International Artist Residencies

The following is a transcript of the International Artist Residencies panel, co-hosted by the Asian
Cultural Council, Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation, and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Clubon October 12, 2018 as part of Creative China Festival 2018. The hosting organizations share thebelief that international cultural exchange is essential to fostering understanding and respect inthe world. This immersive international exchange holds the potential for powerfully transformative
experiences that benefit the individual artists involved, the communities in the exchange country,
and the artists’ communities at home.
Focusing primarily on residency programs committed to the exchange of artists between China
and the United States, International Artist Residencies gathered arts professionals who design
and run residencies alongside artists who have participated in such programs for a three-panel
discussion: Artist Residencies and Community Engagement, The Experience of the Residency,
and After the Residency. Representatives from programs in China and the United Statespresented a range of residency models that employ varying strategies to facilitate community
engagement, maintain alumni networks, and provide artists access to global artistic communities.
To build on the momentum of this panel, Beijing Contemporary Arts Foundation has compiled alist of artist residency programs and resources in the U.S. and China. Please refer to the link at：https://bcaf.org.cn/International-Artist-Residencies

Please note that positions or titles noted at the time of the panel may have changed since thepublication of this transcript.

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESCatalogue

P6

PrefaceCui Qiao, President, Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation

P8

Introduction
Mia Yoo, Artistic Director, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
Miho Walsh, Executive Director, Asian Cultural Council
Ping Chong, Artistic Director, Ping Chong + Company

P14

Panel I Artist Residencies and Community Engagement
Moderator: Jamie Bennett, Executive Director, ArtPlace America
Panelists: Mia Yoo, Artistic Director, La MaMa Experimental Theatre ClubJay Brown, Founder, Lijiang Studio
Fito Segrera, Former Head of Research/Creation, Chronus Art Center

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Panel II The Experience of the Residency
Moderator: Jane DeBevoise, Board of Directors, Asia Art Archive
Panelists: Jennifer Wen Ma, Visual Artist
Li Mu, Visual Artist
Ursula Eagly, Dancer/Choreographer

P43

Panel III After the Residency
Moderator: Cecily Cook, Director of Programs, Asian Cultural Council
Panelists: David J. Diamond, Curator, La MaMa Umbria International Programs
Susan Hapgood, Executive Director, International Studio & Curatorial Program
René Lorenceau, Former CEO, Swatch Art Peace Hotel

P60

Conclusion
Karen Wong, Deputy Director, New Museum

P62

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Appendix: Panelist Bios

Preface

Cui Qiao
President
Beijing Contemporary
Art Foundation

The mission of the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation is to facilitate the development andcooperation of young artists on an international scale. We have found an urgent need shared
among the young artists we have come into contact with to be: at a certain point, artists reach abottleneck which requires more profound independent reflection and exposure to diverse cultures
to break through and prepare them for a later stage in their career. In an age when globalizationis commonly questioned, we need to break out of our self-restrictions and embrace, explore, andlearn from the complicated and challenging cultural environment we live in. Artists can inspire
each other and establish a personal style by observing, exchanging, and collaborating withartists in other fields. Language barriers are never the primary obstacle. The true problem lies in amindset that lacks confidence and independent thinking.
Art institutions and foundations in China have a limited understanding of artist residencies.
Comparatively, residency programs in the United States and Europe have more resources
and professional experience. They help artists throughout the whole process from projectfunding, mentorship, and personalized support to follow-up project funding and other activities.
Longstanding artist residencies are a creative scholarly mechanism to observe the community ofinternational artists and the effects of international exchange. Many Chinese artists have gained
experience abroad, which has had a decisive and transformative impact on their career.
We sincerely hope that the initiation of the ACC/BCAF Contemporary Arts Fellowship Program andcollaboration with international organizations will gradually nourish the lives and creativity of artists.
These extraordinary talents are the cornerstone of China’s future and of Beijing Contemporary Art
Foundation’s mission to help build a civil society.

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESIntroduction

Mia Yoo
Artistic Director
La MaMa Experimental
Theatre Club

My name is Mia Yoo, I am the Artistic Director and part of the team at La MaMa. We are sothrilled to partner with the Asian Cultural Council and the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation,
two institutions that have impacted and inspired me and so many others on this panel. Cultural
exchange and international artist residencies are at the core of what we do at La MaMa, and weare thrilled to share and gain insights from everyone gathered here today.

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESIntroduction

Miho Walsh
Executive Director
Asian Cultural Council

Welcome, everyone. I’m Miho Walsh, Executive Director of the Asian Cultural Council, and I am
thrilled to be here as part of the 2018 Creative China Festival.
ACC’s Fellowship program provides opportunities for immersive, transformative cultural exchange
between Asia and the United States towards a vision of advancing international dialogue,
understanding, and respect.
We at ACC believe that the arts have a unique ability to reflect and communicate the values,
attitudes, and human concerns of society. Artists reflect the human condition. They make manifest
the ephemeral, give voice to the indescribable, and reveal what cannot otherwise be seen.
We believe that international residencies foster relationships between individual artists, scholars,
and arts professionals across cultures and international borders in a way that has the potential tochange the world.
We see this as a gathering of partners. Either we are current partners, already working together insome capacity, or we are potential future partners. Our intention for today is to open a constructive
and inclusive dialogue around the topic of artist residency programs in all of their variety. We willhear from the architects of residency programs and the artists who have participated in them, andquestion what constitutes success in our work.
All of us engaged in the implementation of artist residencies are in this for the long game. We
know that developing new avenues of communication; innovating forms of expression; andbuilding trust, understanding, and collaboration takes time and patience. We believe in the powerof art, the creativity of artists, and the potential that all of us have to lay the foundation for effective
and lasting international engagement to assure our shared future.

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESIntroduction

Ping Chong
Artistic Director
Ping Chong +Company

So nice to see everybody here today on this very beautiful, autumn, New York day. We are all of us
in this room today from different places, some far-flung, some nearby. I am a New Yorker. I havebeen in New York all my life. No matter how far away I have been, whether it was Lake Titicaca,
Peru; Piatra Neamt, Romania; Jakarta, Indonesia; or Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of theCongo. Like a homing pigeon, I would always find my way home to New York City. Except foran accident of fate, except for four months at the beginning of my life, I would have been a one
hundred percent New Yorker. So, I too, I am from a different place.

in facilitating dialogue, building bridges, and making connections nationally and internationally.
Now the inclusive immigration policies of the last forty years may refer back to a version with its
Xenophobic quotas. That not so subtle message of hate emanating from a barbarous leadershiphas already resulted in sadly and tragic acts that will not end anytime soon. The history of theworld is long with the demonizing and scapegoating of others. It is our duty as citizens of theworld, as artists, and above all as human beings to defend the humanity of the other. Because weare the other and the other is us.

New York City is known as an international, cosmopolitan, kaleidoscopic city. For example, over ahundred and fifty languages are spoken in Queens. All you have to do is take a city bus or subway,
and you will see the world staring you in the face from across the aisle.

Many, many years ago, when my life as an artist had barely begun, I did something terrifying fora child from the urban mecca of New York City. I hitchhiked across the country for three months
with three hundred dollars in my pocket. One of my goals was to get to Arizona to visit the Hopi
Nation. Now, you might not think of this as an international exchange. But it was international. I wascarrying Frank Waters’ Book of The Hopi, a cultural guide to the Hopi. I learned that there would
be a dance, the Dance of the Gods, going on the next morning on one of the mesas. That night, I
slept in a shallow cave facing the vast horizon of a spectacular desert. The next morning, I sat in
the village square under the blinding white light of the desert sun, one of only three outsiders, oneof three others eager to see what I had so studiously read about.

Here in the big apple, you can diet on Uzbeki bread and kebabs one night and Nepalese momos
the next, go to your usual Japanese sushi joint or Mexican cantina. However, the New York Cityof my youth in the fifties and sixties was a different place. There were no sushi places or Mexican
cantinas, and pizza was the new kid on the block. It was a culturally poorer place in every way anda deeply bigoted one.
As a person of color, there were places you could not live in and homes you could not buy. There
were places you could not go to and there was an invisible glass ceiling as to how far you could getin life. If you notice, the Statue of Liberty is facing Europe. Back then in the fifties and sixties, some
Europeans were more welcome than others, which is to say the rest of us were not welcome atall, only tolerated. It is worth remembering that it was not until 1965 that the discriminatory quotas
for immigrants from non-white nations were lifted. And in the Southern states at this time, black
people were being lynched and black women were being raped by savages who call themselves
Christians with no access to justice.
It is against the backdrop of this historical reality that my consciousness as a person and as
an artist was shaped and formed. It is against the tragic reality of this nation and the genocidal
and destructive fury of the last century in the world that has made clear to me the importanceof dialogue and contact with a difference, and with the other. Clearly, artists have a role to play

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The experience was transformative. There in the arid desert, in a village that modern society would
condemn as primitive and wanting, I experienced something profoundly human and fundamental.
What I experienced that day was what was lacking in our materialistic modern world: a sense ofconnection with the natural world, a sense of the sacredness of all life, a humility and humanity
beyond words, and an elegant simplicity. It was after those three months of travel across the vast
United States that my life as an artist began.
In my forty-six years as an artist, I have had the privilege of working in and with many othercultures. The value of these encounters continue to enrich my life. I have tried in my own small
way to encourage recognition of our common humanity in all cultures, but also to celebrate themiraculous beauty of our differences. Here, at La MaMa, at least I know our humble efforts toward
these goals will live on. Thank you.

