, such as the movement of precious gems and jewelry.

Ida Ng, CEO, Helu-trans.

Vincent Ng, Business Development Manager, Malca-Amit.

Harry Wibowo, Managing Director, Bowo Logistics.

For Ida Ng, CEO of Helu-Trans, the company’s core business has not changed at all. “A large part of our income comes from art storage. But of course, we have also been affected somewhat as events such as art fairs were also significant for our income stream,” she says. Still, the company saw a similar decline in requests for art handling services, and thus channeled their efforts elsewhere. She adds, “We had to divert our resources, so we decided to invest in our staff.” Ng notes that Helutrans has been actively conducting training courses, providing crossdepartment training sessions to familiarise all staff members with the various roles in the organisation, a move that she believes will help the company in the long run. Bowo Logistics and Malca-Amit have also done their best to maintain benefits for their staff, although this has been tougher for the former given the unstable situation in Indonesia.

The onset of the pandemic may have slowed the world down, but it does not entirely remove prevailing concerns that the art handling industry was already dealing with prior to Covid-19. One such topic is the handling of artworks made with unconventional materials and presented through

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less common mediums. At Malca-Amit, Ng believes that the company needs to be tech-savvy, especially when reaching out to younger artists who are producing larger multimedia works and installations, and that staff need to be trained in electronics in order to handle their works well. Bowo notes that his company often defers to the galleries and their instructions, and that they are more cautious with these unconventional artworks to avoid any mistakes. Ida notes that if they come across any uncertainties with handling an artwork , they turn to their extensive network for advice. Over at Helu-trans, Ng says, "We have different stations in China and Hong Kong, so our first step is to reach out to them to see if they have experience dealing with such artworks". The organisation is also part of ICEFAT, which is another avenue to seek advice.

Sustainability is also a hot-button topic. Art handling companies have a sizeable carbon footprint with their extensive use of bubble wrap and wooden crates, in addition to the constant air travel and shipments. Ng notes that while Helu-trans is concerned about the environmental impact of their work, little has changed in the industry despite n innovations such as reusable crates. “We're constantly struggling between being environmentally safe and at the same time being cost effective for the client,” she says. “We have considered alternative ways to support the climate cause, like donating to specific environmental organisations.”

At Malca-Amit, Ng expresses a similar sentiment. Adding that size limitations and freight charges are what hold most clients back when using such reusable crates. He also explains that they endeavour to use recycled plastics and encourage clients to re-use crates, citing lower costs as an incentive for them. This conversation on sustainability does not extend to Bowo Logistics, where Bowo explains that their clients expect the use of new materials and crates. Given that art handler companies are service providers and have to answer to the whims of the larger art market, the sustainability issue will have to be addressed by the community at large.

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As the world adapts and moves towards the "new normal", art handlers are recovering alongside the rest of the art industry, with shifting relationships and new methods of organisation. Ng at Helu-trans cites the recent S.E.A Focus organised by STPI − Creative Workshop & Gallery as an example of changes within the arts industry, with art fair organisers taking on more curatorial roles and art handlers becoming more involved through transportations and logistics, complete with remote viewings of art works and fair booths. “I think the dynamics between art movers and galleries will change, especially with our increased responsibilities in managing installations,” she says. “More things are left in our hands, now that galleries cannot be physically present at international art fairs, and I think that there will be interesting changes for art handling moving forward.”

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Experimentations in Art Journalism Vivyan Yeo

The past year has been a time of introspection and innovation in the art world. Artists turned inwards to make sense of the global situation, and gallerists honed their digital skills to create online viewing rooms for international audiences, for example. Art journalism has played a role in this period of transformation, presenting news and projects to the industry and to the wider public. We check in with our own practices, as well as with other Singapore-based digital art journalism platforms ArtsEquator, Object Lessons Space and Plural Art Mag to take stock of how we have stayed afloat while giving support to the art community in Southeast Asia.

Funding As we focus on producing meaningful content, we are also constantly seeking financial sustainability. A source of income for A&M is from advertising campaigns with galleries and institutions. With the uncertainties of the pandemic, spending became conservative. In its stead, institutional partnership served as a crucial source of funding. We worked with the National Arts Council (NAC) for the first time to hold two events for Singapore Art Week (SAW) 2021. One was ‘RESET’, a series of five panel discussions on critical issues such as international collaboration, digitisation and diversity in a pandemic-stricken art world. The other was ‘See-SAW’, two virtual trails of SAW projects led by well-known personalities. Held live on Zoom, ‘See-SAW’ adopted an unconventional format. For example, when featuring the SAW exhibition, ‘Maybe We Read

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Talk 3 of A&M’s ‘RESET’ titled ‘IRL or WWW: Between Physical and Virtual Spaces’, which featured Kirti Upadhyaya, Nature Shankar, Teow Yue Han and Tulika Ahuja, and was moderated

by Selene Yap.

A&M, Trail A of ‘See-SAW’, 2021.

Too Much Into Things’, curated by Berny Tan, we showcased pre-recorded footage of host Kelly Limerick exploring the show, before switching to a view of her talking about the exhibition in real time. Using the online mode’s distinct features, we took this partnership as an opportunity to experiment with new formats.

Plural Art Mag likewise worked with NAC on projects in the past year.

Co-Founder Usha Chandradas talked about ‘Our Heartlands’, which invited 100 local artists to respond to Singapore sites that personally resonated with them. Artist Adeline Kueh, for instance, created ‘Rama-rama masuk rumah (Butterflies Inside The House)’ (2020) in response to her home

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Plural Art Mag, microsite of ‘Our Heartlands’, 2020. Image courtesy of Plural Art Mag.

neighbourhood, Serangoon Greens. Through a pair of photographic prints on diasec and a video, the work pays tribute to the mundane beauty of wildflowers and insects in Singapore. Plural Art Mag did not take a commission, and all proceeds from artwork sales went directly to the respective artists.

For SAW 2021, Plural Art Mag also partnered with NAC to organise the SAW Symposium, a series of seven physical panel discussions on issues such as cultural policy and philanthropy, urban planning and the state of art fairs, among others. Involving many collaborators, this event invited A&M and Art SG to each organise one talk for the symposium as well. Together, we held conversations about Singapore's economy and the road ahead for the art world.

Art journalism platforms have also been experimenting with alternative modes of funding, such as the creation of online shops. We recently launched A&M Marketplace, where visitors can purchase exhibition catalogues, artist monographs, vintage books and original artworks on consignment from gallerists, artists and collectors. Similarly, Plural Art Mag has created Shop Plural, an online store that offers limited edition art objects from Southeast Asian artists. “We hoped to provide another

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Exhibition catalogue of 'The Body as a Dream: A Singapore Art Story' by Art Agenda, S.E.A. available at A&M Marketplace.

kind of revenue stream for the artists involved,” says Chandradas. "We are grateful that the community has always been supportive, whether it is by interacting with us on our social media accounts, spreading the word about our various initiatives and stories, or giving us leads on what is happening on the ground. Thankfully, the pandemic has not changed that at all.”

The regional community has also been contributing funds directly to art journalism platforms. In addition to the complications arising from COVID-19, ArtsEquator had lost their seed funding from the NAC in 2020.

It responded by holding the fundraising campaign ‘Ctrl S ArtsEquator’ to continue publishing stories on the visual arts, as well as dance, theatre, literature, film and more. Editor Nabilah Binte Muhammad Said noted that the campaign raised over SGD20,000 in three months, which has been helpful for paying staff salaries, commissioning content from freelance writers, and purchasing tickets for reviewers to attend events.

Both Plural Art Mag and Object Lessons Space, the latter founded by Joella Kiu in 2018, also launched their Patreon pages last year. Patreon allows members of the community to make a contribution at their discretion to platforms every month. Although the initiative has gained some support, more patrons are needed to generate funding significant enough for

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operations. At the time of writing, Plural Art Mag has five contributors on their Patreon page, while Object Lessons Space is a distance away from reaching its first goal of receiving a total of SGD450 monthly, which would go towards covering the day-to-day costs of facilitating written dialogues for art lovers.

Support for the Community In the spirit of giving back, art journalism platforms have also supported the Southeast Asian art community in creative ways. Some of our projects have been geared towards promoting young contributors in the scene.

Through our monthly ‘Fresh Faces’ series, we have been publishing content on emerging artists such as Kamolros Wonguthum, who is based in London and Bangkok, as well as Singapore artist Divaagar and Indonesian artist Alexander Sebastianus Hartonto. We have also included a section in CHECK-IN which features new artworks from the 12 artists we have featured in ‘Fresh Faces’. We also announced our second annual writing contest ’Fresh Take’, this time in partnership with KONNECT ASEAN, in search of new perspectives on art in Southeast Asia, and for this iteration, Korea as well. By providing opportunities for new voices to be heard, these projects help up-and-coming artists and writers share their work.

In a similar bid to encourage critical art writing, ArtsEquator has recently launched the inaugural AE x Goethe-Institut Critical Writing Micro-Residency 2021/2022. Six Southeast Asian writers, including Vietnamese writer Nhuan Dong and Filipino practitioner Mariah Reodica, have been selected to each undertake a two-month residency, between May 2021 and May 2022, to produce one article in the form of a review, reflection piece or editorial essay.

Screenshot of a conversation from ‘Burning Questions’, featuring Bernice Lee, Katrina Stuart Santiago, Maria Tri Sulistyani and moderator Corrie Tan. Photo courtesy of ArtsEquator.

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All the platforms have made it a priority to not only stay in touch with the community but also to attract new audiences. Amidst global lockdowns, Plural Art Mag organised events such as Game Nights over Zoom, with multiple-choice quizzes such as ‘Guess the Artist’ about wellknown international and Southeast Asian figures. “We saw the pandemic as an opportunity to reach out to new readers,” Chandradas shares. “We charged no entrance fees and sponsored our own prizes, with the larger view of promoting regional art at a time when physical movement was restricted.” ArtsEquator also launched a dialogue series titled ‘Burning Questions,’ which aimed to answer timely questions such as if there was hope for integrity and intimacy in online performance. This project was funded by a grant from the Singapore-based media startup Splice Media, which supports other media startups in Asia by reporting news, advising organisations and providing funding. The same grant also funded commissions of writing relating to Covid-19, allowing ArtsEquator to publish, for example, three essays that observed the effects of the pandemic on the Vietnamese, Philippines and Indonesian art scenes.

Looking beyond the art scene, Object Lessons Space attended to the local community’s immediate needs during the Circuit Breaker period. It contributed to Wares Mutual Aid, a community-run spreadsheet that connects people in need with those who can offer help. For this purpose, the platform raised funds through the sale of merchandise such as limited-edition postcards illustrated by Singapore artists Joy Ho, Mirza Jaafar, Dianna Sa’ad and Kaelyn Quek.

Postcards that were on sale to raise funds for Wares Mutual Aid. Image courtesy of Object Lessons Space.

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Best Stories of the Year Whilst dealing with the curveballs emerging from the pandemic, and thinking on their feet about new ways to connect with their audiences, art journalism platforms have continued to feature stories from the community. Kiu from Object Lessons Space reports that the site’s most well-received stories were its interviews with writer Diana Rahim, artist Marla Bendini and sound designer Tini Aliman.

“The conversations I have had with these creative practitioners often lead to long-term, sustained relationships,” she reflects. “I feel incredibly lucky to count some of them as co-conspirators today.”

Working with individuals from many disciplines, the platform shows its commitment to create nuanced, intersectional dialogues about art.

The platforms have also been instrumental in drawing out trends in the regional art ecosystem. Plural Art Mag, known for its accessible content, highlighted the dominant presence of young contributors at SAW 2021. In January, it published a story by Helmi Yusof, Deputy Editor (Lifestyle) of 'The Business Times', titled ‘Millennials are Taking Over Art – and They Don’t Give a Shit About Your Fuddy Duddy Values’.

Integrating personal anecdotes and hopes for the future, he distilled clear takeaways from the art week which boasted over 100 shows.

Over at A&M, we saw long-form essays gaining favour with readers.

Penned by Ian Tee, Associate Editor at A&M, ‘Why Have Artists Started Independent Spaces and Galleries?’ is one of the site’s most widely shared essays. Through extensive research and interviews with multihyphenated artists in Southeast Asia, the story brings attention to the vital role of artist-run spaces and foregrounds the circumstances behind their establishment. This inaugural issue of CHECK-IN is an extension of the work we do with the A&M website, and aims to aggregate and reveal regional tendencies for topics such as the digital transformation of auction houses, the changing landscape of residency models, the motivations of Southeast Asian collectors and more.

Creating stories is also a way to embark on cross-disciplinary endeavours.

Said from ArtsEquator highlights ‘Transcultural Lullabies’, a collaboration between Malaysian artist Sharon Chin and Rohingya poet Mayyu Ali.

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Sharon Chin, artwork made in response to a pairing of Rohingya lullaby Taa Taa (Clap Clap) and Malaysian folk song Lagu Tiga Kupang (Three Coins Song) for ‘Transcultural Lullabies’, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist and ArtsEquator.

The platform paired lullabies and folk songs from the Rohingya and Malaysian community, while Chin illustrated gifs that further intertwined the two. “It is symbolically powerful to witness solidarity within artistic communities,” Said contemplates. “More urgently, the project is about documentation, resilience and cultural memory in the context of the persecution of the Rohingya people and the current unrest in Myanmar.”

Earlier this year, A&M similarly brought different disciplines together by holding the first A&M Salon, a regular gathering to talk about art at intersections with other disciplines. The first discussion, titled ‘The Past is in the Present’, was organised in partnership with Epigram Books. It considered the book ‘Robert Yeo at Eighty: A Celebration’ as its starting point and focused on the intersections between art and literature. As the moderator of the talk, I heard many critical views on how we remember Singapore’s history from the speakers: artist Sim Chi Yin, poet and playwright Alfian Sa’at, literature professor Ismail S. Talib and writer Robert Yeo. By fostering collaboration across disciplines, such events play a part in building a world of mutual understanding.

The past year has encouraged, even necessitated experimentations with the ways we operate. It has pushed us out of our comfort zones and strengthened our belief in the value of the work that we do. We have been heartened by support from the community, and are equally committed to giving it back. As we navigate uncharted waters of the pandemic through new collaborations and conversations, we are reimagining what art journalism could look like in the years to come.

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FRESH FACES

DIVAAGAR

Divaagar, ‘Soft Salves’, 2021, website (photography, text, video). Presented for Singapore Heritage Festival 2021.

Image courtesy of the artist.

After the lull caused by the circuit breaker, it has been busy. There were a lot of opportunities that I received thanks to initiatives such as ‘Proposals for Novel Ways of Being’ where I was able to find new paths in producing works digitally. Learning to adapt in this flux between digital and physical exhibitions has been conducive for creating new trajectories in my practice. It has given me more freedom in creating thorough narratives and characters within works that I had shown at Singapore Art Week earlier this year. I have just produced a web-based work for Singapore Heritage Festival 2021, entitled ‘Soft Salves’, that utilises the “influencer” as a new model for oral histories in the spread of Ayurvedic practices and knowledge. After this accelerated period of exhibition and artwork production, I am interested in slowing down to develop long-term projects.

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FRESH FACES

BREE JONSON

A flock of white ibis on my notebook 3 days after the news that returning citizens to the Philippines are banned.

A lone bridge at Souss-Massa.

This time of upheaval brought me back to the moment I stood atop a hill overlooking the Atlantic coast. I painted the Souss-Massa National Park, where the Black Ibis, considered holy by many cultures, live. I did not realise they were near extinction then, as I saw two healthy flocks by the mouth of the river. Perhaps in the limbo, I might find life as well.

Hours before lockdown, my partner and I fled Manila to Bataan. We stayed in a tent in a remote cove, which meagrely protected us from the elements. The birds were always singing. We could hear them, but not see them hidden in the canopy. I latched on to the thought of signs of life where life is seemingly absent. Back in the studio after Manila’s borders re-opened 3 months after, I worked non-stop on a series of bird paintings.

