Shifting Grounds, New Horizons: Thinking and doing contemporary Southeast Asian art now is a 2-day online symposium gathering key voices in the field of contemporary Southeast Asian art. The symposium is intended as a space for renewing knowledge and conversations around critical developments in art and curatorial practice, projects of art history and exhibition history, and the ever-shifting coordinates of contemporary Southeast Asian art itself – all within a context of the expanded artworlds for, and public engagement with, the region’s art over the last few decades. To this end, Shifting Grounds. New Horizonsencourages thinking and discussion across historical and present-day contexts, as well as future trajectories of practice that are shaping the field.

Online 3–4 November 2022 (If you are attending both days, please register for each)

The symposium will feature presentations by emerging and established artists, curators, art writers and scholars working in the field of contemporary Southeast Asian art. Alongside an opening keynote, it will comprise the following 6 key sessions over the two days:

• The Curatorial and Exhibition-Making
• Contemporary Practices of Art
• Revisiting the 1990s
• Shaping Knowledge
• Alternate Mappings
• Collective Ecologies and Methodologies

Convenors

Dr Michelle Antoinette, Monash University, and Dr Francis Maravillas, National Taipei University of Education.

Keynote:

Artist-Curator and Manifesto in Southeast Asia: Prefiguring Contemporary Reciprocities – Patrick Flores, Professor of Art Studies, University of Philippines and Curator, Vargas Museum, Manila

Program

DAY 1 Thursday 3rd November

8.45am-3.00pm Taipei time / 11.45am-6pm Melbourne (AEDT)

Symposium welcome

Spiros Panigirakis, Head, Fine Art Department, Monash University, Melbourne

Lin Chi-Ming, Director of Critical and Curatorial Studies of Contemporary Art program, National Taipei University of Education

Introduction

Michelle Antoinette and Francis Maravillas

Keynote

Artist-Curator and Manifesto in Southeast Asia: Prefiguring Contemporary Reciprocities

Patrick Flores, Professor of Art Studies, University of Philippines and Curator, Vargas Museum, Manila

Discussant: David Teh, Associate Professor, National University of Singapore and Co-Curator 17th Istanbul Biennial 2022

Session 1: The Curatorial and Exhibition-Making

Exhibition Making as a Member of the Community: On Generous Structure and a Jumbo Jar of Tea

Mira Asriningtyas, Independent curator, writer and co-founder of LIR space, Yogyakarta

Compelling Coordinates: Curating Afro-Southeast Asia

Carlos Quijon Jr., Art historian, critic and curator, and fellow of the research platform ‘Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia’ at the Getty Foundation

A proposal for transcultural and transnational curating

Đỗ Tường Linh, Co-curator, Still Present! 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art 2022

Moderator: Grace Samboh, Researcher, curator and writer attached to Hyphen — and affiliated to RUBANAH Underground Hub

Session 2: Contemporary Practices of Art

Balai Bikin

Yee-I Lann, Artist, board member for Forever Sabah, and co-founding partner of KOTA-K Studio, Kota Kinabalu

The Call of Fragility, 2022

Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina, Jakarta-based artist duo

BẾN – NGỌC THUỴ – KASSEL

Nhà Sàn Collective, represented by co-founder and co-director Phương Linh Nguyễn

Moderator: Alia Swastika, Curator and Director, Jogja Biennale Foundation in Yogyakarta

General Discussion and Closing Remarks

Led by Michelle Antoinette and Francis Maravillas

DAY 2 Friday 4th November

8.45am-3.30pm Taipei time / 11.45am-6.30pm Melbourne (AEDT)

Welcome and Introduction to Day 2

Michelle Antoinette and Francis Maravillas

Session 3: Revisiting the 1990s

Frolicking on Slippery Grounds during the Roaring 1990s and early 2000s

Apinan Poshyananda, Chief Executive and Artistic Director, Bangkok Art Biennale

A footsoldier’s map of ‘Southeast Asian contemporary art’ in the 1990s

Beverly Yong, Co-Founder and Director, RogueArt, Kuala Lumpur

Thirty Years: A Short Story about Australian/Asian Artistic Dialogues

Julie Ewington, Independent curator and writer, and Chair of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney

Moderator: Russell Storer, Head Curator of International Art, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Session 4: Shaping Knowledge

Year of doing Poor Digital Art History

Simon Soon, Senior Lecturer in Art History, Visual Art Studies Program, Universiti Malaya

The City in Time: Ways of Thinking about Art and Urbanism in Vietnam and Cambodia

Pamela Nguyen Corey, Associate Professor, Art and Media Studies, Fulbright University Vietnam

prep-room, curatorial: (re)claiming the “museum” in a university museum

Siddharta Perez, Curator, National University of Singapore Museum

Moderator: Adrian Vickers, Professor of Southeast Asian Studies, University of Sydney

Session 5: Alternate Mappings

Renderings of Southeast Asia

Ho Tzu Nyen, Singapore-based artist and filmmaker, and co-curator for the 7th Asian Art Biennial, Taichung, 2019

Roger Nelson, Assistant Professor, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Session 6: Collective Ecologies and Methodologies

After ‘lumbung one’

ruangrupa, Jakarta-based artist collective, and Artistic team of documenta fifteen (represented by Ade Darmawan, Farid Rakun, Indra Ameng, and Julia Sarisetiati TBC)

Moderators: Michelle Antoinette and Francis Maravillas

Closing Discussion: Reflections and Responses to the Symposium

Led by Michelle Antoinette and Francis Maravillas

The symposium follows the publication of a special double issue on ‘Contemporary Art Worlds and Art Publics in Southeast Asia’ (2020) in the journal World Art, edited by Michelle Antoinette and Francis Maravillas.

Shifting Grounds, New Horizons is jointly hosted by the Art History & Theory program at Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) in Melbourne, and the MA in Critical and Curatorial Studies of Contemporary Art programme (CCSCA) at the National Taipei University of Education, Taipei. It is supported by the Australian Research Council (DE170100455), CCSCA, and MADA.

Image: Ho Tzu Nyen, One or Several Tigers, 2017, synchronized double channel HD projection, automated screen, shadow puppets, 10 channel sound, show-control system. Courtesy of Kiang Malingue Gallery and the Artist.