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Panel I: Artist Residencies and Community Engagement

Moderator

Jamie Bennett: I am honored to present with three extraordinary colleagues. Each will share an
example of an artists’ residency and what it means to be an artist outside their home country.
Throughout this conversation, we will pick up on themes, especially those around community
engagement.

Jamie Bennett
Executive Director
ArtPlace America

La MaMa Experimental Theatre ClubMia Yoo
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theater.
Providing the space and time to dream and experiment is at the core of how we fulfill our mission.
All the shows we present at La MaMa have rehearsal studio time here at Great Jones Street. We
think of these periods as residencies for artists to develop their work and their craft.

Panelists

La MaMa’s residency program, and our relationship with artists, is built on trust. With this trust
comes the freedom to take risks, and in this environment of risk-taking—going beyond where weare comfortable—we believe groundbreaking work can happen.

Mia Yoo
Artistic Director
La MaMa Experimental
Theatre ClubJay Brown
Founder
Lijiang Studio in Yunnan
Province

Fito Segrera
Former Head of Research/
Creation
The Chronus Art Center

60-70% of productions presented at La MaMa are world premieres, and many of them areinterdisciplinary. The creative team assembled during the residency period includes artists fromvarious fields: theater artists, media and technology experts, designers, visual artists, dancers,
choreographers, musicians, directors, writers, actors, teachers, and different kinds of community
leaders and activists. The risk of not knowing what will be on our stages until opening night is partof the ethos at La MaMa. We jump off the cliff with the artist.
La MaMa has many resident artists and companies, some of which have been with La MaMa
for decades. What residencies entail shifts based on each specific company and their needs.
Sometimes, it is about studio space, or working and connecting within the La MaMa network.

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESLanguage Reversal
2018. Image courtesy of
La MaMa Experimental
Theatre Club

Sometimes, it is about fiscal sponsorship and fundraising. For most, La MaMa is their artistic
home, a central place to present their work.
We also run a residency, La MaMa Umbria International, which fosters cross-cultural, creative
collaborations in the countryside in Italy. The artists and residencies interface with ourcommunities and educational programs. At La MaMa, we are focusing more and more on fully
integrating these artist residencies into our ongoing programs, to create an ecosystem that canwork more symbiotically. More resources can go to the artists in the form of fees from these
programs.
We look to increase the visibility of and deepen engagement with our communities by giving ouraudiences multiple entry points into artistic content and the artists’ creative processes. We wantto cultivate an audience that is engaged with the process. Their interaction and confrontation withan artist’s work inform the development of that particular work and that artist.
We also have an artistic residency at La MaMa that allows performers from all over the world tocollaborate. With the production Alaxsxa | Alaska, for example, we saw artists from the Alaskan
Native Heritage Center and from Ping Chong + Company conducting Native American chanting
and drumming workshops with youth in Alaska and New York City. Other La MaMa artists have led
storytelling workshops and created theatrical pieces for our La MaMa Kids program, or facilitatedworkshops with universities such as Sarah Lawrence College’s Theatre Program.

and his collaborators in Serbia, we decided that we wanted to continue with the presentationeven though the Serbian artists would not be able to travel to New York City. To facilitate thisprocess, we created a residency that connected artists in New York City and Serbia. The resulting
performance engaged artists in both locations in real time through interactive, live digital tools.
This use of technology constructed a new way of carrying out cross-cultural residencies—a waythat is sustainable over time and incredibly dynamic. It provides the opportunity for communities
in remote locations, which might not normally be able to connect, to be in dialogue. With theknowledge of the physical distance between these two places, breaking boundaries to cometogether in a liminal territory feels hyper-connected. We hope that technology, which is often
perceived to be isolating, can actually create a platform that allows for the sharing of different
perspectives.
This is what we do at La MaMa—use art as a vehicle to bring people and communities together
and facilitate human connections, despite the growing tendency to fear the other and theunknown. In this intertwined and interdependent world, I believe it is our responsibility to forge new
ways of building a harmonious coexistence for the next generation. This work must happen now.

Finally, I want to talk about a specific project, Language Reversal, and the way that residency took
shape recently at the Ellen Stewart Theatre. Guggenheim Fellow and community activist artists
Aaron Landsman collaborated with Serbian collective Kulturanova after the U.S. elections inJanuary 2016. He spoke to many Serbian artists and activists about their form of resistance during
and after Milošević, and from this content, began to create a work in progress with Kulturanova.
In fall 2018, I became aware that obtaining visas for these artists might be problematic. It is
still unclear whether that had something to do with the application itself or the present politicaladministration. Between La MaMa, our art and technology consultancy center CultureHub, Aaron,

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PANEL I: ARTIST RESIDENCIES AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESNa Yingyu, still from
Smoke Signals From
the Border, 2013, video.
Image courtesy of
Lijiang StudioLijiang Studio
Jay Brown

Lijiang Studio is a residency program based in Lashihai, just outside Lijiang in Yunnan, China.
The residency is immediately adjacent to a local family’s house, to whom we are very closely
connected. I’d like to present two videos that are indicative of our relationship with two artists that
I have worked with at Lijiang Studio over the years beginning in 2005. People have asked me how
I measure the success of the studio. My first thought was that the most successful projects arethose that generate other projects.

Na Yingyu, still from
Smoke Signals From
the Border, 2013, video.
Image courtesy of
Lijiang Studio

Border (Bianzhai Fenghuo, 1957). The original film had Han professional actors speaking Mandarin,
playing Jingpo minority characters. This project, however, had Naxi, non-professional actors
speaking their own Naxi language, which is then translated into Chinese and English in subtitles.
The film shooting began as a social activity and continued every time we had a party or an event.
The whole village was proud of this project. When I think about impact, I think of the son of two
leading characters, who himself played two major roles. He was 16 at the time and now he has
graduated from college to become a filmmaker.

This is a still from a video that was made in 2007, called Our Homeland! Gone Just Like That. Na
Yingyu came to our studio through an open call. He read for almost three months, becoming more
knowledgeable than anyone else through his research process. During that process we werealso recording a CD of a local farmer orchestra, who played elegiac funeral music that was not
popular at all. Na Yingyu became very close with these musicians, and was invited to their village.
During this research process Na Yingyu started shooting a video of their life, which became botha documentary on its own, and a chapter in the longer video piece, Our Homeland! Gone Just
Like That. In another chapter of that video piece, Na met a dongba shaman, He Xiudong, and on atrip to his village in the mountains, ended up shooting a music video for the shaman’s cousin, anaspiring pop star. All that material made it into the final video piece.
At the same time, Na Yingyu was focusing on his own aesthetic and techniques. He ended up with
50 hours of footage and edited it down into six hours comprised of 59 chapters of varying lengths.
Some are feature-length documentaries, some are 30 seconds long. These chapters are a living
Mobius strip. You can enter at any place and continue along, and eventually, you expose yourself
to all the materials, but there is no way to break the narration.
Another project relates to the 1950s, when the government was sponsoring propaganda films
about rebuilding the nation, trying to get people to believe in the communist development project.
We decided to remake shot-for-shot one of the most famous films called Smoke Signals from the18

PANEL I: ARTIST RESIDENCIES AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESSamuel Adam Swope
Floating Room, 2016,
installation. Image
courtesy of Chronus Art
CenterChronus Art Center
Fito Segrera

Chronus Art Center (CAC) is a new media art nonprofit located in Shanghai’s M50 Art District.
Founded in 2013, CAC presents exhibitions and produces new media art situated at theintersection between art, technology, and science. My role was to create CAC’s Research andCreation Fellowship Program and direct projects for the Art & Technology@ (A&T@) Program. As of
May 2019, I am no longer Head of Research and Creation at CAC.
To date, there have been five editions of this Research and Creation Fellowship. Our 2018 Fellow
Mileece, is a sonic artist, composer, and interactive ecology designer. She is the first female artist
to work with us in the field of new media.
Past fellows have included Daniel Franke, Samuel Adam Swope, Andrej Boleslavsky, and Mattia
Casalegno. Daniel Franke, a German curator/artist, worked with CAC on a project called “Abstract
History Machine.” This machine uses different layers of technology and materials in a single
device, creating a “time-sculpture” that vacillates between solid and liquid, order and disorder. The
project took a year—six months into the research, and six months of figuring out how to put thismachine together—and some engineers were involved.
2016 Fellow, Samuel Adam Swope, is a Hong Kong-based American artist known for his Aerial Art.
At CAC, he created Floating Room, which took household objects—a clock, a trash bin, a mirror,a lamp, and a cardboard box—and embedded drones within them. We used vacuum-forming
techniques to make the objects light enough to fly. You could enter this living room with objects
flying in the space around you. They were semi-autonomous, however, and would sometimes
crash, so your experience could be traumatic.

Andrej Boleslavsky
Hide & Seek, 2017, VR/
MR. Image courtesy ofChronus Art Centerof objects, both simulated and recorded. Besides the main player wearing the headset, otherindividuals are invited to camouflage themselves within the VR. They receive a retroreflective
marker and appear inside the digital world as another abstract object. Yet they have to move insimilar ways to how the autonomous abstract objects do in order to stay hidden from the main
player wearing the VR headset. The goal of the player inside the VR is to identify which of theobjects is a real person, while the goal of the players outside of VR is to stay unnoticed for as longas possible.
Another recent work, The Aerobanquets RMX by New York-based, Italian artist Mattia Casalegno,
was quite successful. A collaboration between Casalegno and chef Flavio Ghignoni Carestia, theproject was a “VR dinner” experience. The chef would cook small dishes for three people wearing
an Oculus headset, immersing them in a world algorithmically generated based on the recipeof each dish. The twelve dishes were represented by different worlds, shifting the participants
between different universes. The food is tracked using the motion tracking system, therefore the3D representation of it that is experienced with the VR moves accordingly to your hands.
The second program I run is Art & Technology@ (A&T@), an experimental program in which we
collaborate with Chinese artists working outside the new media scope, and support them toventure into the new media (science and tech) space. Our first partner was Liu Xiaodong, one ofChina’s most famous contemporary painters. Over the year, my main job was to assist him in how
to re-think his practice within the context of technology. We came up with Weight of Insomnia, apainting robot that would paint, in real time, the social dynamics of three cities in China—Beijing,
Shanghai, and his hometown in Liaoning. I wrote the software and a team of engineers built the
robot. We sent out cameras to the sites, which in turn, sent data back to our gallery. Every second
the camera would take a picture but each robot would take about half an hour to paint objects
which were moving at that time. The robot would finish the painting according to the photo andthen would take another frame to draw a new layer. After three months, you could see layers andlayers of social dynamics. The artist says it is like a digital archaeological object.