I am taking a break from shows, but not from work. I intend to explore new narratives and new techniques, to continue developing the direction from my last solo exhibition.

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CHAPTER 4

Timely dialogues on topics of interest in the art community

Melati Suryodarmo and art naming 奇能: An Intergenerational Conversation on Performance Art Vivyan Yeo

Performance art is heralded as the most direct of art forms. Rather than being a hidden genius, the artist faces the audience as a human who is front and centre. Yet, it is among the most uncommon art forms to be exhibited in galleries and museums. What is it about the body that differentiates it from other mediums? How do performance artists archive their works? Do they need to train their bodies to create performance art?

To find answers to these questions, I had a Zoom conversation on 7 April 2021 with pioneering Indonesian artist Melati Suryodarmo and emerging Singaporean practitioner art naming 奇能. In 2020, the two met in Solo, Indonesia at Cinemovement LAB VI, an annual mentorship programme that focuses on an interdisciplinary approach to dance filmmaking. There, art participated in several workshops led by Melati.

Meeting on Zoom a year later, the two artists delve into pertinent topics such as the ever-changing nature of the human body, the strange relationship between performing and documenting, the complexities of collecting performance art and the importance of kindness in the art world.

Vivyan: How did you first embark on performance art and what drew you to the medium in particular? art: I started using my body when I performed in theatre about 10 years ago. Back then, I realised that I did not like to talk or use a script much.

After a few years, I thought of trying a performance piece and very simply recreated Marina Abramovic’s ‘Rhythm 0’. It was so strange, because people in my school then were like wow, this is “performance art”. But for me, I was just trying it out for the first time, and it suddenly

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became a thing. From there, I became interested in how performance art is a transient act that is happening only in the moment... I want to tell a more exciting story, which I am sure, Melati, you can.

Melati: It is a long story for me. Why I came to performance art has something to do with my fate. I was not planning to be an artist. Since I was a child, I knew Butoh, a form of Japanese dance theatre, because my dad worked with a Butoh company in my hometown. In 1992, I took a Butoh workshop and my body fell in love with it. Later in life, when I was in Germany with zero plans, I happened to meet Anzu Furukawa at Braunscheweig’s botanical gardens. We were just talking, and I was surprised to hear that she was a professor of performance art at Hochschule für Bildende Künste (HBK), and also a Butoh dancer and choreographer. You know, I am the kind of person who never really dreamt too far ahead; I am afraid of dreaming. But that moment changed my entire life. I became Furukawa’s student in the performance art programme at HBK, and soon after, Marina came to teach. Maybe I am a very lucky person. Till today, I believe that every moment is very special, and even talking to you both now on Zoom is very special.

I tried to understand the spirit of Butoh, which appeared after World War II. It emerged from a period of political activism, breaking the conventionality of dance and having grotesque visuals. I always question how art functions in our world. What change does it bring? How do we interpret our own body and connect with our social, political and cultural environments?

If we look at mankind, everything is changing all the time. The body is a live element that has this same quality of change. What makes performance art different from, for example, dance and rituals? What moves you to move?

Who are you, and what are you doing? There are so many layers that performance artists should prepare.

The body is a medium that I have been learning to use since childhood.

It took me a long, long time. When I think about an idea, I always look for references and materials. I learn again and read again. Maybe it takes me longer now because I am older. I am 52 years old now and I need to see my body differently. Of course, you can be old and still perform.

I do not want to live as a woman who gets lost being unconfident in her body. I want to encourage other women not to worry because their spirit is still moving. I learnt that from Marina; she is 75 and I know

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her body is quite weak at the moment, but her spirit is amazing. I will be embarrassed if I stopped using my body to express my ideas. art: It feels so different. You decided to do performance art quite late in your life. I am younger than you, but I feel as if I am already so old – what is happening? I feel like I am slowing down with my own work. I used to do more in the past. I do not know if it is because as I get older, there are more things to care about like my work, my body and my relationships with other people. Maybe it is also because I have higher expectations of the work I make.

I used to think that I need an audience to perform. That is generally seen as a rule for performance art, because you need someone to interact with.

But for me, it has more recently become an act for myself, regardless of the audience. The audience aspect only comes much later if there is an opportunity to present a show to the public.

I am also now thinking about what you said of the relationship between body and time. I feel that someone’s spirit always stays the same and it is the body as a vessel that changes. These days, a lot of the work I do deals with the tension between the temporary nature of life and what is supposedly constant or lasting. There is also this strange relationship between performing and documenting. In my view, the documentation, which is usually seen as a separate thing, is a part of the performance too.

Melati, you write, take photos, make installations and films. Are the processes behind all these mediums the same?

Melati: I think the most important thing is how my ideas can be delivered in the best way. I do the thinking first and decide the medium later. It may be drawing, photography, video, music or performance.

As for the documentation stage, I am educated in a very simple manner. If your performance is live and time-based, it has a different quality every time you repeat it. The only ways you can document it are with photography or video. Marina is the best because she has all the documentation of her works created since the 1990s.

It is a complex thing. Sometimes it is not possible to afford a camera, a photographer, or a videographer. Other times, you get the video, but you do not have the equipment to edit it. I think the younger generation must

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Portrait of art naming 奇能. Photo by Julianne Thomson.

Portrait of Melati Suryodarmo.

Melati Suryodarmo performing ‘Conversation with the Black’ at Manila Contemporary, 2011. Photo courtesy of the artist.

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art naming 奇能, ‘I Am Here For You’, 2019, performance documentation. Image courtesy of the artist.

art naming 奇能, collage documentation of my life from collected materials, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.

Melati Suryodarmo performing ‘Perception of Patterns in Timeless Influence’ at Lilith Performance Studio, Malmo, Sweden, 2007. Image courtesy of the artist.

art naming 奇能, still from ‘from a d(eep)welling boredom could make moves’, 2020, video, 4 minutes 47 seconds, as part of the series ‘my moving in 台中 (taichung, taiwan)’. Image courtesy of the artist.

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know how to deal with this issue. What happens if your performance is being captured by an audience member with a mobile phone and uploaded immediately onto their social media channels? What is the value of your work? Do you think your work is like in a museum, where people are not allowed to take photos? Sometimes, I let people use social media to capture my work, but I think there is no high value in that. It may be good for promotional purposes, but I will not use social media content as part of my own archive.

Vivyan: I want to jump in on that point on archiving performance work. art naming, you made a piece called ‘I Am Here For You’ in 2019 and it documents several performance pieces you created in the form of a book. In it, there are texts you wrote yourself, as well as photographs taken by audience members. Could you tell us more about that? art: My choice of making the work in this way came out of limitation.

Many younger artists like me want to submit proof of our work for grants but oftentimes, we are just starting out without resources to make a professional video. Because of that, I thought about documenting without such equipment and seeing what happens. It is the same as what Melati said; you can never replicate a live performance, right? So, I do not want to do that. Some audiences see a form of documentation and feel as if they have watched the actual performance. But that is not true, because the audience was not there while it was taking place. With a different time, location and medium, the experiences generated are very different.

Through a book, I am creating a separate circumstance for them to experience the work. I first thought of using a non-visual way to document my work, which is writing. Then, getting the audience to take photos was my way of letting them feel invested in the performance. I wanted them to think, “what is a good time to take a photo?” or “what can I look out for?”

Melati: I think the most important part of archiving your own work is to give respect to yourself for your own sweat, time and energy.

It is basically about how you choose to preserve a moment. My focus on this topic became useful because people want to collect my work. I need money badly, of course, to survive. Performance artists are famous for being the poorest artists because they cannot earn from their work. You get paid properly at dance or theatre festivals, but museums and galleries still do not consider performance art to be created from a lot of time, energy and thinking.

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Making an edition of a performance documentation is interesting and important, not only economically, but also when thinking about how people will see my work in the future. I learnt from Marina, again, who told me to never throw away my sketches. It is not about saving them for a future exhibition. It is about the time I spent on them. If you do not keep them in a proper way, it is like you are wasting your time. Some artists sell their performance itself, not the documentation, which I used to think was very dangerous. I thought that was a bit too much against the spirit of performance art and that I would rather be more careful.

But now, as I am older, I am thinking, how about the body as a living archive? How do you perform an archive? If I die, it would still be better if somebody performed my piece, not by acting or reading but with their own mind. I am open to new interpretations. And so, I tried to learn how to do it. I let one of my performance pieces be collected by the National Gallery of Australia. I made proper instructions for the person who will re-perform my work in the future.

I want to provide a sense of closeness even if I am not there, and if they understand the details, they will feel close to the work too. art: Have you started this process of training someone?

Melati: No no, I do not do that. If I sell, I let the collector choose the person who will perform my piece. But yes, so long as I am alive, maybe I can train that person or give some kind of guidance. Although they should understand their own body too. If someone does my ‘Butter Dance’, they need to learn some specific techniques but they will also have to do it their own way. People should know that their body carries an archive that requires different layers of understanding. It is not about “re-enacting”.

I am now working on a collaborative project with composers from Berlin and Hanoi to create a performance book for people to read and perform anywhere in the world. Having this medium is a kind of solution because we cannot travel during the pandemic. art, if you published your performance score in a book, would you be bothered if someone reperforms your work?

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art: I do not think I would be worried. I created some performances, which I clearly indicated are inspired by other people, so, it would be incorrect for me to say “you cannot do this”. Of course, I have to think about why someone would re-perform my work but generally, it is not so worrying.

Melati: That is very interesting because I am quite strict. Many ideas from performance art are stolen for theatre productions, music videos, dances and so on. I want to educate society to respect the work of performance artists. Photographers, choreographers and filmmakers have copyright laws, but performance artists do not. There is a kind of discrimination there, and so that is why I am quite critical about this subject. But of course, you have your own kind of authorship and I think that is also quite nice. art: I think that well, everything can change. That is what you started the conversation saying. I do not know what will happen in the future.

What you said about a living archive is not something I have thought about yet. It is almost like channeling someone else’s spirit.

Melati: Yes, it is a very old idea. In traditional dance, the work is passed down from generation to generation. This process of sustaining a tradition is fantastic. A living archive is just slightly different, because the source is not anonymous. art: From my understanding, even though the source of many traditional dances is anonymous, there is also an element of choice. You are choosing someone to pass the dance on to. It is not that just anybody can do it; they must have the body, spirit and all these things. I will be curious to see who is chosen to do your work in the future.

Melati: If someone buys a performance artwork of mine, I include a description that is as detailed as possible, including the weight and size of the body. There is also technical information on what kind of training they have to go through, how one should raise the hand... art: Are you saying that you have to be very technical in how you approach making a work? With any piece that uses the body, there is so much attention to the everyday preparation of the body, right? Like how much you eat, how you move, and what kind of mental state you are in. I am sure there are different kinds of preparation for different works, but do you train for an action?

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Melati: My body is butoh-trained or performance art-trained so I have my own techniques. I do not have to rehearse every day, but I need to test... test, not rehearse. For example, if I use an arrow, I need to walk around the space and try it out. It is technical in terms of how you manage the skill of using your body. It is like any other medium; you need technical skill to paint. Of course, everyone can do performance art as long as they have access to a basic understanding of their body. If you watch documentations by famous performance artists, you can see how aware they are. In 1975, Martha Rosler performed ‘Semiotics of the Kitchen’, and she uses her awareness of domestic life and the sweetness of “female” behaviour to explain the elements of a kitchen. Having skill doesn’t mean that you have to train in the fitness centre. It takes skill to not be “acting”.

Vivyan: I am going to ask the last question. Both of you met at Cinemovement Lab VI in Solo, Indonesia, where Melati led quite a few workshops. art, what are some of your takeaways? art: What actually struck me was that I got to know Melati as a person.

There is a sort of vulnerability that a performance artist needs, because the work that they do is live and there are chances of unexpected things happening. But as an audience, you rarely get to interact with the artist who goes off on their own. You do not know the preparation behind their work. For me, the value was really in meeting someone who is a performance artist and seeing how she is living her life. She is just so generous. Her work is not funny, but I think she is a very funny person.

Melati: Maybe being funny is to entertain myself too, because I almost never go on holiday. But you know, I liked the idea of running a laboratory space to give younger people an opportunity to experiment, cook together and be quiet if they want to. Now during the pandemic, I open a class every Friday and Saturday. I give them everything; I even feed them three times a day. I think the worth of money lies in these kinds of actions. You know the word dharma includes giving, and I think making art is also a dharma. I am sick of how art environments can be very tough. I want to empower people to be their best, and also share my belief that artists can survive on their work.

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Through my laboratory space, I have met so many interesting people like art. Our way of networking is not a commercial thing; it is more about kindness. You can see different values of life when looking at artwork.

Sometimes, we are missing kindness in how we treat each other on a personal and institutional level. I am also still learning; it is a lifelong process to be kind.

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Tromarama’s ‘Solaris’ at the NGV Triennial 2020 Andari Suherlan

Tromarama, one of Indonesia’s leading art collectives, utilises digital media to explore technology’s influence on humanity’s relationship with the world. From pre-recorded stop-motion animations to computer-generated realities, Febie Babyrose, Herbert Hans and Ruddy Hatumena’s recent body of works collects data available online to activate the digital world as seen through ‘Solaris’.

Exhibited at the second National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Triennial, 'Solaris' presents a digital simulation of a unique marine environment, a landlocked body of salt and rainwater formed over 11,000 years ago, located off the coast of Kalimantan, Indonesia. Warm and free of predators, here, jellyfish species have evolved, providing scientific communities with a living laboratory for studying the potential effects climate change may have on marine systems.

Tromarama, ‘Solaris’, 2020, live simulation, real-time internet-based data, sound. Commissioned

by National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne for NGV Triennial 2020.

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The NGV Triennial offers a platform that considers the growth of digital and emerging technologies transforming the landscape of cultural production and industry. How did you first approach this theme to create ‘Solaris’, and what were some determining factors that led you to create this work?

Conceptually, ‘Solaris’ was the result of a natural progression following recent works that used weather data to discuss issues of climate change.

However, ‘Solaris’ itself began when we first discovered LED curtains in 2016. Later on, when the opportunity and discussion with the NGV came in 2018, our idea to use this material was well received by Tony Ellwood Am and Andrew Clark from the NGV who were both curious to see how the work would turn out under the theme of light. We felt that it was quite fitting to present it that way since our more recent projects such as ‘Domain’ (2019) and ‘Madakaripura’ (2020) had incorporated both light and weather data too.

It was only near the end of 2019 when we decided to engage with issues related to the ecology of Danau Kakaban, or the Jellyfish Lake in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. ‘Solaris’ was created around the issue of climate change taken from the perspective of jellyfishes inhabiting the marine environment there.

Could we have a glimpse of the creation process? What steps were taken to collect data and create ‘Solaris’?

We chose Lake Kakaban as the subject because of its reputation as a natural phenomenon in Indonesia. The lake is an isolated and prehistoric site inhabited by stingless jellyfishes, whose stingless-ness is an adaptation from climate change. We investigated the ecosystem further by visiting the lake to collect data through pictures and videos of algae and textures of the water. Together, these elements led to the final collage that was used in the making of the digital world of ‘Solaris’.

After our trip, we decided that the best way to visualise the world we experienced in Kakaban was through online multiplayer game simulations.

This form would allow us to freely build our own interpretation of the ecosystem through incorporating the existing materials collected onsite as well as the weather data found on the internet. In creating the digital

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world as seen in the final form of ‘Solaris’, we had to intensely sketch out the images in as detailed a manner as possible, working closely with three-dimensional digital artists to execute sketches and collaborate with a programming company that helped stitch everything together.

With the creation process in mind, did you learn any new skills? What challenges did you meet?

Firstly, we were lucky to conduct the site visit before the pandemic hit as it allowed the three of us to be on the same page when it came to the brainstorming and mental visualisation of the lake. The difficulty came about when we began to execute our plans, which were all done digitally.