Another project is Hide and Seek by Andrej Boleslavsky, a digital artist from Slovakia. In this, hetook the classic game “hide and seek” and recreated it in VR. One person is “blindfolded” by the
VR headset and surrounded by a group. The headset displays the surrounding world as a mixture

Another artist I have worked with is Beijing-based, conceptual artist Yan Lei. One of Yan Lei’s
projects sent a large number of paintings to BMW factory, one painting a day. They were painted

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PANEL I: ARTIST RESIDENCIES AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Mattia Casalegno
Aerobanquets RMX,
2017. Image courtesy ofChronus Art Center

LIU Xiaodong
Weight of Insomnia,
2015-2017, Installation
view. Image courtesy ofChronus Art Centerwith one flat color and sent back to the museum. This project was the starting point for ourcollaboration. Since the beginning he wanted to work with us on the idea of the destruction of
the image as a sort of digital weapon. As a result, we created a monstrous sculpture with 86
LCD screens mounted on a rotating structure. Artificial intelligence sits at the center. Visitors
could submit photos through their phones. The image would first appear on all screens, thensimultaneously be turned into flat color—calculated from the average pixel color—and translatedby the artificial neural network into text (a description of the image by the machine). In this way, theimage became the color, the color became the text, and the image disappeared.
Beyond fellowship programs, CAC also runs art shows and workshops. We started the program
called CAC-TOOLS where all the technologies we produce for the projects will be available to the
public for free. People can download all these pieces of code or software and use them however
they want.

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PANEL I: ARTIST RESIDENCIES AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Panel Discussion

Jamie Bennett: In terms of community engagement, some artist residencies create bubbles forartists to be away from the world and contemplate. Others encourage artists to engage with thelocal community. For each of you, what does community engagement mean in the context of anartist residency? Who is the community?

When we started the studio, we never told anybody what we were going to do; I didn’t want tomake a promise of what we would or wouldn’t do, and then possibly break the promise. I wanted tokeep it as open as possible. I let people figure out between themselves what we were doing andwhat they might want from that.

Mia Yoo: At La MaMa, we have a local community and a global community of artists andaudiences. Our local community in the East Village and on East 4th Street is very much artistdriven and community-driven. Our global community is one that we have fostered over 50 years
by connecting people from all over the world. La MaMa’s models of community engagement andintegration differ based on our artists, residencies, and locations. Many of our programs look atconnecting geographically distant communities. Other programs focus on engagement withinsmaller communities, like classrooms or senior centers.

Some of the more successful artworks at the studio are strong both as artworks, and as
experiences within the artist community, and within the context of the materials, documents,
history, the local participants involved. If you can possibly weigh these two aspects equally in the
production process, I feel that does the most justice to both the art and the community.

Jay Brown: I was interested in the possibility of a studio in a community where contemporary
artists do not have production requirements. Those requirements, coming from another world, as
it were, might pull you out of the relationship with the community. If your priority is to produce for adifferent context than the community you are working in, then you may not build relationships that
could lead to the next project in that community.
I was thinking about this idea when I came into contact with the traditional subsistence farming
communities I encountered in the mountains of southwest China. I grew up in the city in the
midst of globalization. The community in Lashihai grew up in the opposite situation. We were very
curious about each other. They wondered what was going to happen to their community in thecontext of globalization, and I wondered what would happen to professional artists if they madea commitment to a particular place. That was the idea behind making an artists’ residency in thisspecific meeting point of a subsistence farming community and an international artist group.
As for the location and timing of the residency, both are important. You need the time andsensitivity to find out what is possible and how to respond to what the community is doing. The
story of people's relationship with the land and all the traditional culture that comes from that has
a long history.

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We do not have funding that requires us to achieve certain things in the community. We arepretty free in that way. In Lijiang, there is a very different sense of public culture and public spacecompared to what we know in cities. You are a family. Whatever you do belongs to the street. It’s
open and undefined.
Fito Segrera: Our community ranges from university students from across Shanghai to people
who are interested in technology as a hobby to young artists who want to learn about technology
to apply it to their own projects. Our community is growing. We are now trying to work with kids aswell. We are not only doing programming or robotics for arts, we also do simple things and explore
how to use these new gadgets when they come into the world. It is quite a broad community.
Jamie Bennett: I want each of you to think about a specific project that has either gone
unbelievably well or unbelievably wrong when it comes to the frame of community engagement.
Can you give an example?
Fito Segrera: I can quickly give an example of each. The VR dinner was very successful. We had
people literally begging at the door to see the exhibition from the outside. Some people were eveninterested in acquiring the piece. It might become a permanent restaurant in Nanjing, and in turn,a platform for the creation and experimentation of art and gastronomy.
As for a lesson—when I first arrived in China, I had a Western idea of how art works, especially

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIEScontemporary new media art. I thought I could start high-level, critical, technology-heavy
workshops dedicated to new media artists. No one showed up. In the beginning, it was a total
failure. People only wanted to learn about technology and did not want to think about the rest.
Jay Brown: One of the most extraordinary disappointments I have ever had was working with anartist, who came to the studio and then had the idea to create a website of a Naxi grandmotherwho had AIDS. The website asked for money. The character was fictional, using someone else’s
photo. She then planned to use the money to make her artwork. She proposed it to me and thenfreaked out when she realized what she had said. The idea that she thought this was OK blew mymind.
One of the most satisfying projects I’ve experienced is working with Petra Johnson. I first met
her in Shanghai in 2004. Interesting for this context, she has also been a resident at Swatch andworked with Chronus Art Center (CAC). Over the last 14 years, we’d send each other readings andmeet on occasion. Finally, she proposed to realize some of the things we had been talking about
for a long time. We call it a study group. The idea is to use the space and time of being together at
the studio to get on the same page. We were pretty serious about readings, progress meetings,
involving new people and new methods, taking trips together, etc. Looking back, I feel this kind of
long-term process has really paid off. All those people that are participating in the sessions haveso many ideas coming from the group and bring them back to the studio one way or another.
Mia Yoo: We don’t have traditional indicators of “success” at La MaMa. Success is a strange
term when dealing with experimental performance. On one hand, we have Gunnar Montana
Productions’ performance Kink Haüs, which is totally sold-out. We also have shows where you
have more people on stage than you do in the audience. For me, “success” is about creating an
ecosystem where artists are able to really interface with all of our different programs, benefit fromthat engagement, and provide that content to our community. That is the direction in which I hopeto grow the organization.

Jay Brown: One thing that is helpful is to get them to read something that answers their basic
questions before coming to the studio. There are so many repeat questions. What is Dongba
culture? What is Naxi history? What is the whole story of the southwest border of China? It is best
if they do some homework first.
The studio is really situated in a local family’s house. Artists at the studio live with and are involvedin the community as a matter of daily life—being invited to a neighbor’s wedding or a hike to pickmushrooms begins that process, and then we build on that based on the ideas the artists are
generating.
Fito Segrera: We are a non-profit. We don’t get anything directly from the artists, but we do require
some engagement with the community from the artists that we sponsor. We do workshops, artist
talks, and open studios, which are more intimate.
CAC’s aim is also to educate the local community about new media art. CAC has many sister
institutions and companies and artists have access to a bigger database or network. From there,
they can interact more deeply with the community and with the market. We are thinking about thealternatives to introduce artists to Shanghai.
Mia Yoo: 30-40% of the companies coming in are from other countries. We have the La MaMa
Archives. We bring artists to the Archives as an introduction to the community and the historyof La MaMa. It helps them contextualize where they are, and reflect on how they are part of theexperimental theatre canon. We try to bring multiple companies to the Archives at once, which
often starts conversations and collaborations between artists. Since we have multiple locations,
we are trying to nurture more ways of connecting and building our network in the hopes thatparticipating artists can continue to collaborate in the future.

Jamie Bennett: How do you help artists get to know the community?

26

PANEL DISCUSSION

27

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESAudience Question 1: I am curious about your role within the artist residency, do you consider
yourself an artist collaborating with other artists?

Audience Question 2: Where does your funding come from?

Fito Segrera: Collaborating with artists is a part of my job. I direct and run the fellowship, but I
also host and help create art. New media art is not that big, and a lot of artists do not have the fullskill set for new media art. Sometimes, when evaluating a project, if the artist does not have therequired skills, then I will consider whether I or anyone in the workshop have the skill set before
taking on a project.

Mia Yoo: The majority of La MaMa’s funding comes from private foundations. Our annual operating
budget is approximately $3 million, with a balance of 45% earned income and 55% contributions.
Private foundation funds cover about 55% of our total contributed income, and we have an
individual donor base that we are working to expand as well. We are very fortunate that our funders
and supporters understand the importance of La MaMa’s mission, believe in what we do, and help
us strive towards the future.

In another project, A&T@, I collaborate with Chinese artists. My role there is quite different. I
not only help out with technology, but also give conceptual support. Thinking about art throughtechnology is difficult. You have to know about the technology before articulating the idea orpractice or experiment. I don’t know exactly what name to this role.

Jay Brown: We are trying to disperse our funding as broadly as possible, so in general we ask ourartists to find their own means to support their travel to the studio, and then we provide room andboard and facilitation at the studio. We can work with artists based on their particular situation to
make a residency happen.

Jay Brown: I have tried a lot of artistic practices, but the results have been terrible. I call myself amidwife, in the sense that I am facilitating the creation of art.

Fito Segrera: We have one sponsor, our founder. All the funding for our residency programs andexhibitions comes from there.

Mia Yoo: I started out as a performer. That is how I began my career with our theatre company,
the Great Jones Repertory Company. I think the majority of the people that work at La MaMa areartists. Our audience surveys have found that 50% of people who come to our shows self-identify
as artists. Collaboration with other artists, in the La MaMa office and broader community, is whatfuels me as an administrator.

28

PANEL DISCUSSION

29

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Panel II: Artists’ Experience of the Residency

Moderator

Jane DeBevoise: Hi, my name is Jane DeBevoise. On our panel, we have three artists who
have participated in residencies, so we are looking at the residency experience from the artist’s
perspective.
Jennifer, Li Mu, and Ursula, as you present, I would like you to consider: what enabled you toconnect with the local community—both the community of art makers and the local community?
What kind of support did you find most useful in pursuing your goals for the residency?
Jane DeBevoise
Chair of the Board of Directors
Asia Art Archive

Artist Experience: Jennifer Wen Ma
Thank you so much for having me. I will share a little bit from my own experience of being arecipient of residencies and grants. There are a few things that have really stood out to me. First,
commissioned art commits money to an artist’s vision, as well as time and space. Some of mywork did not come out as a result of a residency, but rather I collaborated with institutions andsometimes these collaborations turned into residencies.

Panelists

Jennifer Wen Ma
Visual Artist

Li Mu
Visual Artist

Ursula Eagly
Dancer/Choreographer

A Brazilian organization asked me to do a public art project in 2013. My idea was to build an islandin the middle of the lake, called “Isle of Enchantment.” I think it is important for commissioning
institutions to support the artist’s vision with absolute commitment and understanding. WhenI said I wanted to build an island in the middle of the lake, the organization blinked only for two
seconds and then agreed. Luckily, the project was well funded at the time. Brazil was doing
very well economically. They also brought in the infrastructure to help me. We had a two-monthpresence working on this lake.
On one side of the lake is the largest slum in the city of Belo Horizonte. When we first arrived,
there were firecrackers going off. I thought there were kids playing, until it was explained thatfirecrackers announced the arrival of certain drugs—with each sound representing a different kind30

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Jennifer Wen Ma
Isle of Enchantment,
2013, 650 kg Chinese
ink, 6700 live plants,
eucalyptus beams,
pedal boats.
Image courtesy of theartistof drug. The government, the police, and the military knew it, but there was an understanding: if
drug dealers kept things under control within the favela, then the government would not come inwith troops. On the other side of this small lake are upper and middle-class condos. So, the lake inthe middle is where these two communities collide.

It was totally fine. I thought it was beautiful that the kids felt this level of ownership. I was gratefulfor this organization that supported me for two months. Without that investment of time, those twomonths of working ten hours a day with the kids, we would not have earned the trust of the local
community.

You had to take a boat to go to the island. There were lots of kids floating around. Local residents
treated the kids like stray dogs and shooed them away. I immediately realized this could be
dangerous. I was worried. The island would be there for six months. There were no lights or
security and the kids could just swim out there. What if something bad happened? I was quite
nervous. Early on whenever the kids came through, I would say, “Come on in, come onto theisland I am building for you.” I had over six thousand plants, painted with Chinese ink that madeeverything black. Because they were alive, though, and they had sun and water, the plants would
grow, change and turn green. I used tropical plants that would also turn red and purple and yellow.
Over time, the island would become very colorful.

The second point I want to talk about is the importance of foundations and residencies thatencourage risk-taking and artistic independence. In 2012, I had the idea to make an opera, but
was a visual artist without much experience working in theater. The idea of an opera would notleave me alone. So, I started talking to people about it. One of the first people I talked to was an
Asian Cultural Council (ACC) board member. She helped me explore the lay of the land and helped
me to see the path to go forward…Being part of a larger artistic community is crucial. It’s not justabout funding, but also knowing their belief in the project gave me the confidence to take risks
and explore.

The kids saw this and asked what we were doing. I said, “Well, we are painting the landscape inthree dimensions. Why don’t you come and help us?” We were there for so many days, so wereally got to know the kids. They felt it was their island, and they had to take care of it. I wanted
them to make sure that nothing bad would happen because we could not afford surveillance
during the six months of the exhibition. Engaging kids who had all the time in the world to float
around the island and turning them into stakeholders was key.
The project cost over half a million reais, and we had a lot of sponsors. On opening day, we
brought important sponsors to see this island. When I got there, my team was furious because
the kids would not dock the boats. They knew we were coming and that they were supposed tohave boats ready. But they felt they were promised that the island was theirs and the boats were
theirs and did not want anyone to take that away from them. The adults tried to take the boats byforce. The kids, ranging from five to twelve years old, got so angry, they shat in the boats so thatthe adults would not take them. When I got there, they saw me from the lake and waved. I said, “I’ve
brought some friends. Can I show them around our island? Do you mind?” They responded, “Ok,no problem.” All the kids brought the boats over and my staff and I took the sponsors to the island.

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PANEL II: ARTISTS’ EXPERIENCE OF THE RESIDENCY

The opera was called Paradise Interrupted. It was premiered at Spoleto Festival USA, and thenwent on to be presented at Lincoln Center Festival in 2016, Singapore Art Festival, as well as at the
National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts and National Concert Hall in Taiwan. Hopefully, it will show
in Shanghai in 2019. We had interactive elements where the voice of the main protagonist was fed
into a computer influenced the video projection on stage. The video projector became an active
member of the cast. ACC was fundamental in the creation of this work in so many ways, from earlysupport to the funding process. They led me to other foundations that funded us. We have been
lucky to have the support from festivals, but festivals do not necessarily fully support the artistic
process of creation, such as taking into account many years of inviting my collaborators overdinner and to develop this work, or the generations of models I made for the set design prior to
production.
Community connection is really important on two levels. One level is the local community. I haveworked all around the world, but felt I was neglecting my own community on the Lower East Sideof Manhattan. So, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) commissioned me to do a projecton the waterfront only ten blocks away from my home. This was a six-month project where I
worked closely with the community and showed up to all the local meetings.

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Jennifer Wen Ma
Installation opera
Paradise Interrupted,
2015. Image courtesyof the artist

The other level of connection is with other artists and professionals. Both LMCC and ACC are
examples of organizations that link artists with makers, writers, musicians, performers, visual
artists, and more. These are long term, strong connections, from which you can build friendshipand collaboration.
The last thing I want to say is that you have to carry the goodness forward. When I was making theopera, I needed a lot of communities to give me critical feedback. So, I started a salon series at mystudio with two collaborators to present artists’ work in progress. I am trying to take all the things I
have learned and generate new ideas and energy for our community and other artists.

Image courtesy of
Li Mu

Artist Experience: Li Mu
Today, I will introduce my three experiences at residency programs. The first is Apexart in New
York in 2011, recommended by Biljana Ciric, a Shanghai-based, independent curator. It was my firsttime in New York, as well as my first time having a new studio. I had an apartment beside Union
Square and made a schedule for every day. I followed the schedule walking through New York City.
I had a lot of places to visit and a lot of people to meet. It included Green-Wood Cemetery and theWaterfront Museum in Brooklyn, a Buddhist Temple in Staten Island, the Louis Armstrong House
Museum in Queens, and the Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island. I wrote a diary in English
and uploaded it to Apexart’s blog. Lastly, I did a public talk in English with a local artist, Amanda
Browder. My English is not good, so I wanted to find a translator to help me, but the director of
Apexart said I needed the challenge. Apexart covered my flight, all the tickets, and an apartment,
but did not provide money for food. They encouraged me to try delicious local foods, but I told
myself that I would skip them because I had to save money.
In 2012, I got a fellowship from ACC. It was the first time in half a year that I didn’t have to worry
about money. I had an apartment in New York and a studio at the International Studio & Curatorial
Program (ISCP). There were 39 artists from different countries who were participating in theresidency program at ISCP. There was a studio space, which was an empty room. I told myself it
was expensive and that I should use it. So, I came to the studio every day. But another voice toldme, if you stay in the studio every day, you will lose the opportunity to explore the city. I didn’t know
how to deal with these conflicting thoughts.
We had an open studio in May. Not knowing what that meant, I turned my studio into an exhibition
space to present my artworks. Then, I realized the open studio was to present your works inprogress.
At the end of my residency, I made artwork in Chinatown. I am Chinese, but I have complex
feelings about Chinatown. It is dirtier than other places in New York. I decided to clean Chinatown.
I bought a broom and worked every day. It took me seven days to clean 36 streets. It was a very
important thing to me. During my residency, I realized that art creation is not merely about beautiful

34

PANEL II: ARTISTS’ EXPERIENCE OF THE RESIDENCY35

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESLi Muperformance at
Chinatown in New
York City, 2012, Image
courtesy of Li Mu

things; it is an attitude of life. This experience gave me an idea of how to continue my art career.
After my time in New York, I returned to China. I moved from Shanghai to Qiuzhuang, where I
was born in 1974. It is a small village between Beijing and Shanghai. I had been away for many
years, and there was a gap between me and my parents, relatives, and the villagers. They could
not understand my art and I could not understand them. I think that I went back to deal with thisproblem by working with the villagers and my parents. This is why I started the Qiuzhuang Project.