As a collective, we are used to working amongst ourselves to brainstorm and execute the projects thus far. However, since we had chosen to create an online multiplayer game simulation, which is a field none of us were familiar with, we had to work closely with parties we had not worked with before. This challenged us to express and communicate our visual expectations. At one point, we doubted the possibility to bring to life the images we were seeing in our mind because the world did not end up the way we wanted it to look. While perhaps the brief we wrote and expressed to the designers and creators was clear, the lens through which the 3D artist saw the work also played a role.

Throughout your artistic practice, your videos and installations explore the relationships between the virtual and the physical world to express the intersections of human relationships.

How has this concept been reflected in ‘Solaris’? Why present a digital simulation of the marine environment in this way?

Over the course of our practice from 2006 till today, we have engaged particularly with the idea of human relationships through digital means. Recently, there was a turning point in our approach to explore the issue of climate change and its relationship with human beings.

This event was from our encounter with a penguin enclosure in Sea World Ancol, Jakarta which presented a video projection of an ocean to replicate the natural habitat of these creatures. We were surprised to realise that the advancement of technology had entered even non-human ecosystems. In this way, we see just how humans try to force the logic of their world into the world of other species.

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Herbert Hans, Febie Babyrose and Rudy Hatumena.

Installation view of ‘Solaris’ on display at NGV Triennial 2020. Photo by Tom Ross.

Since the penguin encounter, there have been many climate change projects and initiatives that we became aware of. From 2015, we realised that information and data found on the internet have become more affordable and accessible to the public. Therefore we began to ask: what are people’s tendencies towards believing what is in their digital screens, whether it be the smartphone or the television, as a source of truth?

‘Solaris’ challenges this question as it presents two worlds. The first is Lake Kakaban where we try to represent and re-simulate its ecosystem in the

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form of a video game that is built upon the data collected from the internet and site visits. And in this way, we address the second world, which is the gradual change in the relationship between human beings and nature, both digitally and physically. We discuss the distance between humans and the screen, or what is being viewed on screen. Understanding that technology draws nature closer through means such as photographs and videos, we also recognise that it has the ability to alienate human beings from real life.

From stop-motion video installation of everyday materials in ’Zsa Zsa Zsu’ (2007) to the 'Solaris' commission project, which features a muralsized LED curtain screen, how has your art practice in the digital medium evolved and developed over the years?

In the first nine years, our practice was heavily influenced by digital culture as seen in anime films and music videos. We began to create with stop-motion, a process which required us to be entirely hands-on and not involve much post-editing. Media is constantly changing, and we recognise that the way we consume what is seen on screen is one-sided. What this means is that we are constantly receiving and not interacting with that information provided. This affected our decision to distance ourselves from animation in 2015.

Another turning point in our practice was when Febie’s mom pointed out a picture of a war she saw from her phone and thought that it was real.

In fact, the picture she saw was a screenshot of a hyper-realistic game simulation. Seeing this challenged us further to understand just how we perceive and understand time and space through screens, as well as believing what we see as truth.

And so our hope and aim is to distinguish the distance between the audience and the media perceived. This is evident through ‘Solaris’.

We see the video game simulation to be the most appropriate medium to convey the investigation, allowing viewers to be players in the world itself. The recognition that the media around us is constantly changing changed how we are developing and shifting our practice.

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Over the past year, how has the pandemic affected the way you have approached your art practice? What has been negative, and what has been positive?

We miss the whole experience of hosting, attending and presenting physical exhibitions. The pandemic has affected our practice in the way we interact amongst ourselves and other people around us. Naturally, this also impacts the way we situate ourselves as digital media-focused art practitioners. While our art revolves around the digital realm, having physical interactions is a significant part of our artwork experience. This challenges us to think about how art would be experienced within a different time and space as things are becoming increasingly virtual.

There are countless drawbacks to presenting and exhibiting art virtually, not to mention how it has been such unfamiliar territory, which is rather terrifying. Ideally, we would always choose to present our works in a physical space rather than the virtual as it calls for people’s attention that is more focused. And with art fairs and exhibitions opting for online platforms, it makes things difficult to enjoy and interact with them.

For example, in the early stages of creating ‘Solaris’, we hoped that people could interact with the work. This is why the LED curtains were so important. We wanted the audience to play with the “digital” in a way that they were able to touch and feel the screen. We very much wanted to invite viewers to be challenged beyond just being a viewer, but also as a participant of the re-imagined world. Unfortunately, due to government regulations, visitors were unable to do this. Nonetheless, we are grateful that the exhibition could still go on.

We are all adapting and surviving. Learning to find new means as a way to best convey the message and experience our artworks contain, we are embracing the uncertainty ahead.

As leading figures in Indonesia’s new digital media age, how do you see the growth and direction of technology and the arts in the future?

In this context, where would you see your art practice headed?

Digital media has evolved so drastically within the last decade, and with the pandemic, technology’s impact on society has been accelerated even more. For young artists, this direction towards the virtual is exciting

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as the possibilities to create works are endless, and made even more accessible than before. However there are many other considerations with regard to how digital media would exist in the future.

Because of the overwhelming flow of data and information online, the challenge for many artists today is making their works relevant. The fastpaced nature of the internet has reduced the attention span of viewers to mere minutes. As we’ve seen especially in the past year, how we view virtual exhibitions and works on social media platforms can only be significant for around five minutes.

In this way, we feel that physical exhibitions are still important for presenting digital work. One's engagement in the real space provides a different and more focused approach for others to experience twodimensional works. Otherwise, even digital media if viewed through our own phone or computer screens, can be easily altered to fit the viewer’s own preference such as choosing the playback speed or to play two or more videos at the same time. Our attention can be diverted in these ways. But viewing and experiencing a digital artwork physically forces the viewer to step out of their comfort zone and focus on what is before them. If we are limited to not exhibiting our works physically, just as we have all experienced this past year, we will have to explore and find new ways of exhibiting virtually that do not mimic real life, but enable meaningful interactions through the screen.

As an artist collective, we are interested to keep exploring the world of gamification to address these issues. Particularly, we would investigate how adopting the way multiplayer games operate can increase viewer interactions and how much collected data from hashtags to weather forecasts can be integrated into our work. The challenge for us moving forward is to address how we understand and utilise digital media as a means to transfer information. Rather than narrowly looking at the exchange of knowledge as something that is spectated, here we focus on conveying a transfer that involves the viewer receiving and responding. It is important for our practice to reach this unique dialogue in order for our work to keep being relevant today.

The conversation took place on 5 March 2021 over Zoom in Bahasa Indonesia and was translated to English.

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On Koperasi A conversation between farid rakun and Arief “Arman” Rachman

farid rakun and Arief “Arman” Rachman are both active in Gudskul, an informal educational platform initiated at the end of 2018 by three collectives from Jakarta: Grafis Huru Hara (GHH), ruangrupa and Serrum.

This conversation on koperasi 1 originally took place on 3 March 2021 in Gudskul, and was conducted fully in Bahasa Indonesia. It has been transcribed, translated and edited for clarity by the writers themselves.

farid: Let’s delve right into the matter at hand… As collectives, ganging up together, why do we think that koperasi deserves to be revisited by us?

How can our sensibilities be translated into an economic model koperasi has potential for?

Arief: For me, as individuals, we already have a platform for our financial transactions: banks. Now, we want to push collectively in order for us to be able to own our platform. For our friends who have been putting working together as a requirement of their practice, we want to have a rekbar 2.

We have that habit in creating projects, no? When we say to each other, “We cannot afford to do something, let’s have a collective pot”, we are in principle creating this rekbar. farid: Because up until now, what we have implemented is something that we can understand as ekonomi berbagi (sharing economy), in short. Each of us, every collective, makes financial reports of their respective accounts available, transparent for everyone to see. For our monthly expenses, these accounts function as shared pockets that are co-owned. What is koperasi’s advantage compared to our current system?

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Arief: I am not an expert of economic models, for sure. I have my understanding of koperasi from teaching in public schools. These are comparable to banks, where they function as bearers of people’s money.

Both the koperasi and the bank hold customers’ money and release it back when it is time. In koperasi’s language it is understood as SHU 3. A collective decision is made whether it is to be shared annually, bi-annually, and so on. The interesting thing, in the framing of working collaboratively, the difference between a koperasi and a corporation is that a corporation has a revenue target. In a collective, this is difficult. What we have is expenses, while we never mention revenue in our conceptual discussions.

We do not even speculate on this. Koperasi is a bit more like us, more “let’s try something and then see where it is taking us.” farid: Yes, we never have a meeting where we state, “this year, we have to generate x amount of revenue.”

Arief: Of course not. That is the language of a corporation. farid: So it is about ownership. It is like saying to those working with us…

If we generate income in the end, we will have SHU to share. We own and sail this ship together. Everyone who contributed to this sailing will be taken into account. This will be reflected in the percentage of the SHU share. Those who profited from the sailing will not only be the owner of the ship or their shareholders. Let’s get deeper. What is a koperasi multi pihak (KMP)4? What is our stake in this model?

Arief: It started slowly a long time ago for me… when we were all still playing with the concept of lumbung 5 in 2016. Around 2018 and 2019, when you got the position for documenta fifteen, I read more about the concept, and found a notion of koperasi being the economical translation of lumbung. I then made my first video about koperasi in 2019, punking the term into “kok pera sih 6 ?” to present about koperasi for our own team of finance. I learned through the process that the mandate of a koperasi is to ensure its members’ welfare… just like a collective, no? I can say that welfare is not financial income, but more than that. Although delivered as a joke, it was clear for me that when we talk about koperasi, we are not talking about a “fresh-money economical modus”. We could think of it as work-life balance, or in Islam, we have this notion of berkah or a blessing, which is the condition when you are paid appropriately as a worker, and also as anticipated by the person who is paying you, based on the process

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Illustrations by Arief Rachman.

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and the result. The value is in the ownership that each member has in the koperasi and their ability to influence future decisions.

We knew KMP from friends of friends, our local UMKM 7 activists. We had people who understood more about koperasi present their ideas to us. We had the State Minister for Cooperatives Small and Medium Enterprises talk to us about practical problems we might face if we wanted to adopt this system for ourselves. For example, a one-man-one-vote system is very difficult for us to implement. It will take too much time to arrive at any decision. Different types of koperasi were then discussed, such as the construction chain store company Ace Hardware, which was built as a koperasi originally. We discussed how something in the scale of Ace Hardware has koperasi values at its foundation. The problem is that the Indonesian legal system has not been updated to cater to modern or multistakeholders koperasi. It still cannot implement the ownership system where buyers of Ace Hardware have also distributed ownerships among themselves.

Then we continued to get to know KMP from different groups of people.

There was also this incubator programme which offered Gudskul a place because of the resources we seem to own. In the South Jakartan district itself, how many UMKMs are operating? These numbers make Gudskul an attractive entity. Can we campaign for koperasi values based on the Minister’s guidelines? This is the mandate of an incubator entity.

We eventually learned that in order to take the role, there are a lot of requirements that we are not ready to fulfil yet. I asked whether it would be possible for Gudskul to take part as a participant through another incubator instead. Before we campaigned for koperasi, could we learn thoroughly about the model first? The answer was positive, and we are now in a process led by an incubator entity in Purwokerto, Central Java. We are not the only one, but one of the most exciting ones, according to them. We are uniquely from Jakarta. During this eye-opening process, Gudskul was challenged to identify and categorise our actors as Founders, Management, Creators and Supporters.

This process I was referring to before entails offline, online and video streaming formats. We, from Gudskul, then invite other collectives in Gudskul’s networks to listen to some of these presentations, so the knowledge of KMP can be spread even further. It was also because

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Gudskul Council gathering, including the writers, on 12 December 2018. Photo by Jim Panji. Image courtesy of Gudskul.

Gudskul communal dinner. Photo by Jim Panji. Image courtesy of Gudskul.

Gudskul, public lecture by Tania Bruguera, 2020. Photo by Jim Panji. Image courtesy of Gudskul.

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Gudskul’s auditorium when it was functioning as a mini-factory for Hazmat suits and face covers, in the early days of the pandemic, 2020. Photo by Jim Panji. Image courtesy of Gudskul.

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Gudskulians kept on mentioning KMP this, KMP that, so a lot of other people were curious about what we were talking about. It is better to connect them to the direct source, no?

There are a lot of koperasi practice in our society that cannot be accommodated by our legal system which still considers koperasi traditionally. There have been some practical attempts to push this agenda, but as I said before, from our partners, we know that Gudskul is the most promising one so far. We have actors that function both as creatives as well as administrators here. Our number of followers8 also plays a role in this hopeful view.

Further about KMP, what we imagine is actually an economical platform that is owned collectively by multiple parties, correct? Like traditional koperasi, members own it. The difference is where traditionally actors in koperasi consist of manajemen and anggota (members), and in KMP, manajemen can be split to Founders and Managers, while anggota become Creators and Supporters. Usually what happens is that manajemen holds 51% of the decision-making power, while anggota holds the other 49%, so whatever anggota aspires to, it will act as a mere suggestion for the manajemen. This power structure doesn’t hold anymore in KMP, as we can ideally assign 25% for each element. farid: Yes, so because the number of real individuals in each element differs, each person’s vote gets calculated differently under this math, correct?

Arief: Yes, what we understand is no one gets… farid: … left behind?

Arief: Yes, but it sounds so harsh. Let’s say that no one holds an absolute decision-making capability in this system. Founders do not hold right to veto, for example. They have to partner up with other elements. This is the fundamental difference between KMP and the traditional koperasi model.

We continued with more details in mechanism, but I do not really understand this yet as they have not been put into practice. My imagination has been captured so far. This mechanism talks ended in discussions on currency. If we have our own currency, it would be ideal.

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Further, in Gudskul itself, even I, who have been talking about this back and forth, am not an expert yet on this. Lastly, as we discussed before, our legal system is not acknowledging, let alone supporting this model. farid: Do we need the legal umbrella, really?

Arief: Yes, we do. For conflict management and mitigation at least. But to start, it is ok. Like when we formed our collectives, we didn’t go straight to building a legal foundation, right? For me, the succession goes something like this… from being an individu, there’s self-improvement needed or wanted, that could be reached by being a part of a kolektif. This trajectory will form an ekosistem. If the ekosistem we are providing is KMP, then this platform will produce nilai tukar (currency). This way, KMP should be nilai tambah (added value), and not beban sosial (social burden). farid: Explain more, please…

Arief: If KMP becomes beban sosial, just kick it out of the ecosystem. That is social burden, no? We have to do it, but we don’t get anything in return by doing it—merely doing it for the sake of doing it. Gudskul’s trap is here… we’re still considering koperasi as a social burden. Back to the subject at hand, KMP should regulate kepemilikan (ownership), menentukan (decision-making) and tanggung jawab (responsibility). If these values are not held on an individual level, it will be difficult. In order to make sure that it will work, we should be meyakinkan.9 That is why Koperasi Multi Pihak is not a programme, but a meyakinkan project instead, which means it’s both a project to persuade, but also a project that in itself is convincing. farid: Software revamp?

Arief: (laughter) farid: Software upgrade, then… maybe?

Arief: When someone here asked me, “So, what is the future of this collective?”, that’s the right direction. Only a few have asked me that, to be honest. My explanation in addressing this question would go into the logics of gaming and our gamification attempts…

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farid: Wow. Hold on, that is for another time…

Areif: To be continued?

Notes 1. Koperasi is an Indonesian word that can be officially translated to cooperative (or co-op), but we decided to keep the Bahasa Indonesia version intact, as in our limited knowledge, we are not exactly referring to co-op model as understood globally.

2. Slang abbreviation for rekening bersama, or joint account.

3. Official abbreviation for Sisa Hasil Usaha, or net income.

4. Roughly translatable to multiple stakeholders koperasi.

5. At the time of writing, lumbung, or rice barn or granary, has been widely recognised as the working concept for documenta fifteen.