Li Mu
Sol LeWitt’s Wall
Drawing No.480 (copy)in Qiuzhuang, 20132014, Image Courtesyof the artistout of the studio and build a relationship with the community. Third, artists should have enoughmoney. Of course, as an artist, I know good artists are always poor because they put all theirenergy and time into the creation and have no time for business. Lastly, I think writing proposals
for residencies is not necessarily representative of a project’s outcome, because artists neverknow what will happen in the future.

I cooperated with the best museum in the Netherlands, the Van Abbe Museum. I selected tenpieces of artwork from their collection and copied these artworks to show the community in myvillage. The artists included Sol LeWitt, Andy Warhol, John Körmeling, Ulay/Marina Abramovic,
Daniel Buren, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre and Richard Long. I put most of them in public spaces, somein the homes of villagers, and one piece outside of the village. I worked in the village for thirteenmonths. I built a good relationship with the villagers, my parents, my primary school teacher,
my middle school classmates, and the boss of the grocery store. I say Qiuzhuang Project is a
residency program because when I came back to a familiar place to create my works, the familiar
place became a strange place.
When I think about the result or impact of each residency program, the result of the one-monthApexart program was a talk. It built my confidence and made me feel part of the world. The ISCP
residency program gave me an open studio and I made two pieces of work. I had new ideas about
how to continue my career—that I didn’t want to make products in the name of art, I wanted to go
to a wide place to continue my work. Qiuzhuang Project took thirteen months at least. My artwork
was not about myself, but rather it connected a lot of people and enabled people to understandeach other.
I also have some suggestions concerning residency programs. First, it is better to have more timein a residency program, if possible, more than six months. There are a lot of programs that are
two weeks or one month. Artists need time to research the local culture and practice their ideas.
In Qiuzhuang, I found the village was changing every day and so was I. I needed to find support
for my ongoing work and feel this might become my lifetime project. Second, artists should walk

36

PANEL II: ARTISTS’ EXPERIENCE OF THE RESIDENCY

37

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESUrsula Eagly performs
Pieces with gaps foreach other at The
Chocolate Factory, 2017.
Photo by Anja
Hitzenberger

Artist Experience: Ursula Eagly
My name is Ursula Eagly. I am a choreographer and dance artist. I’d like to speak in particular tothe politics of interpersonal connections that residencies develop.
I am going to talk about two different residency experiences. The first one was at the Seoul Dance
Center. This residency is part of an ongoing exchange between Movement Research here in New
York City and Seoul Dance Center in South Korea, and it has been supported by the Asian Cultural
Council in the past.
Before going to Seoul, I knew very little about Korean performing arts and was deeply curious
to learn more. I decided to use the residency, not primarily to create work (which I could do in a
residency closer to home), but rather to learn and build relationships with Korean artists.
Interestingly, my expectation was that it wouldn’t be easy to create relationships. I had read thatpeople work more hours each year in South Korea than anywhere else in the world. I imagined thatpeople in Seoul would be much busier than people in New York City because of these workforce
demands. I was surprised, then, that I was able to spend so much time with other artists, both in
the studio and also outside of it, going to performances or having dinner. Interaction that takes
maybe two years of relationship building in New York, I was able to squeeze into three weeks inSeoul.
In addition to time in the studio, I saw many performances, and the work was extremely diverse
aesthetically. It was also interesting for me to see how the role of dramaturgs and archivists in
Korea is far expanded from what it is in the US, and to observe how these roles and play out in
discourse.
Since the residency period, I’ve continued to work with some of the artists who I got to know inSeoul. For example, I performed with the artist HeJin Jang this summer in Mexico City, and she will
also be making dramaturgical contributions to my Spring 2019 premiere at Danspace Project. Our
involvement has extended for over a year since the conclusion of the residency. I am surprised
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PANEL II: ARTISTS’ EXPERIENCE OF THE RESIDENCY

and delighted by the extent to which the residency made it possible to build truly lasting artistic
exchange.
The second residency experience that I’d like to speak to was a project called Piece with gaps foreach other, which I created in collaboration with a Japanese composer and a Mexican artist. This
project developed out of a festival we performed at in Macedonia. We met, experienced eachother’s work, and started talking. Over the next four years, we developed an iterative work called
Piece with gaps for each other by taking turns hosting residencies in our home countries.
We approached this work together from a principle not of collaboration, but rather of coexistence.
We each made material that contains shells for each other's work—“leaky containers” that areporous to each other and our communities. The performance score nested these containers
within each other. The work’s politics was embodied in its form.
I hosted Piece with gaps for each other in New York City, my Mexican collaborator hosted in
Mexico City and at his studio in the Yucatan jungle, and the Japanese composer in Kamakura,
Japan. In each place, we used the institutional and personal resources we had there. For example,
here in New York City we worked with The Chocolate Factory Theater and Movement Research.
Our Japanese collaborator—as a converted Zen Buddhist, whose meditation practice is importantin his music—hosted a residency and performance at the historic Tokeiji temple in Kita-Kamakura.
There were difficulties in this project as well. At the last residency in Mexico, our experimentlacked support. We really had to band together and contribute our own funds to make it happen. It
was politically important for me to realize this residency, because of the relationship between our
two countries, the U.S. and Mexico.
In this process, there was an inversion of the standard power dynamic. Rather than an institution
creating a residency that artists then ask to be a part of, in this case the artists created their own
conditions to make work and then invited institutional support.

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Panel Discussion

Jane Debevoise: I would like to ask everyone, “What is your definition of success?” ACC often
looks to define success in terms of personal growth or transformation, but success also needs tobe measured (in perhaps more quantitative ways) for the benefit of funders. What does successmean to a residency or an artist?
Jennifer Wen Ma: I think it is quite difficult to define success. It depends on who you are and what
you are looking for. Organizations and funders would define it differently. Personally speaking,I think a successful project allows me to express something that I couldn’t before. When I wascompelled to put an idea forward, share the work with an audience, and provide a transcendent
experience for them, those are the most important things to me. Also, as soon as I put it out there,
I immediately know where I can go from there. After that, I have more room to breathe and growand have new ideas. From the maker’s perspective, that is a success I am looking for.
Li Mu: Talking about success is difficult for me, because I never measure my work by success.
I think I have never succeeded. I have to face future projects and deal with a lot of serious
problems. Just now I talked about my Qiuzhuang project, but it was in the past. I remember asmall story about Xu Tan, one of the best artists in China. When he came home, he would always
tell his parents, “I am a successful artist. Do not worry about me.” But he told me, “I know I am
not successful.” We told our parents about success, but we know we will never be successful
because we chose to be an artist.
Ursula Eagly: There are certainly certain success metrics that center around the audience orpress reaction and peer or artist reaction, but not all residency experiences result in a final productor work. Some are developmental. And development is especially important in the performing
arts because it is most often collaborative. We not only create dance for the audience, but also
in response to the community, relationships, and politics—a whole social microcosm—between
collaborators. I’ve certainly been part of projects where the performances were well received by
the audience, but lacking in this interpersonal dimension. I think that it is essential to consider all
aspects involved in the creation of a work of art when defining success.

40

Jane DeBevoise: What advice as an artist would you give to residencies? What worked? What did
not work?
Jennifer Wen Ma: Stuff happens. I was with LMCC, working on Pier 42 in lower Manhattan. I built
a black-ink coated garden and worked with YMCA members and the local schools. The garden
was meant to flourish and turn green over the summer, with the help of the community. But in one
sense, this project was not successful.
We were given a water faucet in the lot adjacent to the garden, so we could water the plants. I
did so several times a week. When I was away to work on the Brazil project, I had high school
students water the plants several times a week. But the Park’s Department would lock the fence
to the faucet, so the students could not fetch water. By the time I came back a few weeks later,
the plants were almost all dead. Even though I painted them black with ink, I didn’t intend to killthem. The goal was that with community’s care and love, they would thrive. It was supposed to betransformative.
In my feedback letter, and I wrote it was very indicative of the problem in the Lower East Side. Thisis a long-forgotten community—the largest concentration of low-income housing in Manhattan.
The project faltered because there was a lack of infrastructure and communication, despite
everyone’s best intentions. What killed the plants was not one-time trauma of being painted withink, but the long-neglect they suffered from lack of water. However, it was not a total failure. It
created a lot of conversation and made the problems that plagued the area so evident and visualfor the organizations that were involved here. Insight and understanding through an artwork and its
unintended consequences can be just as powerful as a “successful” work.
Li Mu: For me, having a full experience in the residency program, rather than creating a completed
artwork, is most important. I suggest a longer time in the residency. For example, my friend, Na
Yingyu had a residency program in Lijiang Studio. After three months he did nothing, but Jay
Brown told him he could stay here and continue at Lijiang Studio. After another seven months, hefinished a great art project.

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Panel III: After the Residency

Ursula Eagly: Since residency programs host people, human health and safety should be
paramount. In every location, there are concerns that might seem evident to locals, but a visitor
might not necessarily anticipate. For instance, before my time at Seoul Dance Center, I was able
to talk with an artist who had been there, and she advised me to take precautions around air
quality. She had been in Seoul during a period of micro-dust. The windows were closed at thedance center due to air pollution, but since she didn’t know why they were closed, she slept withher window open and developed respiratory problems. I likely wouldn’t have considered air quality
concerns myself either if it hadn’t been mentioned to me.