6. A pun in Bahasa Indonesia, from koperasi to the informal “kok pera sih?” which means “why is (the rice) not sticky?”.

7. Official abbreviation for Usaha Mikro, Kecil dan Menengah or Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise.

8. The term “followers” here refers to our audience, not exclusively in a social media understanding.

9. Meyakinkan in Bahasa Indonesia is a term that has double meaning: convincing (adjective) and persuading (verb).

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Thai Curator Gridthiya Gaweewong: The Next Chapter of Jim Thompson Art Center Ian Tee

Born in Chiang Rai, Thailand in 1964, Gridthiya Gaweewong is one of the most prominent curators working out of Southeast Asia today. She was an English teacher and librarian at a refugee camp in Phanat Nikhom, before making a career switch to pursue her passion for art. In 1996, after receiving her Masters of Arts in Administrations and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Gridthiya co-founded the alternative art space Project 304 (1996 − 2003) with Montien Boonma and Kamol Phaosavasdi.

Her key projects include the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (1997 − 2007), ‘Politics of Fun’ (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 2005), ‘Saigon Open City’ (2006 − 2007) and the travelling exhibition ‘Apichatpong Weerasethakul: The Serenity in Madness’ (2016 − 2020). Gridthiya was also on the curatorial team for the 12th Gwangju Biennale ‘Imagined Borders’ (2018). Currently, she is Artistic Director of the Jim Thompson Art Center (JTAC) in Bangkok, a position she held since 2007.

In this conversation, Gridthiya shares her observations on shifts and challenges in the Thai art scene, as well as her plans for the new JTAC building which will be unveiled on 26 June 2021.

Could you talk about your involvement in The ​Alternative Art School​(TAAS), an online art education initiative launched by Nato Thompson? Beyond the COVID-19 crisis, what impact do you see such alternative models of education having on the art ecosystem?

Nato Thompson and I have worked together since the early 2000s. He completed an internship at Project 304, an alternative space that my friends and I started in the mid-1990s. We remained in contact throughout

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his time as the artistic director of Creative Time. Nato approached me to join TAAS as a faculty member of the online art school, and said he would like to create a global alternative educational platform that is more affordable and accessible to the arts community. I could not say no.

We had many meetings before the school opened, to define what an alternative school meant and to create supportive and friendly online learning experiences. Thus, there are many extra-curricular activities each week, such as visiting artists programmes and meals together. Students meet each other in groups they create based on their interests. It is an attempt to give people another chance to go to art school, and it is about networking and building up the global art community. Each faculty designs their own courses. For example, in my class about alternative art histories from Southeast Asian perspectives, we primarily have lectures and I have invited many guest speakers from the region, such as Dinh Q. Lê, Grace Samboh, Sawangwongse Yawnghwe and Ho Tzu Nyen.

The faculty has a weekly office hour for students to meet with us. We have many students from the United States, Europe and Asia. It is such a fresh and invigorating experience to get to know them, and we share the sense of being a part of something new. It is a kind of educational environment that I hope to realise in Thailand. Our education system in Thailand suffers from chronic problems, which are different from those in the United States.

For us, it is very conservative, rigid and outdated, in need of a complete overhaul. An online platform like TAAS will open another channel for students and artists to access contemporary and global art education.

Although the tuition is still relatively expensive in the Southeast Asian context, we help by arranging grants from museums such as MAIIAM in Chiang Mai to support Thai and Southeast Asian artists in their enrolment.

In a recent interview for Tatler Thailand’s ‘​Future List​’, you noted the emergence of art projects and institutions outside Bangkok, such as Khon Kaen Manifesto. What are the causes behind this growing decentralisation?

I think it reflects a growing sentiment of being fed up with state centralisation on many levels. This started at the end of the 19th century, during the reign of King Rama V, when Siam annexed Lanna, Isan and the Southern region, and continues today. Our generation, who were born and grew up in Northern and Northeastern Thailand in the postwar years, felt desperate and suffocated due to the lack of infrastructure, especially in education and art institutions.

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Gridthiya in the main gallery of the new Jim Thompson Art Center. Photo by Praweena Nekamanurak.

Jim Thompson Art Center former exhibition space.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 'Primitive', 2012, exhibition view at Jim Thompson Art Center.

‘Impressions: Soil and Stones, Souls and Songs’, 2017, exhibition view at Jim Thompson Art Center.

Rendering of the new Jim Thompson Art Center building by Design Qua.

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These resources were centralised in the capital, forcing many of us to leave our hometowns for Bangkok to further our studies at the university level and for work after graduation. This is only one example of issues we have faced in the last century. The situation is still largely the same, so the decentralisation process must take place now. Otherwise, how long will we have to wait for change to happen?

How would you describe the relationship between Bangkok and other centres of creative production in Thailand today?

Unfortunately, Bangkok is still the key platform of distribution. However, it is not the production site for artists and designers due to high costs.

That is why many artists began to move to Chiang Mai in the 1990s, and started small art galleries around the Nimmanhaemin area in the 2000s.

This movement has slowly gained momentum over the last ten years, with many small studios and art projects springing up in smaller cities such as Patani, Rajburi, Khon Khaen, Udon and so on. That said, Bangkok has also regained some excitement with the emergence of artist-run spaces and independent galleries around N22, as well as the other clusters of young creative people around different parts of the city. The engagement of the Thailand Creative and Design Center (TCDC) with the New Road Creative District is notable too.

The new Jim Thompson Art Center building is slated to open in June 2021. What are the upcoming programmes you are most excited about?

It is a major challenge to open amidst the COVID-19 crisis, but the show must go on. We have been discussing with our trustees and friends, rethinking our core values and mission. The JTAC would be more open and inclusive in its next chapter. Previously, our programmes were pretty exclusive and by invitation only. Hence, the first show will be an open call to artists in Southeast Asia and beyond, and a selection will be made by young curators and artists from the region.

People have had the preconceived notion that our programmes are focused only on traditional art, textiles and fashion, which is not the case.

We have hosted many contemporary art shows, such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s ‘Primitive’ (2011) and ‘Impressions: Soil and Stones, Souls and Songs’ (2017) curated by Cosmin Costinas. The programmes ahead will be more diverse, multidisciplinary and relevant to the current context. Even as we work to bridge the local, regional and global art

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Burmese artist Po Po preparing his installation at Saigon Open City, 2006−2007, Ho Chi Minh City.

Ly Hoang Ly’s work at the Southern Women Museum, presented as part of Saigon Open City, 2006−2007, Ho Chi Minh City.

Sunset seekers on the roof, Molam Bus at Wonderfruit Festival, Pattaya. Photo by John Clewley.

Villagers enjoying the Molam Bus exhibition, Wat Ta Pung. Photo by John Clewley.

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communities, we are also looking into our history through archival materials from Jim Thompson’s personal collection and the JTAC archive.

What does long-term sustainability look like for JTAC? Long-term sustainability is very hard to achieve, requiring good strategy and action plans. Being financially sustainable is an art institution's ultimate dream. This is a serious concern and we are putting together a marketing strategy that involves ticket sales, membership programmes and fundraising efforts. We will continue working with existing partners and seek new ones for future collaborations, to co-curate and co-produce exhibitions and programmes.

Public participation has been an important part of your career from the beginning. Projects such as Saigon Open City (2006 − 2007) and the Molam Bus propose innovative ways of bringing art into public space and discourse. Are there specific strategies you would like to explore, or communities you have not engaged with yet?

It is important to understand who we are speaking to when we do the projects. Saigon Open City is totally different from Molam Bus, but what they have in common is community building in the Ho Chi Minh and Isan-based communities. 10 years ago, JTAC mainly served the art community and tourists to the Jim Thompson House Museum, but our community today is different. The polarisation of society has made it even more critical and challenging for institutions to engage with diverse audiences. What we would like to create is a contact zone for people, young and old, to interact, discuss and share their visions, frustrations and even imagine our unknown future.

You recently published a research article which traces exhibition histories in Thailand starting with the royal court. What prompted your interest in this topic?

A few local historians such as Chatri Prakitnonthakan, Preedee Hongsaton and Thawatchai Ongwuthivage studied this history, but most of the research is published in the Thai language. What interested me were the class structure of curators, who they were, how exhibitions were developed, their motivations, and the audiences for these shows. What was the position of the public in the past?

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The background of these curators shifted from the royal court to the state, the elite class and then commoners. However, the trend seems to be swinging back towards the state and the court again today.

Exhibitions continue to be contested grounds and are at times briefly occupied by the public. A recent example is the student protests at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center that happened last year.

Having understood this historical context, how could practitioners address shortcomings?

Ultimately, it is about how much you care for your community and how you help create a better and healthier ecosystem. We all have different issues in each locality. In Thailand, democratic processes and freedom of expression are threatened by injustice and draconian laws. What we are fighting for is an on-going process, which might sometimes be exhausting. At the end of the day, caring for oneself is also very important to continue the fight.

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Bill Nguyen on the Fifth Anniversary of The Factory Ian Tee

Bill Nguyen is an artist-curator committed to developing alternative, locally-driven methodologies and platforms for curation in Vietnam. After graduating from Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom in 2009, he returned home and engaged with the arts community in different capacities as an artist, educator, writer and curator. From 2009 to 2013, Bill co-led education programmes at Hanoi DOCLAB. He also co-founded the non-profit art space Manzi (Hanoi), and has been collaborating with Nha San Collective as a freelance curator since 2013. In 2017, Bill joined The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre (Ho Chi Minh City) as Assistant Curator.

On the occasion of The Factory’s fifth anniversary, Bill reflects on the institution’s achievements and evolving role, and shares his views on the developing art scenes across different cities in Vietnam.

I would like to start the interview by discussing ‘Home: Looking Inwards to the Outer World’, an initiative which began in March 2020 at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. What are the aims behind this project? Did The Factory have to rethink its role in the past year?

‘Home: Looking Inwards to the Outer World’ started when the first social distancing regulations were put in place in Vietnam, turning everyone into homebound bodies. At The Factory, we were determined to continue supporting artistic production. We understood that, as cultural workers, we must go on maintaining our work with what we are gifted: the ability to create. During times of uncertainty and anxiety like this, it is the language of humanity, of literature, poetry, music and the visual arts that is most powerful. It calms us down, lifts us up, and drives us forward.

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Embracing the fact that everyone had to resort to online communication, we invited our artist community to delight in the basics and sketch, write a poem, shoot a video or perform a melody. We have since been able to return to some level of normalcy in Vietnam. Thus after 12 months of sharing these resulting artistic reflections via our social media channels, the project is finally realised as a physical exhibition.

It is a reminder of what we have gone through and achieved so far.

Another programme that continued was the third edition of ‘Pollination’ (2018 − ongoing), featuring artists Maryanto and Ruangsak Anuwatwimon as well as curators LIR and Kittima Chareeprasit. It is hosted by MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Chiang Mai, with the Sidharta Aboejono Martoredjo (SAM) Art & Ecology Fund returning as a co-sponsor. What are the benefits and drawbacks of focusing on the region’s network of private art institutions?

Conceived specifically to cater to the independent landscape of artistic initiatives in Southeast Asia, ‘Pollination’ aims to foster collaboration among local institutions in this region, by seeking both financial support and mentorship expertise. Across the three previous and current editions, we have seen fruitful collaborative exercises among emerging artists, curators and their mentors from Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

These neighbouring countries possess a similar characteristic: a proactive community of artist collectives that drives the development of their respective contemporary art scenes. They also share the same dilemma that the majority of their contemporary art activities occur outside of statesponsored cultural institutions. When like-minded institutions are brought together, the problem is tackled on a more direct, non-bureaucratic and intimate level. This is because they acknowledge not only the potential advantages of grassroots effort, but also the struggles their neighbours have to endure. The only drawback has been that Covid-19 has prevented past and current ‘Pollination’ organisers and participants from regrouping in Chiang Mai for the opening of the latest exhibition ‘The Hunters’.

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‘Spirit of Friendship’ (2017 − ongoing) is a research project documenting the role of artist friendships in the development of experimental practices in Vietnam. The online platform hosts not only a historical timeline and archival materials, but also critical essays and interviews. Could you talk about the decision to adopt friendship as a research framework?

Why is it important that ‘Spirit of Friendship’ is also presented in the form of exhibitions?

We started ‘Spirit of Friendship’ with an understanding that access to the history of contemporary art in Vietnam is limited. This is due to the country’s lack of diversity in cultural infrastructure, as well as the local public’s lack of interest in more “experimental” modes of art-making.

Although there has been much scholarly work on the development of Vietnamese contemporary art, most of this research is circulated within the academic circle. ‘Spirit of Friendship’ as an exhibition platform is thus an attempt to inform our local public of their rich and dynamic art history from 1975 until today. This history is materialised into a series of visual art exhibitions featuring mediums that are familiar: painting, photography, documentary film etc. By showcasing artworks alongside archival materials and critical essays, we hope to offer the audience intimate insights into the inspiring lives of previous generations of independent artists, as well as observations and critiques of the political and social situations that influenced, obstructed and gave rise to the birth and development of this unique artistic landscape.

The practice of friendship is the backbone that drove the works of the artists featured in this project. In studying those who have come and gone before us, how they were as people and friends to each other, as well as how they dealt with issues particular to their time, we can learn from their legacies and mistakes. We also see how certain issues, such as censorship and financial difficulty, remain the same despite the passing of time.

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Installation view of Nguyễn Đức Phương's artworks displayed together with contextual objects borrowed from the artist's studio. Presented as part of ‘Home’, 2021.

Image courtesy of The Factory.

Research corner in ‘The Hunters’, 2021.

Photo by Pannawat Muangmoon.

Ongoing Conversations

Plexiglass sketchbook and drawings by Bùi Công Khánh, next to a video of the artist and his partner performing Khánh’s song.

Presented as part of ‘Home’, 2021. Image courtesy of The Factory.

Exhibition view of Maryanto’s works in ‘The Hunters’, 2021.

Photo by Pannawat Muangmoon.

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As an archival project, ‘Spirit of Friendship’ proposes a way to lift some of the burden of documenting and writing art history. At least once a year, a new project is added. It may come in the form of a publication, discussion or exhibition. This could be initiated either by us, or by those who share the same passion and care for histories. By deliberately making it an on-going endeavour, we hope to prolong the life of an art project, turning it into an inclusive platform that welcomes further contribution and interpretation. Knowledge has to be mobile in order to create larger movements. And although learning is a necessity, how we learn should always be flexible, and what we learn should never be fixed.

Prior to joining The Factory, you co-founded platforms IN:ACT Performance Art Festival (2010, 2011), Anti-Gallery Gallery (2012 − present) and Manzi Art Space (Hanoi, 2012 − present). What are your observations on the independent art scenes in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City? Are there any major shifts in the last decade?

Having worked in both scenes for the last decade, I am excited to see that the exchange between Hanoi and Saigon is now much deeper and more elaborate. Especially noteworthy are younger generations of local and foreign practitioners, whose focus is on the quality of collaboration. This has resulted in the popping up of new independent initiatives such as Á Space (Hanoi), Ba-Bau AIR (Hanoi), live.make.share (Hanoi), Đường Chạy (HCMC), Măng Ta (HCMC), Nổ Cái Bùm (Hue and Dalat) and many more.

Installation view of Group of 10 (1989-1996), presented in the section ‘Leaving A Mark - Finding The Way Forward’ in ‘Spirit of Friendship’ (2017). Image courtesy of The Factory.

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Artist group chronology and historical timeline in ‘Spirit of Friendship’ (2017).

Image courtesy of The Factory.

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Part of The Factory team. From left to right: Bill Nguyễn, Vân Đỗ, Uyên Lê, Zoe Butt.

Cấn Văn Ân's open studio where the artist conducted a drawing exercise to compare the construction of war monuments and the body language of onlookers. Presented as part of Manzi Artist Residency Programme 2020. Image courtesy of Manzi.

AP Nguyễn's research material showing her exploration of the notions of nation and nation-building, via the study of souvenirs and touristic sites. Presented as part of Manzi Artist Residency Programme 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.

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The Factory is celebrating its fifth anniversary in 2021. How has the organisation changed since its founding?