Moderator

Cecily D. Cook
Director of Programs
Asian Cultural Council

Audience Question I: After a residency has ended, have you felt the need to continue yourengagement and inquiry with the community—either with collaborators or local community?
If so, is there anything that you can say about what the program itself did to foster long-term
engagement?
Ursula Eagly: Many of the artists from Seoul Dance Center who came to New York throughthe exchange with Movement Research have later returned to the U.S. on their own. They areinterested in Movement Research’s emphasis on inquiry and works-in-process and want to comeback to be a part of this community again.

Panelists

Jennifer Wen Ma: Often a good experience will make you want to do more because it opens up
new questions. When the opera, Paradise Interrupted opened at the Spoleto Festival in South
Carolina, I was there for a six-week residency. I am returning to Charleston, South Carolina
with a different institution to do an exhibition. I was able to do so because I made friends andconnections during my six-week residency for the opera.

42

PANEL DISCUSSIONDavid J. Diamond
Curator
La MaMa Umbria International
Programs

43

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Susan Hapgood
Executive Director
International Studio andCuratorial Program

René Lorenceau
Former CEO
Swatch Art Peace Hotel Artist
Residency

Workshop at La MaMa
Umbria International.
Photo by David J.
Diamond

Cecily Cook: My name is Cecily Cook, and I am the Director of Programs at the Asian Cultural
Council. We are going to have our three final panelists, David Diamond, Susan Hapgood, and René
Lorenceau, talk about the residency programs they run. This last panel has the kind of storytellingthat all of us who are involved in residencies or cultural exchange work really live for. These are thestories, qualitative data, and anecdotes that prove to us that our work has real impact. Now, I am
going to turn it over to David, who runs the residency program at La MaMa Umbria, which is one of
La MaMa’s international programs.

La MaMa Umbria International
David J. Diamond

La MaMa Umbria International is a residency near Spoleto, Italy. Umbria is known as the green
heart of Italy—the only province not bordered by water or another country. Around 1985, Ellen
Stewart, La MaMa’s founder, won the MacArthur Genius Award and decided to use the money tobuy a dilapidated former convent—a seven-hundred-year-old building in the hills of Umbria—tocreate a residence for artists. Her idea was that this would be a place where artists could comefrom all over the world to share with each other, to create work, and to develop themselves in aplace away from the city and the pressures of their lives. She eventually renovated it in a beautiful
way.
In the house, there is a gallery space, a cafe, sleeping rooms for about thirty people, a kitchen,
and a dining room. Then, in a separate building, there is the rehearsal studio, which used to be thebarn. Walk up a path and you arrive at our outdoor stage and if you go up a bit further, you cometo a chapel, which is the last thing Ellen built. She had a very special affection for this place. If you
ever go to La MaMa Umbria, you cannot help but feel the power of the spirituality of the place.

time, I was the executive director of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation. It is anancillary part of the Stage Director’s Union in New York, which most American stage directors andchoreographers working in the professional theater are members of. I was in charge of creating
programming to help develop their craft and careers. A year after that conversation, Mia, Ellen, andI began to create this symposium; three residency categories emerged: the development of newwork, education, and performance preparation.
The Next Generation Project develops new work and falls into the first category. In the second
category, we have Symposium for Directors, International Playwright Retreat, and university
collaborations. Symposium for Directors is a four-week program where we bring in the greatest
directors in the world to teach other directors in workshops. They share their best practices.
The Playwright Retreat crosses over all three categories, but I put this in the theme of education
because we have a master playwright engage the participating playwrights in a workshop. In
addition, they have time to write and work on their own plays. Among collaborations with different
universities, we have a very long-standing program with Seoul Institute of the Arts. They sendartists to stay with us over the summer to engage in our programs, as well as participate with otherprograms in Italy, which we help coordinate.
In the category of performance preparation, we produce La MaMa Spoleto Open. It is a part of
the famous international Spoleto Festival of the Two Worlds, which is in its 62nd year. We haveproduced plays there over the last decade. Our residency is affiliated with individuals who prepare
for the festival. They work on their projects, rehearse them, and then go to Spoleto to present thework. It is a residency similar to the work of individuals here at Great Jones preparing for theirshows at La MaMa in New York.

In 1990, I had suggested to Ellen that we create some kind of a symposium for directors. At the

The Next Generation is a ten-day residency focused on individual artists creating new work.
We use an open rehearsal and sharing process modeled after the Sundance Institute Theatre
Program, where people can watch each other's rehearsal. We bring in mentors to give feedback
as these young artists are developing their work. So, as they create a piece, they might invite avisual artist or a choreographer or a dramaturg to be there. It is not, however, a requirement toinvite mentors in. If you want their feedback, you can get it, but you do not have to. In the final days,

44

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PANEL III: AFTER THE RESIDENCY

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIES

the young artists share their works-in-progress without the pressure or expectation of a finishedpiece.

over a couple of weeks of living and working together and form their own Facebook groups. We
have email lists of the participants that we share if people agree.

The Directing Symposium, now going into its twentieth year, allows directors to experience
the practical ways of making theater by other artists. There are 2 two-week sessions eachmentored by four artists. In the first week, there are two artists who split the day into two fourhour workshops. After a week, two different artists come in. For example, Semion Aleksandrovskiy(Russia) and Stefanie Batten Bland (U.S.) might teach the first week, and The Talking Band (U.S.)
and Krzysztof Garbaczewski (Poland) might teach the second week.

For the Playwright Retreat, this is a very special thing. The playwrights have an opportunity to havestaged readings at La MaMa in this building and at one of the Great Jones studios in the following
year. We provide a whole weekend of all the readings and invite other producers and agents who
might want to hear the work.

In the Playwright Retreat project, individuals who developed work over the summer can have thatwork read at La MaMa in New York in one of our studios. Every playwright from the previous year’s
program has the opportunity to have their play read. They are responsible for the organization of
the program. They come up with a schedule, create their own programs, and do a lot of outreach.
We provide the space, some additional outreach, and an Italian dinner to remind them of theenvironment the project came out of. We hope that this will allow more people to experience theirwork and solicit a broader response.

For the Next Generation, follow up is a little more difficult, but we have been following thedevelopment of the projects. It is only two years since we started the program, but we havenoticed some projects have had follow-up productions at Dixon Place in New York, as well as invenues in other cities. Because it is the twentieth year, we sent out a bigger survey to everybody
who has participated in the past, asking them: what did they retain? What was the impact of thisresidency on their lives and careers? It has been really important for us to learn about the impactof our work. We have gotten some of the most beautiful letters from people whose lives have beenchanged by the work and the kind of environment that La MaMa Umbria provides

La MaMa Spoleto Open, our festival, provides alternative programming to the main Spoleto
Festival. The range of performances could include anything from the theater, dance, circus arts,
music, to interdisciplinary works. Sometimes the work is ready to go and sometimes they are still
putting the finishing touches during the residency. Then, they have the performances in the main
festival, which allows their work to be exposed to a large international audience.
And finally, let’s discuss post-residency follow-up. After each program, we do a post-program,follow-up survey. We ask questions like: what did you get out of it? What was not for you? What can
we fix? What could be better?
A lot of the participants join our Facebook groups. We have an alumni Facebook group, as well as
individual Facebook groups for people who want to collaborate. There are usually about fifteen toeighteen directors in the symposium and playwrights in a particular group. They get very close

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PANEL III: AFTER THE RESIDENCY

47

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESExample of a 2016
public program at ISCP
involving New Zealandartist in residence
Alicia Frankovich (right)
performing with Taiwanborn US-based artist
Tehching Hsieh, 2016.
Image courtesy of ISCP

International Studio and Curatorial Program
Susan Hapgood

I will start with a general background description of the International Studio and Curatorial Program(ISCP).
The organization was founded in 1994. We are in East Williamsburg in an old printing factory. Thisfacility allows us to have 35 different workspaces or studios. We are a hybrid, with an office space,two exhibition spaces, and residency programs. We also have public programming throughout theyear, which is free and open to the public. Each year, we have approximately a hundred residents
from around the world who stay anywhere from three months to six months to a year. In total, ourprogram has supported around 1,300 artists or curators.
Recently, we introduced a new initiative called the “Ground Floor Program.” It is only for New Yorkbased artists, which differs from the International Program on the second and third floors of ourspace. That said, those participating in the Ground Floor Program interact with individuals fromaround the world, and the International Program has residents from New York and the UnitedStates. There is overlap between these programs, but each has its own unique characteristics andadvantages.
ISCP is known for the robust set of benefits we provide our residents. Time and space come up
as the first major benefit, especially in the International Program, which also provides extensive
programming. The Ground Floor Program includes some visits from artists, but we mainly takecues from them for what they want in terms of programming.

We usually have four major exhibitions in a year: a solo exhibition by an alum, a solo exhibition by acurrent resident, a thematic exhibition, and an institutional residency exhibition. There are so manykinds of success, but just one more market-based example would be that an exhibition at ISCP
was visited by a major New York gallerist, and resulted in the gallery representing the exhibiting
artist. That was amazing. For institutional residences, we invite an artist who runs an institution inanother part of the world to take over the exhibition space. An institution from Istanbul is coming
this summer.
Additional benefits are field trips. We organized an overnight visit to Massachusetts to MASS
MoCA, the Clark Art Institute, and Jack Schainman’s School. We also have visiting critics every
month—arguably one of the most valuable parts of our program. We invite leading art professionals
to meet with residents for two full days. They have one-on-one hour-long meetings with theresidents.
We also have an internal gathering, called One Artist, One Work. All the residents are invited to go
into a studio and talk for one hour. It is a supportive critique, a conversation that sometimes brings
up the question: what do you think I should do next? All residents are also able to give public talks
if they wish.
Sometimes, we have guest speakers. There are talks almost every Tuesday night. We also have
“Brooklyn Commons” talks periodically, pairing a Brooklyn-based artist with an artist or curator in
residence. In one case, a New Zealand artist, Alicia Frankovich, wanted to invite renowned New
York-based, Taiwan-born performance artist Tehching Hsieh to ISCP. And he came, and they had aperformance that consisted of them physically wrestling, in a way, in front of the live audience.