In comparison to other institutions at home and abroad, The Factory is still quite young. However, I hope that the quantity and quality of programming we have produced over the past five years have demonstrated our dedication and expertise, and proven that we are here to stay. Our mission stays the same: firstly, to raise awareness of artists who are responsive to and critical of their contexts, and who understand and use their art-making as a way to build and share knowledge; secondly, to create a public platform that allows for an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge production and circulation.

Our work is to provide equal attention, care and opportunity of learning to our artists, our curators, and our public. We also attempt to cater to all levels of interest in the arts in our community. This ethos, one that takes great collaboration, is reflected in the wide range and various formats of programming that we have put in place since day one, each serving a particular audience with their varying needs, expectations and modes of reception.

Going forward, what does long-term sustainability look like for The Factory?

Looking ahead, we have identified two particular areas of focus: to continue our education and training programmes for artists, and to strengthen our existing partnerships whilst seeking new locally based sponsorships.

A significant and joyful part of our day is spent engaging with our artists. Ongoing programmes such as ‘Materialise’, ‘Pollination’ and our upcoming ‘Artist Excellence Award’ offer artists not only the opportunity and funding to exhibit, but also a dedicated period of curatorial mentoring and research assistance over six to 12 months. All of this is made possible through strategic partnerships we have established with international and regional funding bodies. By demonstrating that there exists international interest in, and support for Vietnamese art, we hope to impress upon our own local collectors, sponsors and partners the critical role they can play in contributing to structures that support the arts and culture.

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In a recent podcast on Saigoneer, you spoke about the importance of investing time and effort in young artists and curators, as well as how the education system is severely inadequate in meeting their needs.

How do you identify and create opportunities for new voices?

Apart from the projects mentioned above, on an individual level, I am also committed to working one-on-one with artists and practitioners on projects elsewhere. For example, for Manzi Art Space’s 2020 ‘Artist Residency Programme’, my co-founder Trâm Vũ and I have been working with two vastly different artists. Cấn Văn Ân is a locally-based, traditionallytrained painter, while AP Nguyễn is a multi-media talent who has received overseas education. Trâm and I have different mentoring approaches and this demonstrates how we tailor our programming to meet with the needs of artists.

On top of my official duties, a large part of my day often involves interacting with my colleagues across the country. We exchange notes and share reading materials, prepare presentations and workshops for local art students; as well as draft proposals and build projects. At times, our ideas may turn into tangible outcomes. Although a number of these proposals remain purely as writing and sketches on paper, they bear witness to the fact that we spend real, concentrated, prolonged time together, trying to make a difference in our own way.

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FRESH FACES

AZIZ AMRI

Filming of Masterchef Indonesia. Image courtesy of the artist.

I am working on a piece that is about various kinds of people who have their own goals in a competition. This is not just about an individual, but also about the workers, the audience and the media, and how incidents can escalate and be damaging.

The work will be a performance piece and presented through food. It asks what happiness tastes like. Apart from my observations of people the past years, the ideas for these tastes are mainly formed from my experience taking part in Masterchef Indonesia. It is not about the work that is presented on stage, but of those who support the process of it.

The past year has been a rollercoaster ride for all. As a performance artist, I had to explore other platforms to continue working on my projects. I decided to let this be a research period until the world is healed and goes back to normal again.

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FRESH FACES

ALEXANDER SEBASTIANUS HARTANTO

Alexander Sebastianus Hartanto, ‘Reconfiguration of Belongings - #1466, #1471 and #1472’, 2021, documented stills of an inquiry. Images courtesy of the artist.

The past year for me has been difficult. After moving back from America, I have been working with the fixation on loss of the re-imagined home, where “none” is no longer there.

Residing back in my grandmother's house, I collected and reassembled remnants of the “was”.This was only to find that my body no longer fits or has changed, queered to an extent where origins become so blurred. I have come to realise that the triggers to migrate are from the traumas of othering within the home.

Looking ahead, I am refining my own practices in a variety of displaced contexts, not necessarily to produce works to exhibit, but rather, as experiences to be inhabited.

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FRESH FACES

AZIZI AL MAJID

Azizi Al Majid, ‘Playroom #1’, 2021, acrylic and crayon on shaped canvas, 80 x 120cm. Image courtesy of the artist.

The past year was compelling for me, even though the pandemic outbreak is still very challenging for everyone in general. Some of us are fortunate to be able to thrive and survive. For an aspiring artist, this year made me think of the necessity of the art world in the times of crisis, and how it should change in terms of representation and presentation.

I am working on a new series titled ‘Playroom’. This series depicts two imagined rooms of a museum or art space in conjunction with an imagined classroom. This work represents my approach in representing the practice of art and education. I will be showing the newer work from this series at Art Taipei 2021 with Galerie Ovo.

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FRESH FACES

ADAR NG

Adar Ng and Dave Lim, ‘Sticki-2’ (detail), 2021, digital collage. Image courtesy of the artists.

'My room as a digital artefact' is an exploration of the medium of photogrammetry, a video walkthrough of a 3-D model of my room. By translating and recreating a real and familiar space into a virtual world, questions of simulacra and simulations are surfaced, blurring the boundaries of real and the imagined.

The past year was filled with new opportunities and collaborations. Despite not being able to travel, I met a lot of new creative and artistic groups and collaborators locally. It has been a journey of expansion and learning.

Currently showing at the National Museum of Singapore until the end of July 2021, under the exhibition ‘Picturing the Pandemic’, is an observational documentary titled ‘The Spaces Between Us’, a film by Dave Lim and myself.

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CHAPTER 5

Projections into the future of art ecosystems

The Changing Landscape of Artist Residencies Clara Che Wei Peh

Artist residencies are programmes that provide artists, curators and researchers the opportunity to live and work beyond their existing loci. Many residencies provide accommodation, a working space and often, a monthly stipend. They aim to facilitate a conducive environment for artists-in-residence to focus on their research and creative process. This has often translated into an invitation for artists to experience a temporary displacement of geographical locations, supporting them to travel abroad and encounter unfamiliar environments, different cultures and forge new connections.

Then came 2020 and COVID-19. The pandemic brought with it travel bans, nationwide lockdowns and increasing health risks across the globe, forcing residency programmes to cease, postpone or rapidly adapt to the new conditions brought on by the pandemic.

Indonesian artist Elia Nurvista was participating in a six-week residency at Sa Sa Art Projects in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in March 2020, when she found herself stranded in isolation due to the sudden halt of international flights. The pandemic situation in Southeast Asia had escalated rapidly. Originally intending to continue her research in Prague, Czech Republic, immediately after her time in Cambodia, Nurvista’s residency in Europe was postponed indefinitely. Like many artists, Nurvista had planned much of her year around the international residencies she was scheduled to attend.

As the global art cycle came to a stop, artists scrambled

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to adapt to new circumstances, without the international connectivity and fluid movement that the art world had become accustomed. Similarly, residency programmes were challenged to respond rapidly and flexibly, to imagine different ways of engaging and facilitating artistic research and production that could go on in these unusual times.

Opening Up to the Local Community In direct response to the impossibility of travel, many programmes decided to pivot to refocus resources towards local artists. Not only did this mitigate issues surrounding cross-border travelling, but it also provided much needed support for artists whose livelihoods were threatened by uncertainties brought on by the pandemic.

Sa Sa Art Projects had run a residency programme welcoming Southeast Asian artists alongside their Cambodian counterparts. Lyno Vuth, Founder, shared that the organisation aims to “nurture connections between the artist community in Cambodia and the wider region to form lasting relationships.”

With the pandemic, Sa Sa Art Projects maintained its physical residency’s structure through working with young Cambodian artists, while introducing new flexibilities such as work-fromhome options, and a choice between online and virtual events, depending on fluctuating conditions of safety. In Hanoi, Vietnam, ba-bau AIR converted its spaces, which previously accommodated foreign artists during their stay, into studio

Sa Sa Art Projects Artist-inResidence, Sim Many’s Open Studio event, 15 January 2021. Image courtesy of Sa Sa Art Projects.

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spaces for local artists. Since its founding in 2019, ba-bau has been hosting micro-residencies in collaboration with arts organisations such as Mat Tran Ensemble, live.make.share and Á Space, to connect international artists with the Vietnamese art scene. In particular, ba-bau was able to give support to Vietnamese artists who had returned from abroad due to the pandemic and were looking for opportunities to be plugged in to the local scene. Through studio takeover programmes and short-term residencies, ba-bau continues to host artists and facilitate their public programme, including open studio events. Thao-Linh Dinh, Founder and Director of ba-bau, says that the organisation remains committed to its mission of forging connections, be it within the local arts scene or with the global network. When borders reopen, the programme will be able to reintegrate the physical presence of international artists into its ongoing events.

ba-bau AIR Artist-inResidence, Minh-Hoang Nguyen Open Studio event, February 2021. Image courtesy of ba-bau AIR.

A comparable strategy was adopted by Tentacles Gallery in Bangkok, Thailand, a self-sustaining non-profit organisation. In view of the pandemic, they similarly transformed their spaces, typically reserved for international artists-in-residence, into working and storage spaces.

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Ruang Kongsi, a collective-run artists space and community library in Penang, Malaysia, decided to open up their space to host artist residencies for the first time during the pandemic. In the first week of Malaysia’s lockdown, Ruang Kongsi members attended an online Arts Community Catch-Up hosted by Penang Art District. During the session, attendees raised concerns regarding the precarious situations some artists faced due to severe disruptions to their livelihoods. Driven by their mission to make spaces accessible, Ruang Kongsi decided to offer up their spaces to artists through the format of a residency programme. Initially focused on providing physical space, the programme also evolved into an online residency format, as members of the collective continued to meet online on a biweekly basis to conduct reading groups and discussions. “We hope it will encourage other institutions and spaces to similarly offer their support to the community in this pandemic,” says Okui Lala, artist and member of the Ruang Kongsi collective. “I think the pandemic has made us all think beyond ourselves and about how to work together by sharing resources.”

Moving into the Virtual Chatroom Adapting the programme for an online format is another strategy adopted by residency organisers, aimed to continue facilitating artistic and cultural exchanges across borders.

Virtual residencies not only mitigate the impossibilities of travel but are also able to prompt new modes of collaboration and mentorship.

Virtual 360KONNECT: Emerging Arts Leaders Residency, is led by Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) and the ASEAN Foundation through KONNECT ASEAN, an ASEAN Foundation arts and cultural programme funded by the Republic of Korea. The initiative supports cultural exchange between emerging artists and cultural practitioners from ASEAN and the Republic of Korea. The open call was launched in August 2020 and selected artists were paired to collaborate over the period of one month, to define, explore and present their research surrounding the theme of international cultural cooperation and exchange during the pandemic.

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Mac Andre Arboleda, based in the Philippines, participated in Virtual 360Konnect, as well as ASEF’s other virtual residency, ‘Virtual Workings’, held in partnership with the Japan Foundation, Bangkok, between January to February 2021. In comparison to Virtual 360Konnect, Virtual Workings focused on emerging curators, while similarly pairing participating artists with a collaborator. Arboleda and his partner, Celene Sakurako, also received mentorship from Professor Amareswar Galla, Director, International Institute for the Inclusive Museum, Australia/India/USA, as part of the programme.

Screenshot of Zoom calls between Arboleda and partnered artist, Sarah Koo. Image courtesy of the artists and ASEF.

Reflecting upon his experiences across both residencies, Arboleda says, “Initially, it was hard to expect much because I wasn’t sure how [the organisers] would translate a physical experience online”. Through the format of an artist pairing, Mac collaborated with South Korean artist Sarah Koo on a researchbased collaborative zine project titled ‘Artists in Panic’, which looked at how Filipino artists and collectives used art-making to respond to the crisis. Given the programme’s distanced nature, Arbodela felt that he was less able to connect and interact with the other participants. During Virtual Workings, however, the mentorship component allowed Arboleda and his partner, Sakurako, to receive guidance throughout the

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programme and network with other participants. Arboleda suggested that remote residencies may be most suitable for research-focused projects and digital-based art practices, but without the dedicated, purpose-driven space usually provided by physical residencies, participants are limited in their abilities to expand beyond existing modes of working.

Similarly incorporating elements of mentorship and network building, GlobalGRACE launched its Philippines AiR (Artists in Residence) programme for young LGBTQ+ artists in April this year. The programme will run for a period of three months, and 15 selected artists will receive support and mentorship from experienced artists and practitioners in the LGBTQ+ community. The outcome is a virtual exhibition and a documentary film that archives the process of putting it together.

To resist cancelling residencies offered to their previously selected international artists, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art (NTU CCA) Singapore launched a new remote residency programme, ‘Residencies Rewired’, which ran from December 2020 to February 2021. The programme extended the Centre’s imagination of the remote residency to connect participating artists to Singapore through young artists and researchers, who acted as the artist’s local liaison. This newly imagined initiative, driven by the Centre’s commitment to support artistic research, fostered collaboration beyond borders and facilitated site-specific engagements with Singapore and Southeast Asia, despite challenges posed by the pandemic.

Through an open call, the residency empowered artists to interview and select their own local counterpart, with whom they worked closely throughout the project. "With Residencies Rewired, we translated the residency from the full-on physical encounter with a place to a relational experience enacted through a close collaboration with a local research agent,” says Anna Lovecchio, Curator, Residencies, NTU CCA Singapore. “In essence, it was an experiment with remote entanglements and distanced agencies." Even without physically visiting Singapore, the seven participating artists

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were able to access local archives, conduct fieldwork and develop a familiarity with the city-state, through their liaisons.

Parallel to its remote programme, NTU CCA Singapore continued to host local artists in its physical studios.

Screenshot of Residencies Insights: Residencies Rewired Session #2, livestreamed on Facebook, 23 February 2021.

New International Residencies While residency programmes refocused on the local and digital over the last year, the format of international in-person residencies continue to demonstrate their relevance in facilitating cross-border cultural exchanges as institutions begin to look forward to a post-pandemic world.

Singapore Art Museum will begin to host its brand new residency programme in July 2021, inviting local and international practitioners and organisations to take part.

The European Union Delegation to Singapore, in partnership with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), hosted by NTU CCA Singapore, announced its ‘Studio Residencies in the EU for Southeast Asian Artists (SEA AiR)’ programme in March 2021. SEA AiR will facilitate selected emerging Singapore and Southeast Asian artists to complete a residency at European

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host institutions for up to three months. Artists will be given a studio, accommodation and regional research trip opportunities, culminating in the presentation of a new work upon their return.

Residency programmes are shifting from stop-gap measures to address the immediate precarities artists were exposed to, and exacerbated by the pandemic to adopting longer-term strategies for meaningful artistic exchange.

Although physical immersions will remain a key feature of many residencies, the regional arts landscape will likely observe a steady rise in virtual and hybrid models, as they have proven their flexibilities and effectiveness in the past year. As artists, curators and cultural practitioners continue to adapt, new methods of exposures and collaborations will undoubtedly emerge, pushing forward the reimagination of the global arts infrastructure.

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An Act of Folding: Beyond a Performative Category of the 'Queer' Tim Chng

Discourse on queerness has tended to assume a performatively political axis, instrumentalising a theory of the queer as an imperative revolt against heteronormative logics. Although such antagonistic conceptions of queerness remain invaluable sociotheoretical positions to consider, the past year has observed a privileging of a different facet of queerness that moves beyond the traditionally staid functions of subjective visibility and queer identity politics.

In their review of the book ‘Contemporary Arts as Political Practice in Singapore’, Wong Bing Hao suggests the exigent need for a “non-binary methodology” of queer critique.1 This was a profound re-envisioning that expands an otherwise calcified category of “queerness” traditionally marked by the impassioned and polarising creature of protest. The recent work of curators and artists in Singapore similarly speak to a problematising of this performative category of the queered, divulging instead a political process of queering more so sustained by its acknowledgement of structural liquidities, foregrounded by a concerted drive towards divulging the generative horizons of a futural communality.