Twice a year, we have Open Studios, which happen over an evening and an afternoon. Around athousand people come through. This was the first year that we had a summer open house. It was
lower key and we didn’t do much advertising, but it went well because the local neighborhood isvery supportive of the Open Studios.

As for post-residency assessment, every single resident answers a questionnaire before leaving.
We ask: What are the faults with the program? Are there recurring problems? What are the things
people like the best? We are always responsive and thinking about what people want. Besides
this, we are working hard on developing more resources for alumni. We always keep track of themand have gatherings whenever we travel.

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PANEL III: AFTER THE RESIDENCY

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESWe do not necessarily have the funds to have chapters all over the world, but we are starting toencourage people to self-organize in the biggest cities. In addition to New York, Berlin is going
to be our next chapter. I was recently invited to Art Basel Hong Kong, where we might organize
a small alumni gathering. Lastly, from brown bag lunches to receptions at my apartment tovisiting openings, we have a lot of social gatherings. I consider those to be the glue that makes acommunity thrive.

Swatch Art Peace Hotel
René Lorenceau

Swatch Art Peace Hotel is in Shanghai. Shanghai is not exactly China in the way that New York is
not exactly the U.S. Our building is located on the Bund, the ex-financial district of the city. Built
from 1906 and opened in 1908 as the Palace Hotel, it was later renamed the Peace Hotel South
Building. The Swatch Group, the biggest watchmaking company in the world, signed a contract
with the owner of the building, Jin Jiang Group, the biggest real estate company in China. This
marked the beginning of the Swatch Art Peace Hotel artist residency.
The Swatch Art residency offers an opportunity to artists from all over the world to work and liveat Swatch Art Peace Hotel for three to six months. We can host eighteen artists at a time. We
give each artist an individual space to work and a room, just as if they were staying in a hotel. The
artist’s room is cleaned every day and guests have a generous breakfast with a western style andChinese style option. If during their stay, artists need to go back to New York for ten days to renew
their visa, we take this cost as well.
Each artist has a workplace that is either integrated into her/his room or separate depending on
her/his kind of activity. Our workshops range from 42 square meters to 89 square meters. In thebuilding, there is a restaurant, and on one floor we have an exclusive exhibition room that can also
be used for media talks, presentations, and small performances.
We only consider applications submitted through our website (swatchartpeacehotel.com). We
don’t accept paper applications. We have about 300 to 350 applications per year. There are no
application limitations on the artists’ country of origin or age. The only question is whether theartist is legally an adult, which is basically 21 in the U.S., though we once had an artist who was 18
years. From the first day of the residency on November 1, 2011 through September 2018, we haveinvited more than 300 artists from about 50 countries.
What do we do after the residence? First of all, Swatch is the sponsor of many important artistic

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PANEL III: AFTER THE RESIDENCY

51

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Panel Discussion

events. In 2015, during the six months of the Venice Biennale (La Biennale Arte), 37 artists from theSwatch Art Peace Hotel were presented in the frame of the event. In 2017, we had a space in the
Arsenale (iconic space of the Venice Biennale) and were able to present the work of four former
residents.
During Photofairs | Shanghai, a photo art fair in September, we presented an exhibition of aphotographer who was a former resident at the hotel. We also work with Power Station of Art (PSA)in Shanghai to support a competition to select and promote emerging curators in the Chinesecontemporary art scene. One of the winning exhibitions is exhibited at the Swatch Peace Hotel.
We have also promoted a Japanese artist from Tokyo, Ouma, a former Swatch Art Peace Hotelguest, with an exhibition at the Swatch Group Japan Headquarters—an iconic building in thecenter of Tokyo designed by Shigeru Ban.
We also partner with the Locarno Film Festival. The festival holds a Filmmakers Academy, where
we send one of our resident artists. In addition, we supported the Korea International Art Fair in
2016. For specific events, we create a catalog in which each resident artist has one page withinformation about the artist and her/his work. Of course, we also work with Swatch. Sometimes, anartist has the opportunity to design a watch for the brand, create music or design some part of anevent.

Cecily Cook: In this panel, we’ve discussed follow-up after the residency. Susan, you said you
have an annual alumni residency and exhibition. How is this person chosen? And how is theresidency and exhibition funded?
Susan Hapgood: In regards to the alumni exhibition, the Director of Programs and Exhibitions
does the selection. She looks back and digs deep into alumni websites to see what they are up tonow, and then gets in touch with them to find out more.
We get funding from a number of different sources. We have received two different Warhol
Foundation grants for our exhibitions. We also get funding from the city, from the Department ofCultural Affairs. I spend a lot of energy and effort trying to find additional funding depending on
where the artist or curator is from. There is a need internally to make the selection early so that wehave time to do additional fundraising.
I also want to mention that we have an alumni residency now. This is the second year. We didan open call, which yielded forty applicants. We do not have a pocket of money right now forthat alumni residency. So, we have to go out and find funding depending on who we select. The
selection process is not impacted by whether it is fundable or not. Last year, for example, we
did not find any funding, so the costs were covered by general operating expenses rather thansponsorship.
Cecily Cook: René, could you talk more about how you stay connected with your alumni?
Obviously, some people are chosen to go to these various art fairs and biennials. Who makes
those decisions?
René Lorenceau: We are working with the Locarno Film Festival and the Venice Biennale.
We don't send established artists there, because we want to send somebody who can takemost advantage of the situation. Regarding the Swatch watch, it is more complicated because
the design of the watch is very specific. The artists need to adapt their work to match these
specifications.

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PANEL III: AFTER THE RESIDENCY53

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESWhat is very important for me and my team is the Swatch Art Peace Hotel website. We publish all
the “traces” left by each artist. Our website is open to each former Swatch Art Peace Hotel artist to
upload new works done after the residency. We try to build a community. We continue to follow ourformer guest artists on Facebook and Instagram, and they follow us.
Cecily Cook: I’d like to bring us back to the recurring question: how do you measure success?
David, you reference a survey you sent out that yielded many moving stories. How have you
been able to use that information? Who are you trying to prove success to? And Susan, do you
think residencies should take more credit if they invested in an individual as a very young artist?
When we take this idea in the context of mid-career artists also needing investment, I think this isdefinitely one of the really thorny questions surrounding residencies.
David Diamond: I work as a career coach for artists. The question of success comes up a lot.
What I work on with my clients is redefining success in a way that makes it more possible for themto continue their work and be creative. The definition of success is not so much about whether or
not you achieve something, but rather defining the next question that you want to explore throughyour creative work. That is where the success part lies.
We do have to write grant applications and send in final reports, where we need to describe
success in a different way. But I think it is unfair to judge success only on the basis of whatsomebody got out of a residency program, because what you are getting is so much abouta transformational experience of a person. It is about what opens you up and allows you toexperience something different that affects you in ways that you cannot know. That is notquantifiable.

meals—we do everything we can so that all you have to do is focus on making art.
Susan Hapgood: I agree with everything you are saying, except that we do not do their laundry.
There is a lot that artists have to do on their own—like finding a place to live. There are various ways
to measure success, it depends on who you are measuring success for. If you are measuring for asponsor or funder, which we have to do quite often, we have a standard report to measure whether
a resident has fully participated in the program. We keep track of who comes to what events andwho takes advantage of what we offer. Our staff photographs events and activities, and thesevisuals often serve as evidence in measuring success. It is satisfying for our sponsors to knowthat their money is going towards an experience that the artist is fully engaged in.
What a resident gets out of it is very different. Li Mu, for example, spoke of cleaning the streetsof Chinatown during his residency and not knowing what to do with the studio space he wasgiven. In a report, what he was doing would not necessarily be registered as fully participatingin every aspect of the residency. But on the other hand, he took advantage of the visiting critics
and during open studios, and he learned something incredibly important—that a residency is
not necessarily about production, but about the experience. How would I have known about thisshift in perspective if he did not tell me? It is very hard to tap into unless you are having regularconversations to every single person, which we do.
Another alumnus came back because we had alumni show of Eva Kot'átková. She had been in
residence for three months from Prague. Somebody asked her during the show, “What did you
make while you were in residence at ISCP?” She responded, “I made nothing, but I absorbed
everything. I participated in everything, and when I went back home, I made a huge new body ofwork.” So again, they did take advantage of different aspects of what we provided.

This is why it is interesting to ask somebody ten years later: “Oh, you took part in this program ten
years ago. From that perspective, what changes do you see and what can you attribute to thisprogram?” What we heard often was that the best environment did not have the expectation to
make something specific, but instead the expectation to reach inside yourself and be as risky as
you can to create something that you might not be able to do in any other environment. We try
to create a supportive environment. We do everything for you. We do your laundry, make all yourThe connections between residents are critical, and we have Google Alerts for every single
alumnus. We stay updated on what alumni are doing and whether an alumnus is showing in thecity of another alumnus. Lastly, we have questionnaires, and that is critical for us to know how well
we are doing.

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PANEL DISCUSSION

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESCecily Cook: René, how do you define success within a fairly diverse program? In your bio, it
states the focus of your residency as creative exchange. Have you seen success in this area inyour residency?