Josef Ng’s canonical performance, ‘Brother Cane’ (1994), remains a cogent encapsulation of the performative politics of queerness in Singapore. Enacting a series of emblematic actions involving the caning of slabs of tofu and bags of red dye, as well as the purported snipping of pubic hair in the presence of an audience, Ng ritualistically bemoaned the arrest of 12 gay men at Tanjong Rhu amidst an antigay operation by the police in 1993. In a reiteration of this

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Lenne Chai, ‘A 377A Wedding’, 2018. Photograph by Lenne Chai, originally published in ISSUE Magazine.

performance, Loo Zihan’s ‘Cane’ (2012) sees the artist revisit Ng’s sensational protest through a recitation of textual accounts and sources, followed by a methodical re-enactment of the original piece, although with crucial divergences. Louis Ho points out that the considered decision on Loo’s part to exhibit a cleanly shaven crotch in contrast to Ng’s more visceral act signals a poignant “surrender of self-propagation”, coalescing an image of prepubescent adolescence with the admittedly non-reproductive capacities of queerness.2 Thus conceived, Loo’s becomes a renunciatory gesture against the heteronormative functionality ascribed to the procreative, Singaporean (male) body. More recently, Lenne Chai’s ‘A 377A Wedding’ (2018) conjures the spectre of Singapore’s legalistic castigation of queer intimacies, at once a titular jibe at and consciously cognisant depiction of the fantasy of a public, ceremonial endorsement of queer affection. As yet policed by socionational processes that remain governed by a dialectic of familial nuclearity, it appears thus that the political performative has historically figured as a necessarily emphatic aspect of artistic protests surrounding a notion of “the queer”.

Yet, it remains to be sufficiently justified just how effectively queerness might operate as certified by the self-assured performance of subjective visibilities. This becomes especially pronounced when internalised within the contexts

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Geraldine Lim, ‘After the Tunnel’, 2020. Photograph courtesy of the artist.

of Singapore and, more broadly, Southeast Asia, where cultural configurations often predispose conspicuous queer identifications to a precarious condition of acute vulnerability.3 This is seen in Geraldine Lim’s ‘After the Tunnel’ (2020), which calls up the internal psychological and physical textures of the body, conflating the cathartic expulsion of queer subjectivities with the nervous anxiety of public exposure. These delicately denuded anatomies, enwrapped in velvet shades of soft fabric, capture the precarity of queer visibility and the elusive comfort this paradoxically affords. Although valuable in its mobilising of subjective agency, it appears that a professed performance of queer protest remains at best an inadequately accessible luxury, and the political efficacy of which seems applicably confined to certain social, racial and religious positionalities.

Such queer political performance would appear limiting as well in its reliance on the cartographies of a dyadic identity politics. In an essay that interrogates the ontological resonance of identity categories and its framing of queer subjective formation, Judith Butler posits the paradox of a queer identity category, offering instead a methodology of “working sexuality against identity”. 4 The group show ‘Maybe We Read Too Much Into Things’, curated by Berny Tan, featured a series of compellingly figurative, powder-coated steel sculptures by artist Aki Hassan, to which they offered

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Aki Hassan, ‘A Tired Holder, Held and Holding’, 2021.

Photograph by Marvin Tang.

the title ‘A Tired Holder, Held and Holding’ (2021). As much a curious play on words as they seem to entreat a reconsidered examination of acts of "holding", these gently motive sculptural “gestures” profess an artistic sensibility attuned to the poetics of a queer, bodily fatigue.5 What appears particularly evident here is the contemplative manifestation of a perpetual state of queer discomfort, engendered in the inevitable process of vacillating between states of "holding", and of being "held" by a queer disorientation. It became clear to me throughout my correspondence with the artist that “queerness” as a categorical identity was not something they consciously sought to excavate through their practice. A more alluring proposition might be to understand Hassan’s works as “queer” precisely in their engagement with “contingencies of process”, with queerness as politically creative only in its occupation of the capricious interstice between the nominal and the agitated activities of the processual.6 In a similar vein, Divaagar’s ‘Render Tender’ (2020), a meditative installation that endeavours to expand putative definitions of intimacy and rehabilitation, offers a model of queerness grounded in the malleability and virtual interconnection of bodies.

Drawing inspiration from the art of reiki, a Japanese method of spiritual healing predicated upon trust and touch, the artist here intimates the potential and, perhaps, urgency of a reparative, immaterial condition of physical and emotional

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Divaagar, ‘Render Tender’, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.

interconnectedness. What exactly might we be impelled to “render tender”? What are the ramifications of a cosmic interrelation built upon virtual networks of care and intimacy, especially with regards to a definition of queerness? Hassan and Divaagar present an ideation of queering that appears to situate its political premise in the discursive texture of a tropological intertextuality that resists the detractive stasis of positivist categorisations of queered identities.

A “non-binary” application of queerness would appear as well to enliven the generative concept of a queer, futural communality, one not dissimilar to what Carlos Quijon Jr. considers the “auspicious sociality” of queer methodologies of making.7 This understanding of the ‘communal’ universality of a queer interrelation is deemed to proffer “latitude over lineage, … animated trajectories in favour of genealogies”, 8 potentialising the poststructuralist, postcolonial qualities of queerness in realising neoteric modes of rhizomatic intra-activity.9 ‘Acts of Friendship’ (2019-21), a multi-media, participatory piece sees the artist nor investigate the intricate structures and intuitive connections that constitute the processes of current and potential relationships. Inviting participants to interact with them for a set period of time before encouraging written ruminations on present friendships in their lives, nor profoundly melds the intriguing latency of

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first impressions with the sweet nostalgia of remembrance.

Thus conceived, nor evokes here a (queer) self that appears intrinsically mapped by cosmic networks of past, present and future affinities. Particularly redolent of this notion of queer ‘affinity’, the recent exhibition ‘In Our Best Interests: Afro-Southeast Asian Affinities during a Cold War’, curated

by Kathleen Ditzig and Carlos Quijon Jr., advances as well a postcolonial strand of "re-worlding" that speaks significantly to a queer ecology of convivial communality. Notable here is Ming Wong’s video piece ‘Sunu Jappo/手拉手/Hand in Hand’ which remobilises the historical imbrication of Chinese and Senegalese national narratives in advancing an ecology of "poetic relations" 10 more so characterised “by affinity rather than by citizenship”. 11 These separately conceived works of art reiterate the political potential of a queer optics that outdoes the repetitive polarities of a performative categorisation of queerness. They resist the unidirectionality of heteronormative logics that the latter subconsciously inscribes onto a teleological definition of queered political identities.

In being approached to contribute an essay on the (re)presentation of "queer art" in Singapore, it seemed to me that a necessary problematising of the category ‘queer’ was in order. As I have hoped to elucidate, an understanding of queerness as exercised in works of contemporary art might benefit from an appreciation of uniquely “non-binary methodologies” of queering, a view that especially resonates with the Deleuzian notion of the fold, where “what always matters is folding, unfolding, refolding”. 12 Thus materialised, queerness locates its political force not in the performative reproduction of categorical hegemonies, but in the lateral and implosive act of folding, nevertheless producing productively unfamiliar dimensions of individual, social and postnational intertextualities.

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Notes 1. Wong Bing Hao, "Non-Binary Methodology: Book Review of Contemporary Arts as Political Practice in Singapore", Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia, no. 3 (2019): 217-226.

2. Louis Ho, “Loo Zihan and the Body Confessional”, in Contemporary Arts as Political Practice in Singapore, ed. Wernmei Yong Ade & Lim Lee Ching (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 40.

3. See Wong, 220.

4. Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination”, in Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, ed. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina Barale & David M. Halperin (New York: Routledge, 1993), 307-320 (318), original emphasis.

5. Aki Hassan, ‘Berny Tan in conversation with Aki Hassan’, n.d., accessed March 11, 2021, https://maybewereadtoomuchintothings.com/akihassan/ .

6. "See Saw", Feb 3, 2021, https://www.artforum.com/diary/wong-bing-hao-onsingapore-art-week-2021-84964, emphasis mine.

7. See Carlos Quijon Jr., "Horizons of Queerness, Auspicious Sociality", Oct 7, 2020, https://post.moma.org/horizons-of-queerness-auspicious-sociality/.

8. Ibid.

9. See also Deleuze and Guattari’s juxtaposition of rhizomatic relatedness with genealogical lineage in their call to “oppose epidemic to filiation, contagion to heredity, peopling by contagion to sexual reproduction, sexual production” that signifies as well a uniquely queer condition of interrelatedness; in Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 241.

10. See Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, trans. Betsy Wing (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997) for an incisive view of the significance of "poetics of relation" and in particular "creolisation" in articulating a politically effective postcoloniality.

11. Kathleen Ditzig & Carlos Quijon Jr., “The Colours of World-Making: AfroSoutheast Asian Affinities during a Cold War”, in In Our Best Interests: AfroSoutheast Asian Affinities during a Cold War, exhibition catalogue, 9-15 (11).

12. Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, trans. Tom Conley (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1999), 137.

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Art Collectors: Collecting Habits and A System of Support Ho See Wah

Collectors support artists in more ways than acquiring their works. They are also often patrons of public institutions, and provide support through their foundations and private collections. With the onset of Covid-19, however, the essential quality of this role — to collect art — has had to adapt to changes in the art circuit. Owing to travel restrictions and social distancing measures enacted on a global scale, conventional platforms for the acquisition of works such as through exhibitions, art fairs and studio visits, have slowed down. This precipitated a wave of online activations as the industry adopted new ways of showcasing art with virtual art fairs like OPPO Art Jakarta 2020, and digital viewing rooms on galleries’ platforms like Manila-based Silverlens Galleries and G13 Gallery in Petaling Jaya. Accordingly, collectors have visited Online Viewing Rooms (OVRs), attended virtual auctions, browsed e-catalogues from galleries, and attended studio visits on screen when it comes to viewing and buying art.

In spite of these adaptations, the consensus is that viewing artworks online simply cannot replace the experience of encountering them in person. Melbourne-based Indonesian collector Konfir Kabo says, “Part of the joy of art collecting is the interaction with the artist, the space and the curator… the social aspect. The other part — the more important one — is the ability to observe the tactile nature and the presence of the works.” Indeed, while many digital offerings have popped up in the past year, many are thankful for the easing of restrictions that has allowed for art viewing in real life again. Malaysian collector Tan Hon Yik is also glad he has been able to attend a

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number of local gallery exhibitions and auctions in person.

However, it is unlikely that travelling and gathering for art events will return to their pre-pandemic states, and with the rapid development of a digital infrastructure for art circulation, a virtual approach toward purchasing art seems here to stay.

A more austere climate when it comes to physical showcases of art notwithstanding, collectors have continued to acquire art through their individual, focused approaches. Tan has a purposeful formula for both his modern and contemporary art collections. For the former, his interest is in collecting Indonesian modern abstract works from the Bandung school, with particular attention paid to Srihadi Soedarsono and Mochtar Apin. Additionally, he aims to collect at least one artwork from each phase of an artist’s career. Similarly, for contemporary works, he focuses on building a collection of works that follows an artist’s professional trajectory, and is interested in emerging and mid-career Southeast Asian artists such as Ruben Pang, Yeoh Choo Kuan, Lugas Syllabus and Natee Utarit. This allows him to continue building his collection in a thoughtful manner despite physical limitations.

The collectors I interviewed are all patrons of younger artists. Tan takes the initiative to actively buy the works of young Malaysian artists. “I believe that every collector has a duty to support the local art scene despite the fact that its development is progressing slower than regional counterparts,” he says. These sentiments are echoed by Singapore collector Dennis Tan, who says, “I see my role as helping to support and advocate the works of talented Singapore artists, even more so if they are young emerging artists.” Lito and Kim Camacho have done the same. “I have also personally bought and commissioned some artworks by young artists in order to support them,” says Camacho.

In the same vein, Camacho, in her position as a member of a museum’s acquisition committee, has been avidly advocating for the acquisition of living artists during this difficult period. The Camachos regularly lend artworks from their collection to museums. These loans can sometimes

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take the artwork away from the collector for a substantial period of time, such as the Yayoi Kusama shows going to M+.

After this show, After the show, they will continue to travel to Power Station in Shanghai and then finally, to a museum in South Korea. Through their generosity, collectors play a key role in giving the public access to vaunted artworks.

Other collectors have started their own foundations to champion a cause that they believe in, such as Hong Kong collector Patrick Sun, who is the Founder and Executive Director of Sunpride Foundation. Founded in 2014, it is committed to uplifting the work of LGBTQ artists to push for a more equitable world in this regard. Notably, in collaboration with first the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei and then the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Sunpride Foundation has staged two iterations of ‘Spectrosynthesis’, a monumental survey of LGBTQ art from Asia that aims to, in part, raise awareness for this community. The foundation is preparing for its next exhibition in Hong Kong planned for the last quarter of 2022.

Kabo, along with his family, established the Project Eleven initiative in 2016. “We have been providing support for various projects and artists on an ad hoc basis for years, and we finally decided to give it a name and structure,” says Kabo. “We had a philanthropic advisor conduct a workshop with the family to tease out what was important to us when we give support, and how to balance out the various interests of our family members.” Recent projects include loaning works from their collection, such as for ‘#Perempuan 2021: Contemporary Indonesian Art’ at the Castlemaine Art Museum as part of the Castlemaine State Festival, as well as supporting the production of ‘Composing Archipelagos’ at Contemporary Art Tasmania. In this manner, collectors such as Sun and Kabo perform this additional role of actively advocating and shaping the landscape for contemporary art.

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Indeed, the role of a collector is a multifarious one, and moving forward from this extended lull precipitated by the pandemic, collectors are also cognisant of their expanded capacities. “The support from collectors is even more important now when the art world is struggling with the socio-economic impact caused by the pandemic,” says Sun. We will likely see collectors taking more initiative in shaping their agendas beyond collecting.

We asked the collectors about the favourite artworks in their collection at the moment.

Patrick Sun ‘Pteridophilia’, a series of video works by Zheng Bo that explore eco-queer potentials and extend our imagination of the complex co-existence of all living things on this planet.

Zheng Bo, ‘Pteridophilia I’, 2016, single-channel colour 4K video with sound, 17min. Image courtesy of the artist, Edouard Malingue Gallery and Sunpride Foundation.

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Dennis Tan A current favourite of mine is ‘Blue Tarpaulin’, an oil painting I collected immediately after Singapore’s Circuit Breaker last year. I went to the studio of the talented artist Yeo Tze Yang and purchased it on the spot. It is a picture of an everyday scene of the mundane, but such a powerful interpretation!

Yeo Tze Yang, ‘Blue Tarpaulin’, 2020, oil on canvas, 180 x 105cm.

Image courtesy of the collector.

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Tan Hon Yik That is a difficult question to answer but I currently find myself being constantly drawn to two recent acquisitions: namely, a Srihadi Soedarsono work from the early 1990s entitled ‘Girl on the Shore’, which is listed in the ‘Srihadi Soedarsono: Path of the Soul’ book by Jean Couteau, that I acquired from an Indonesian gallery. The other is a Ruben Pang work entitled ‘Sheath of Flexors’ that he completed during the pandemic.

‘Girl on the Shore’ is a unique work combining a classic Srihadi landscape with a rare female nude figure and fills a gap in my collection in relation to both the subject matter and period in the artist’s career. The work by Ruben Pang reminds me of a modern reinterpretation of a classic Italian renaissance work, which seems quite apt considering that the artist relocated to Italy during the pandemic.

Srihadi Soedarsono, ‘Girl on the Shore’, 1991, 90 x 96cm. Image courtesy of the collector.

Ruben Pang, ‘Sheath of Flexors‘, 2020-2021, oil, alkyd and dammar varnish on aluminium composite panel, 220 × 150cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Primo Marella Gallery.

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Konfir Kabo It is like choosing between my children; I love them all.

Ruth Marbun, ‘One is a Million’, 2018, watercolour on 300gsm cotton paper, cotton fabric, polyester, dimensions variable. Exhibition installation shot at Castlemaine Art Museum. Image courtesy of the artist.

Kim Camacho My favorite artworks in our collection are all by Yayoi Kusama’s: ‘Sex Obsession’, an extremely rare piece which has been exhibited around the world; ‘The Prisoner’s Door’, which was exhibited in the important Kusama retrospective at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Tate Modern, London, Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Whitney Museum, New York; and the two mosaic pumpkins which were two of the three exhibited at The National Art Centre, Tokyo.

Yayoi Kusama, ‘Sex Obsession’, 1992, acrylic on canvas, 194 x 260cm.

Image courtesy of Lito and Kim Camacho.

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NFTs: The Good, The Bad, The Uncertain Future Clara Che Wei Peh

Singapore artist Farizwan Fajari, better known as Speak Cryptic, minted his first Non-Fungible Token (NFT) artwork on 14 March 2021. The visual artist, working across drawings, installations, public art and performance-based mediums, was first introduced to the digital asset earlier this year, prompted by the media frenzy surrounding Christie’s auction of Beeple’s ‘Everydays – The First 5000 Days’. Beeple’s collection was the first instance of an art auction house offering a fully digital artwork and as an NFT. The work went on to achieve a jawdropping price of USD69.3 million, prompting many to ask: what is an NFT, and what does it mean for the future of art?

An NFT is a unique digital asset stored on the blockchain, and can refer to digital files, including artworks and collectibles.

Blockchain is a digital ledger of data that is distributed across a decentralised network of computer systems.

The technology facilitates a record of transactions that is immutable, transparent and entirely traceable. One of its key applications is cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether. Bitcoin is a fungible asset, as different units of Bitcoin are mutually interchangeable. An NFT, in contrast, is by definition unique.

It cannot be equally swapped or exchanged for another. Each NFT is minted onto the blockchain, encoding within it a smart contract, or a string of code and metadata, that certifies its authorship and ownership. NFTs generate and maintain digital scarcity, a feat that was previously less accessible within a digital economy of infinite reproducibility and shareability.

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Still image of Jonathan Liu, ‘Turbulence (Super 8)’, 2017, shot on Super 8 film, digitally processed. Image courtesy of the artist.

NFTs first entered mainstream consciousness in 2017, with the rise of projects such as CryptoKitties, a collectible-centred game developed by Dapper Labs. But it was only this year, driven by the heightened interests in cryptocurrencies and astronomical prices fetched by works by artists like Beeple, that we observe a widespread, rapid adoption of NFTs by artists across the world.

In Southeast Asia, a growing number of artists are beginning to move into the NFT space to explore new possibilities brought forth by the platform. Singapore-based Jonathan Liu, an image-based practitioner, first became interested in learning about NFTs as he was looking for ways to sell intangible and digital artwork. NFTs are able to link to digital images, 3D renderings, sound clips, graphic illustrations and more, offering artists the potential of selling immaterial artworks that are less conventionally offered in the traditional art market. Malaysian multidisciplinary artist Chong Yan Chuah embedded an NFT in the online presentation of his collaborative exhibition ‘FAC3D’, exploring the complex relationships between the human identity and the virtual realm. Chong’s NFT is a video of five 3D-rendered human figures stacked on top of each other, suspended in air, playing on loop. Fashion photographer Shavonne Wong from Singapore offers NFTs on animations of her 3D virtual models, an extension of

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Chong Yan Chuah, ‘ISO_D_ 01’, 2021, 30-second video on loop. Image courtesy of the artist.

her virtual modelling agency, Gen V. And Antonius Oki Wiriadjaja, an Indonesian-American performance and new media artist, sold a 15-second 720p video as his first NFT. Artists are also interested in how NFTs may grant them greater artistic autonomy, direct sales channels and copyright protection. Khai Hori, Director and Partner, Chan + Hori Contemporary, Singapore, observes that many artists who have turned to NFTs have a “strong desire to break free from traditional and domineering structures” of the art ecosystem.

Chan + Hori Contemporary represents artists such as Speak Cryptic, and encourages them to pursue their interests in venturing into the NFT space independently, while continuing to advise them on longer-term trajectories. NFT marketplaces allow artists to list their artworks directly, bypassing the gallery system that traditionally took large cuts for selling and promoting an artist’s work, as Singapore photographer Ernest Wu shares. Wu, Liu and Wong also note that NFTs allow

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artists to indicate resale royalties in the smart contract, which will be credited directly to the token creator’s digital wallet as soon as the work is resold. This ensures that artists will be compensated for their works in secondary sales, a fee that is typically tricky for artists to secure in the wider art market.

Artists are often plagued with concerns of copyright when uploading or screening their works online. After an image or digital file is uploaded onto the web, it is difficult to track and control who is able to view it, download it, reuse it, and for what purposes. With NFTs, however, Wiriadjaja notes that the token is able to authenticate the original creator of the token, allowing the artist to be credited as the asset’s originator, regardless of how the attributed file may be shared. This can be compared to an artwork’s digital signature or certificate of authenticity. Some gallerists have begun to adopt NFTs as a way of transferring the certificate of authenticity to its collectors, even for physical artworks.

Paradoxically, rampant art theft has infiltrated NFT marketplaces, as some have claimed ownership and sold NFTs of artworks that are not their own. Indonesian illustrator Kendra Ahimsa, or Ardneks, announced on his Instagram that his artworks had been plagiarised by NFT collective, Twisted Vacancy. While Twisted Vacancy has admitted to drawing heavily from elements of Ardnek’s illustrations and images, the NFTs that Twisted Vacancy has created and stored onto a blockchain cannot be modified or deleted, a characteristic of blockchain technology. Presently, there are not yet established protocols or regulations that ensure the seller of an NFT is the original creator of the attached artwork. Many have pointed out, however, that art theft has long existed within the art market and is not a problem unique to NFTs. Another key issue associated with the rise of NFTs is the high energy usage of blockchain, cryptocurrencies and relevant applications. The majority of NFTs today are minted on Ethereum through a mechanism called Proof of Work, which involves a network of specialised computers with high computational powers to validate transactions. While alternative, less energy-intensive mechanisms such as Proof

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of Stake have been adopted by other chains such as Tezos, and Ethereum is in the process of moving towards more sustainable processes, it remains that NFTs may impose significant energy costs to be created and maintained. In response, artists like Wiriadjaja believe that the community must dedicate research and serious thought into improving the underlying technologies behind NFTs, to develop the platform and improve its sustainability over time.

Behind the exciting opportunities offered by NFTs, there also lies a dark side to digital asset’s unregulated marketplaces.

Andrew Bailey, Associate Professor at Yale-NUS College, and co-author of an upcoming publication on Bitcoin, points out that foul play may have been involved in high level trades of NFTs, which can be traced by following the on-chain transaction data. Dr. Jin Li Lim, Co-Founder of QCP Capital in Singapore, further warns of growing concerns surrounding the use of NFTs for money laundering and illicit activities.

The speculation and hype have led skeptics to question if NFTs merely present another financial bubble that will soon burst. Artists entering the NFT space are commonly in agreement of the digital asset’s early maturity, especially in comparison to mechanisms within established art markets, and accept the risks and volatilities attached to trading in cryptocurrencies. Hori proposes that “artists, collectors, curators and galleries wanting to engage must be willing to do so beyond their existing comfort and power zones.” In this relatively nascent addition to the larger arts ecosystem, artists must learn to navigate and respond to a new set of rules, which presents opportunities alongside its challenges.

In an effort to make NFTs more accessible to newcomers, Philippine-based Gabby Dizon and Colin Goltra started the First Mint Fund, managed by AJ Dimarucot, to sponsor Southeast Asian artists who are creating their first NFTs. The fund began with Dizon and Goltra’s initial contribution of 1 Ether, and has grown to include donations from other benefactors to 7.9 Ether, or approximately USD22,000 at the time of writing. In addition, Dizon and Goltra also founded

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Antonius Oki Wiriadjaja, ‘Cheese Board Mask’, 2020, 15-second video. Image courtesy of the artist.

the Narra Art Gallery. After purchasing virtual land on Decentraland, a virtual reality platform powered on Ethereum, the two decided to set up a virtual gallery space to showcase their own collections and spotlight Philippine and Southeast Asian artists. Narra Art Gallery, together with Tropical Futures Institute, a multidisciplinary think tank led by Chris Fussner, are co-curators of 'Welcome to the Metaverse, The NFT 101 Showcase' for this year’s ArtFairPhilippines/Projects section.

Earlier in January, Crypto Art Week Asia ran in tandem to Singapore Art Week in late January, accompanied by a digital presence on Decentraland and Cryptovoxels, a similar virtual world, and a physical presence at Kult Yards in Singapore. The event will see its second edition in July, with the key exhibition held physically in Singapore, alongside multiple collaborators exhibiting in the metaverse, as well as satellite exhibitions in neighbouring Southeast Asia cities. George Galanakis, Founder and Creative Director, believes this hybrid format will introduce NFTs to the general public, while celebrating creativity and excellence within the metaverse at the same time.

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Looking into the future, both Bailey and Lim are optimistic about the growing interests, developments and adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain innovations across Southeast Asia. Commercial galleries such as Mucciaccia Gallery, which has a physical space in Gillman Barracks in Singapore, have begun to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as payments for their sales. Yeo Workshop, also based in Singapore, has begun listing NFTs for artists represented by the gallery. The increased adoption of cryptocurrencies may drive further demand for NFTs within the region, making it more attractive for artists to use the platform as an additional distribution channel for their artworks. At the same time, the increased demand for cryptocurrencies and NFTs will also lead to an increase in gas fees, the amount required to create an NFT on the blockchain. At the time of writing, creating an NFT on Ethereum can cost anywhere between USD100 to USD200, a fee that poses a high barrier of entry to many, especially in countries with weaker currencies.

Globally, many believe that NFTs will play an increasingly important role in visual cultures and art histories in the years to come. While the future remains uncertain, Wiriadjaja shares that it is important to claim one’s space within this rapidly moving scene, and be a part of shaping the conversation.

Speak Cryptic also pointed out that, as with any artistic form, those entering this space should respect the medium and format that NFTs offer, and strive to create works that sincerely serve and respond to the platform. Regardless of whether one is a firm believer or a fierce critic of NFTs, the digital phenomenon has shaken up the global — and regional — art world and opened our eyes to the powers and potentials of art in the age of blockchain, and many of us like what we see.

An earlier version of this essay was published on artandmarket.net on 20 April 2021.

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Gallery Hopping

How have galleries pivoted their operations and visions in the past year to continue working with artists and support their community? We check in with five galleries: Creative Space Art Gallery and Studio in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei; ILHAM Gallery in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Manzi Art Space in Hanoi, Vietnam; Lawangiwangi Creative Space in Bandung, Indonesia; i:cat gallery in Vientiane, Laos and to find out how new plans have taken off.

Creative Space Art Gallery and Studio, Brunei Osveanne Osman, Manager and Curator How have you been exhibiting art or working with artists in the past year?

In 2020, we postponed nearly half of our calendar, and these projects were then executed in the last quarter. During the six months on pause, we moved all interactions online. This was mainly on Instagram, which has the largest user base in Brunei. We also opened an online shop to generate revenue for artists and to keep the gallery afloat during this difficult period. It is an affordable one-stop-shop for those looking for materials, tools and art.

Early on, we decided to become an avenue to boost morale through art. Our focus was on the post-pandemic days and we wanted to have something prepared for our community

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when restrictions relaxed. Empowered with a new operating procedure which ensured the safety of our staff and visitors, we opened the exhibition ‘EMERGE 8: Voice’. Then, we took off with the rest of our projects, which included a community project collaboration called ‘The Corner’, which is a physical art hub in the heart of Brunei’s city centre, to reintroduce art to the public.

What are the profiles of the artists you tend to show?

Are there specific interests or themes that inform your gallery programme?

Our gallery focuses primarily on promoting local Bruneian artists. We have also hosted expatriate artists and exhibitions where the bodies of work deal with a “Bruneian” premise.

For our emerging artist exhibition programme, we tend to focus on identity as a theme. The question of identity is a big conundrum for the Bruneian artist. Thus, we are still looking for the local artists whose works express where they are from.

How has your role as a gallery evolved since the pandemic?

Our role has not changed much, perhaps because the art scene in Brunei and our gallery are still quite young.

There are not many active galleries here, so we still function as a hub and beacon for local artists and creatives looking for a stable platform to work with. By keeping conversations going during the pandemic, it helped us build trust with the creative community.

What is a favourite artwork or event from the past year?

One of my favorite pieces we exhibited last year was ‘Titih’ by artist Yasmin Jaidin from the ‘Contoh’ exhibition.

‘Contoh’ came about after a nationwide outcry on the shortage of chicken nuggets, and naturally, we wanted

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to comment on the matter. The premise of the exhibition focused on the role of importing, manufacturing and selfsufficiency in Brunei. Yasmin’s work communicated a sense of displacement through a plot of ricefield made out of tulle.

Yasmin Jaidin, ‘Titih’, 2020, tulle, 200 x 200 x 210cm, installation view in ‘Contoh’ (2020). Photo by Shakira Rozanna. Image courtesy of Creative Space Art Gallery & Studio.

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ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Rahel Joseph, Gallery Director How have you been exhibiting art or working with artists in the past year?

It has been a difficult year as ILHAM was closed for nearly six of the past 12 months. Despite this, we opened two exhibitions ‘Bayangnya itu Timbul Tenggelam: Photographic Cultures in Malaysia’ and ‘Homebody : Finalists from the ILHAM Kids “MCO” Art Competition’. As physical public programming was not feasible during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period, we turned to digital programming to feature artist conversations and artist takeovers, curatorial tours and interviews. We also organised our first 360-degree virtual reality tour of our exhibitions so the public could access the shows during the lockdown. We felt it was important to support artists during this period. We invited Malaysian contemporary artists to do an Instagram take-over every weekend to share their work and practise with a larger public audience. The artists featured included Sharon Chin, Pangrok Sulap, Justin Lim, Haffendi Anuar, Haslin Ismail, and Yim Yen Sum, among others. In November 2020, we launched ILHAM Cribs, where we featured a weekly visit to an emerging artist’s studio, where they were invited to speak about their practice.

These were filmed either by the gallery team or by the artists themselves, and posted on our social media, and each artist received a small per diem.

How has your role as a gallery this evolved since the pandemic?

When the first MCO happened in March 2020, my team and I had to immediately think of strategies to connect with our community at a time when our physical gallery was closed.

We implemented our ILHAM@Home initiative, bringing public and education programming online. By going digital, we have been able to connect to audiences all over the country, as well as internationally, and that has been exciting.

It has helped to make us more accessible, connecting to

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people beyond the small, art-going Klang Valley circle.

In the past, our social media accounts were primarily to promote in-gallery public programmes, which were designed to be in-person experiences. Now, we are programming for a digital audience and using our social media platform as an educational tool. We have curatorial tours, artist interviews, as well as a weekly series where we look more closely at a particular painting or photograph in the exhibition. If we are thoughtful in our approach, we can make the online space meaningful.

What is a favourite artwork or event from the past year?

We held an ILHAM Kids ‘MCO’ Art Competition, inviting kids from the ages of four to 12 to submit an artwork that illustrated family life under lockdown. The idea was to continue engaging with families and to also offer kids a creative outlet. We received over 120 entries and we included 34 as part of the ‘Homebody’ exhibition. I believe these artworks will be an important archive that shows how the COVID pandemic has affected families, particularly young kids.

‘Daddy and Us’ by Embun Jameela binti Mohd Ridzwan, age 7. Image courtesy of ILHAM Gallery.

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Manzi Art Space, Hanoi, Vietnam Manzi Team How have you been exhibiting art or working with artists in the past year?

We opened our new exhibition space in 2020 and expected to have at least 10 group and solo shows in the year. However, due to social distancing campaigns, we could only launch our first event in June 2020 and held four exhibitions in total. Dealing with the unpredictable situation, some artists inevitably felt unsure if they could finish their ongoing projects. Others decided to drop the original plan to explore a new approach in response to recent challenges. As a result, almost all our exhibition arrangements were canceled or rescheduled to the next year.

At the end of November, we managed to organise the 14th edition of ‘Art For You’, our annual pop-up art fair. Fortunately, it was a success and was able to provide us and our artists with the necessary financial support in this difficult time.

We also launched a new series of performances with the concept of ‘Cine-Concert’, combining live sound and music performances with video screenings. Experimental theatre was also part of our art programme last year, where we featured two performances: an interactive play and a script reading.

What are the profiles of the artists you tend to show?

Are there specific interests or themes that connect your gallery programme?

We would like to show and promote young Vietnamese contemporary artists working in different disciplines, whether it is installation, performance art or painting. Since Manzi is not a commercial gallery, our main aim is to give opportunities to local emerging artists for them to show their work to the wider public and receive critique from the art community.

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How has your role as a gallery this evolved since the pandemic?

From the very first day, Manzi is not restricted by the definition of gallery as a white cube for displaying and selling artworks.

We make an effort to continue to implement a collaborative approach and be as open and free as possible. We struggled during the pandemic as a large number of our art buyers were tourists. However, the pandemic has not made us rethink our role or mission.

What is a favourite artwork or event from the past year?

Our favorite must be Nguyễn Trinh Thi’s solo show, the last exhibition of 2020. She introduced her latest sound and video installation, titled 'Landscape #4: How to Improve the World'.

Nguyễn Trinh Thi, ‘Landscape #4: How to Improve the World', 2020.

Photo by Jamie MaxtoneGraham. Image courtesy of Manzi Art Space.

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Lawangwangi Creative Space and ArtSociates, Bandung, Indonesia Aan Andonowati, Founder How have you been exhibiting art or working with artists in the past year?

During the pandemic, our gallery still organised exhibitions both offline and online. We were preparing to celebrate the gallery’s 10th anniversary in 2020 with a physical exhibition titled ‘Trajectory: A Decade of Lawangwangi’. We decided to move it online and present it through an online viewing platform. We also originally planned for a solo exhibition by Eddy Susanto in Europe. Instead, some of the works from his ‘Cosmology’ series were shown in a special presentation in ArtJog in August 2020.

‘Poetical Vector’ by G. Sidharta and ‘A Decade Encounters with Eddy Susanto’ were two exhibitions that happened physically and online. We also collaborated with other galleries to stage shows. One of them was in response to the pandemic, titled ‘Here and Then: Art after the Global Pandemic’.

What are the profiles of the artists you tend to show?

Are there specific interests or themes that inform your gallery programme?

Initially in 2008, our gallery was not commercial. Our first big exhibition was Tisna Sanjaya’s show at the Indonesian National Gallery. The national magazine ‘Tempo’ chose it as the best exhibition of the year, and this earned our gallery a reputation of organising quality exhibitions. In 2010, I initiated the Bandung Contemporary Art Award (BaCAA), a biannual competition. Juror members of BaCAA are chosen from stakeholders of the art community such as artists, critics, journalists, collectors, gallery owners, and directors of art institutions. It was a way of selecting artists to work with and promote internationally. I tend to show artists who are interested in socio-political and religious themes. For me, artworks should reflect contemporary issues and the artists’

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proficiency in their chosen medium. Past BaCAA winners Eddy Susanto, Mujahidin Nurrahman and Etza Meisyara are the three artists we are working with.

How has your role as a gallery evolved since the pandemic?

As we provide a monthly stipend to our artists, they are able to continue making their works without any pause. Our long-term contracts with artists cover production and living costs. If they need additional support to execute their works, we also help with hiring assistants and mentors, such as curators, scientists and experts. These costs are later deducted from their share of the artwork sales. During the quiet time of 2020, we decided to prepare for solo shows in 2021.

Our artists also gave back to the community through a charity sale I organised in April 2020. Proceeds from the sale were used to support neighbours who lost their jobs.

What is a favourite artwork or event from the past year?

My favourite artwork is Eddy Susanto’s ‘The Journey of Panji’ (2016), which was exhibited at the Singapore Art Museum and is now in their collection. Another piece is Mujahidin Nurrahman’s paper cut work titled ‘Slash’ (2019), which has been placed in the Tumurun Private Museum collection.

Mujahidin Nurrahman, ‘Slash’, 2019, pencil on paper, hand cut paper, acrylic, wood, glass, 109.5 x 155.5cm. Images courtesy of ArtSociates.

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i:cat gallery, Vientiane, Laos Catherine O’Brien, Founder How have you been exhibiting art or working with artists in the past year?

With the uncertainty in 2020, we decided to move the gallery to a smaller space. It was our second relocation in two years.

We are committed to our local community. This means not only exhibiting artworks but also providing experience in organising exhibitions, working on artist portfolios, negotiating terms and conditions for art in public spaces, and reaching out to groups who do not usually work with a gallery.

What are the profiles of the artists you tend to show?

Are there specific interests or themes that inform your gallery programme?

The group exhibition at the beginning of 2020, titled ‘localé’, became the theme or inspiration for the last 12 months.

We have continued to exhibit Vientiane artists who share the compulsion to make art. The gallery hosted three solo exhibitions, one group exhibition and two community activities. The focus was on drawing and painting.

How has your role as a gallery evolved since the pandemic?

We made a commitment to be open everyday and to create opportunities to work with the community. Some of our activities included inviting recent art graduates to join our public art workshops, showcasing pottery from the Lao Disabled Women’s Development Centre and being a venue for Mà Te Sai village crafts. We also helped a group of trained artists realise a major photography installation in one of the new shopping centres.

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What is a favourite artwork or event from the past year?

A favourite exhibition is Souphaluck Phongsavath’s solo show ‘in silence’. He presented a series of pastel drawings that reflect the intimacy of the drawing process through the female body. Phongsavath has worked with us for many years and his work is always included in our shows. This one was accompanied by ‘we like to draw’, a one day event where artists were invited to come into the gallery to draw. The range of drawings created complemented Phongsavath’s exhibition.

Poster for Souphaluck Phongsavath’s exhibition ‘in silence’ (2021). Design by Vilakone Phachanthavong.

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Anti Kolektif Kolektif Klub Alana Malika

The Anti Kolektif Kolektif Klub delights and provokes thought in equal parts with memes that poke fun at the art scene in Indonesia and beyond. We speak to the person behind the Instagram account to find out more.

Why did you start the Instagram account?

I started Anti Kolektif Kolektif Klub because I was interested in framing artistic discourse within a humorous context. I wanted to talk about topics that occupy day-to-day conversations in the art world, including gossip, professional struggles, criticisms, and everything in between. When I created this account, the conversation surrounding art collectives seemed to go in circles. Initially, this account was supposed to be a dedicated space to talk about collectives through memes. However as time went on, our audience grew and so did the scope of our account. Instead of only focusing on collectives, it now covers various aspects of the art world and their intersections.

Who is in the Anti Kolektif Kolektif Klub team?

Anti Kolektif Kolektif Klub is run by one person, and people usually refer to me as “Admin” or “Mimin”. I have not revealed my identity on Instagram, but people in my social circle know that I created and manage the account.

Unlike before, I am open about my role behind the account in my personal life. However, I choose to remain anonymous to the public because I think the account is more enjoyable if people do not know who is working behind the scenes.

What is the process of creating a meme? You can describe it specific to a particular meme.

The process of creating memes for this page is quite random. I usually start by adapting meme formats that have been circulating to include relevant art content. Sometimes, I make a set of memes in advance that I publish

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The first Anti Kolektif Kolektif Klub meme.

Art Jakarta and Sims.

Seniman Boom Starter Pack.

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over the span of a few days. There are also times when I make a meme as a direct reaction to a significant event. For example, I made memes on the OPPO Art Jakarta Virtual 2020 while it was running, NFTs while it was trending on Twitter, and many more.

Do you have a meme you are most proud of and why?

Personally, I really liked the first meme I posted on this account because it captures the essence of our name, the Anti Kolektif Kolektif Klub. Some of my favourite memes are the ones I made from scratch, such as the Art Jakarta on the Sims meme or the Counterstrike meme. Besides that, the meme ‘Generasi Boom Seni Rupa Starter Pack’ has also become a favourite of mine. It felt like the first meme that was educational because of its historical nuances.

What is the next goal?

Since becoming the admin behind the Twitter account @medanseni, I realised that these platforms have the potential to go beyond lighthearted rants and satire. Sometimes, I take advantage of the flexibility of the meme format to create polls, ask questions, and spread awareness while maintaining a humorous tone.

Lately, I have been toying with the idea of creating another account about the art world without using memes, perhaps under a different name and concept. Besides that, I am considering hiring a team so the account can cover more topics. I am also pretty overwhelmed making memes every day. For no specific reason, I have put it on myself to post once a day.

I am also interested in expanding to TikTok, but I am still unsure how I could navigate the platform. If someone else is able to bring Southeast Asian art to TikTok and become successful, I would be willing to help out. Or perhaps one day, I could make a meme into an NFT? I am also interested in academicfantasy.xyz, a writing residency on art memes initiated by Anathapindika Dai and Liza Markus. If they are looking to develop the project in the foreseeable future, I would be open to helping out.

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Contributors

Dr Amanda Rogers is Associate Professor at Swansea University, UK. She researches postconflict performance cultures in Southeast Asia and their relationship to the politics of nationality. She specialises in contemporary Cambodian dance and is currently writing a monograph on this topic.

Andari Suherlan is Indonesian Liaison at Art Agenda, S.E.A.. Born in Jakarta and raised with an international background, she received a degree in Fine Arts from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in Australia. Based in Jakarta, she has aspirations to promote modern Southeast Asian art to young collectors.

Arief 'Arman' Rachman is a business manager and visual artist. As a business manager, he is interested in developing community-based projects and ecosystems which require creative and analytical thinking, prioritising performance-based experiences in each process. As an artist, he uses the medium of woodcut to express humanity’s journey as social beings.

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Brian Curtin is an Irish-born art writer, lecturer, and curator of contemporary art. He holds a PhD in Studio Art from the University of Bristol and has been based in Bangkok since 2000. Brian’s work explores dialogues between contemporary art, queer theories and studies in visual and material cultures.

Bruce Quek focuses on the complexity of urban life in his art and writing He observes society with a sense of cynical humour, taking everyday experiences and rendering them absurd. His recent projects examine light pollution in relation to pattern recognition, and the limits of empathy imposed by information overload.

Carlos Quijon, Jr. is a critic and curator based in Manila. He publishes criticism in 'Artforum'.

Together with Kathleen Ditzig, he co-curated ‘In Our Best Interests: Afro-Southeast Asian Affinities during a Cold War’ at the ADM Gallery in 2021.

Clare Veal is a Juris Doctor student at the University of Sydney. As a former art historian, she maintains an interest in how feminist questions of sexual difference, subjectivity and agency can be mobilised to produce tangible social change.

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Clara Che Wei Peh is an arts writer and researcher in Singapore. She graduated from the Courtauld Institute of Art and has worked at the 58th Venice Biennale and NTU CCA Singapore. Currently, she lectures at LASALLE College of the Arts. Her research interests lie in cyberfeminism, new media and the art market.

Dominic Zinampan is a writer and musician. In 2016, he received the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize in Art Criticism at the Ateneo Art Awards. He currently plays bass for the rock band ‘The Buildings’, is a cofounder of the informal research initiative mumo, and is Managing Editor of Green Papaya Art Projects.

farid rakun is trained as an architect, and wears different hats. He is a visiting lecturer at the Architecture Department of Universitas Indonesia, and is a part of the artists’ collective ruangrupa, with whom he co-curated ‘transACTION: Sonsbeek 2016’. He has worked for Jakarta Biennale since 2013 and currently serves as an advisor.

Roger Nelson is an art historian and curator at National Gallery Singapore. He is the author of several books including ‘Modern Art of Southeast Asia: Introductions from A to Z’, and the co-founding co-editor of ‘Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia’, a journal published by NUS Press.

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Gesyada Siregar is a curator, writer and art organiser based in Jakarta. Her curatorial, publication, and art projects are focused on showcasing young artists and a rereading of Indonesian art discourses from the 1940-1990s. She is the subject coordinator of ‘Articulation & Curation’ in GUDSKUL: Contemporary Art Collective and Ecosystem Studies.

Ha Dao practises photography through writing, curating and working on her own projects. She coordinates the programmes at Matca while grudgingly accepting the new position as the only available event host.

Haffendi Anuar initially studied at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence before completing his undergraduate degree in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London and an MFA at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, Oxford. His works are in the collections of the Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Cass Sculpture Foundation, Goodwood and Khazanah Nasional Berhad, Kuala Lumpur.

Ho See Wah is keenly interested in the local and Southeast Asian art ecology, and has worked in various capacities across cultural institutions like Singapore Art Museum, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and NUS Museum. She is a regular contributor to A&M and is interested in generating content that unveils fresh and alternative perspectives from the regional art scene.

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Koh Nguang How is a Singapore artist and independent art researcher. His artistic practice started in 1988 and encompasses photography, collage, installation, performance, documentation, archiving and curating. Under his Singapore Art Archive Project, he has presented various thematic works and exhibitions in Singapore and abroad since 2005.

Lim Sheau Yun is Research Lead at Malaysia Design Archive, where she is currently working on a speculative history of Wawasan 2020. She is also the founder of cloud projects, a publisher of books on art, architecture and the humanities.

She holds a BA in Architecture from Yale University.

Marni Williams is Editor and Publisher at Power Publications, the academic imprint of the University of Sydney's Power Institute Foundation for Art and Visual Culture. She has recently started a PhD at the Australian National University, Canberra, through which she will explore digital publishing's capacity to communicate research multimodally in support of transcultural exchange.

Sara Lau is a writer with interests in the arts and broader creative industries, particularly its intersections with civil society, culture and identity. She also enjoys writing poetry and speaking into the void on Twitter. She currently works as a content marketing executive.

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Timothy Chng is a final-year student pursuing a degree in Art History at University College London. His research centres on queer artistic discourse in Singapore, exploring the possibilities for alternative queer methodologies of making, interrelation and communality. He hopes to divulge the critical intersections between queer theory and new modes of curatorial practice.

Yvonne Low is a Lecturer in Asian Art at the University of Sydney. She has published over 40 books, peer-reviewed journals and exhibition catalogues and is a co-founding member of the Gender in Southeast Asian Art Histories network.

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A&M Team

Nadya Wang is Founder and Editor of A&M and Fashion & Market (FAM). She is committed to shining a spotlight on interdisciplinary practices within the Southeast Asian art and fashion communities. Nadya is also a lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts, and is pursuing her PhD in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Ian Tee is Associate Editor at A&M. Through his interviews and long-form articles, he hopes to gather learning experiences from various practitioners and map out connections in the regional art ecosystem.

Ian is also a visual artist exploring youth in relation to the themes of rebellion, vulnerability and identity.

Vivyan Yeo is Writer at A&M. Through interviews and art historical research, she is keen on investigating hidden trends in the regional art scene. She has had art world experiences at Cambodian Living Arts in Phnom Penh, Gajah Gallery, NUS Press and Christie’s Singapore. She is also Art Advisor at Art Agenda, S.E.A..

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Izz Bachtiar is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Singapore. Constantly on the lookout for inspiration, he is motivated by the challenge of how well he can move, excite or convince an audience through his work. He is also Designer at Art Agenda, S.E.A..

Alana Malika manages content on the A&M website and social media platforms while also regularly contributing articles. A lifelong enthusiast of Indonesian art, she is passionate about creating a dedicated virtual space for Southeast Asian art. She is currently pursuing her BA in Global Studies from UCLA.

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Principal Patrons Mr and Mrs Tan Hon Yik nTan Corporate Advisory

Patrons A+ Works of Art Gajah Gallery Richard Koh Fine Art Roopa Dewan Silverlens Galleries Singapore Art Museum Wei-Ling Gallery

Champions Santy Saptari Art Consulting Sutton

Friend Richard Pigossi

Thank you to all our Principal Patrons, Patrons, Champions and Friends, including those who would prefer to remain anonymous, for making CHECK-IN possible!

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We will hold our annual A&M conference, titled LANDING, to continue conversations from CHECK-IN. Visit artandmarket.net for more details.

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