Jane DeBevoise: Now, with technology and social media, artists can travel across cultures andnations and encounter art and artists in ways that were unimaginable even a few years ago. Where
do you see the future of the physical residency? Is the physical residency obsolete?

René Lorenceau: In my personal opinion, the residency is a success if the artist tells you it wasinteresting and important for their development. Success is also when former Swatch Art Peace
Hotel guests form a community. This is the case, at least for most of them.

David Diamond: The physical residency is vital because you can have a different quality ofrelationship with someone you encounter in-person; you see them at meals, in workshops, touring
to cultural sites, etc. For some people, it’s all about the food. People who come to La MaMa
Umbria always talk about how amazing the food is. We published a cookbook last year. We are
all in theater and performance, and it is always about people in the same room exchanging somekind of energy. I do not think we are going to lose residencies that are in person, especially on theperformance level.

Cecily Cook: Could anyone share a disastrous story?
Susan Hapgood: My two disastrous stories were both terrible. We had an artist who went deaf
in one ear and then in the second ear during the residency, and did not have adequate healthinsurance. I did not have the legal power to say, “Go home,” but I encouraged him to. He wascrying in my office and made the decision to go home. He said he had tried to get the residency
for so many years, and finally had been awarded it. It was horrible.
The other story concerns a situation when I was watching the final stage of a selection processthat I had no power over. There were five finalists. One artist, who works with flame and plastic,
who burns plastic to make her art, was selected. She could not find any places in the city, however,that would allow her to burn plastic. We encouraged her to experiment with new practices for theperiod of the residency since burning plastic was not allowed pretty much anywhere, but she
would not. She was pretty dissatisfied with the residency, understandably!
David Diamond: I would not call them disasters, but I would say there have been challenges.
Sometimes I push the participants to do things they find uncomfortable or unexpected. But eventhough people may initially feel upset about it, there is a lot of growth that takes place once theyfind their way through. We had to deal with instances where people objected to what was being
asked to them. But we had to navigate it in a way that was both respectful of the teaching artists,
the director we brought in, and the participants. I think an artist sometimes needs to break throughtheir own personal barriers in order to discover new parts of themselves that could be useful intheir process.

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PANEL DISCUSSION

That being said, we welcome technology at La MaMa Umbria. A lot of the directors come in toteach workshops and teach how to use technology with live performance. And we also do Culture
Hub events at an interactive studio. We might have Seoul Institute of the Arts students in Korea
interacting with artists that we bring to Italy from other countries. It allows us to continue our maingoal, which is to enable people to experience the practices of artists from other cultures.
Susan Hapgood: ISCP is a slightly different animal in that we are in New York City and that is theplace people want to come to. We are in a political, cultural capital and it is hard to experiencethat from afar. We provide the nurturing environment of a community that is dedicated to helping
one another. There are 34 colleagues to help a resident figure out how to explore the New York art
world. Many residents are surprised at how expansive the New York art environment is. I always
say it is not one art world in New York. You can find anyone you want. The contacts they make inthe city and the contacts they make among each other are very important. Many of them do bondquickly and build an immediate community.
Audience Question I: What is your residency’s relationship like with the local community?
Susan Hapgood: The local community is very happy that we are there. We are one of the largest
nonprofit arts organizations in our city district, and we are committed to providing free public

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIES

programming to the community.
René Lorenceau: We try to inform the community about the importance of what we are doing. For
example, at the Venice Biennale, we sent all our former guests an invitation to our exhibition there.
When the residency had its 5th anniversary, we invited former residents to Shanghai. It is notpossible to invite 300 people to Shanghai, but we try to keep everyone updated. Sometimes, we
ask artists to do a talk or prepare small performances. And for commercial events, the artists canearn a little bit of money.

Susan Hapgood: In response to alumni, we initiated the alumni residency, and we also provide
them with monthly messages with listings about opportunities throughout the world. We promote
all of their projects on social media. All of these are in response to what alumni want.
David Diamond: Alumni from the La MaMa Umbria programs have come back multiple times
because the artists that lead the workshops are different every summer. As a result, they receive
different approaches to the program. We let everybody know what is going on and then they canchoose to come back. I would love to raise more funds to support alumni coming back, because I
think they add a perspective which enriches the programs.

David Diamond: Spoleto and indeed the entire province of Umbria is a very rich cultural area,
but the people we interact within the local community turn out to be mostly students and young
artists. The teaching artists come to our residencies to do workshops with local artists andstudents. So, those people have become part of La MaMa Umbria program. We stay in contact
with them so that the following year they may come back again. There is a great chance that thepeople in the general community of Spoleto will go to other residencies in Italy. We collaborate
with several other residencies in Italy and share resources and teaching artists. There is a network.
It is really vital that the young people of the community are experiencing the work of international
artists, because it helps them develop. We also work with refugees who are in Spoleto (or nearby)and engage them in artistic practices; this enriches all of us as we learn about different traditions
and explore diverse stories.
Liz Behrend, ACC Program Officer: I am interested to hear if any of the panelists have been able
to develop alumni engagement programs in response to alumni requests or if you have received
such requests that you are unable to respond to?
René Lorenceau: The residency is a package. We don’t tell artists what to do, and we don't
support them in terms of curatorial programs. We send contacts in Shanghai to the artists, but wedon't follow up with them after this point. It is not possible to apply again, because we want to givethis opportunity to the maximum number of artists. It is a one-time chance. We insist artists takethis one chance at its maximum length and stay six months rather than three months.

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PANEL DISCUSSION

59

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESConclusion

I was excited to hear from so many artists on this symposium. Seventy percent of the audience
identifies themselves as artists. Residencies are a kind of incubator and the definition of theword artist is expanding. We have certainly seen within the visual art world a hybridity—that
artists consider themselves to be designers, coders, DJs, as well as actors. When you look at
how content is being distributed, you see operas at the High Line. Music and theater are partof museum programming. Residencies are happening at Google and Facebook. Brands arecommissioning artwork. There is a tremendous amount of blurring. Certainly, technology is playing
a big role in all of this activity.
It was really fun to hear about Fito’s super project in China where he’s exploring food through VR.
He spent the first of several months in our inaugural year at NEW INC. You were perhaps surprisedby the fact that somebody had offered to buy the piece. I am going to respectfully disagree with
Jane when she suggested that it was the hyper-consumerism of the Chinese that led to this offer.
I would like to propose that we might be stuck in the western conventions of how art is valued,
and perhaps the Chinese have a more expansive definition of what art is and how to value art. So,
for me, if someone wants to buy your “experience” and turn it into a restaurant, I say way to go.
Developing new forms of art-making creates more avenues for sustainability.
I was also very interested in what Li Mu said about spending all his time wanting to create art
and having no time to understand business. This is dangerous, residing in a cocoon. An artist, bydefinition, is a self-employed business. We need to be entrepreneurs. We need to understandwhat healthcare looks like. We need to understand your taxes, contracts, and IP. Perhaps when
we look at our residency models, we can make them more elastic. A certain kind of professional
development for artists should be required, so that their livelihood does not depend on securing
one residency and then another. We want to offer them a number of different models so they canremain sustainable.

Karen Wong
Deputy Director
New Museum

them, because these tensions can be the impetus to vital art. When we look at China, where
Chinese are the majority, the question is: “Whose story gets told?” When we are here in America,
the Asian American question is: “How are we represented?” It is hard not to quickly mention the
Hollywood film Crazy Rich Asians, the hot topic Asians talk about in the United States right now.
We need to get quite serious for a moment. Regarding this idea of representation, are we part of
the real cultural ecosystem here and mass media? Do Asian men and Asian women operate indifferent ways because of how they are perceived? These are the current gripping topics that weare examining. If there is to be true cultural exchange, it would be potent to make sure that when
Chinese artists visit, they understand what is going on here so they can add their voice and texture
to these very complex questions of identity.
And finally, on community engagement, which we spoke about on the first and third panels: as an
artist or cultural institution, we need to define community engagement for our funders. Sometimes,
community engagement is simply that a piece of artwork needs an audience. Sometimes,
community engagement is about a feedback loop, or a partnership or a co-creation. How to create
community engagement really should come from the artists rather than from the funders. My wish
is that we, as a community, have as much dialogue as possible to make sure, instead of checking
boxes, we are really doing what we are meant to do, which is exchange and dialogue.
Thank you very much.

Under the umbrella of the Creative China Festival, the idea of cultural exchange seems to be
an opportunity to discuss cultural differences. For me personally, as a Chinese-American, my
experience is very different from someone from Mainland China. I want us to think about the roleof our institutions and residencies to make sure that we surface up the differences and talk about

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61

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESAppendix: Panelist Bios

Jamie Bennett
Executive Director, ArtPlace America
www.artplaceamerica.org

Ping Chong
Artistic Director, Ping Chong + Company
www.pingchong.org

Jamie Bennett is the executive director of ArtPlace America, a partnershipamong private foundations, federal agencies, and financial institutions
working to position arts and culture as a core sector of community planningand development, so that artists and arts organizations are regularcollaborators in helping to build equitable, healthy, and sustainable futures.
To date, ArtPlace has invested over $100 million, which has gone to support
279 projects in communities of all sizes; six place-based organizations
that have committed to permanently working in this cross-sector way; anddeep investigations into the intersections of arts and culture with energy
and the environment, housing, immigration, public health, public safety, andtransportation. Previously, Jamie worked at the National Endowment for theArts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Agnes Gund Foundation,
Columbia University, The Museum of Modern Art, and the New York
Philharmonic.

Ping Chong is an internationally acclaimed artist and pioneer in the useof media in the theater. Since 1972, he has created over 100 productions
including Throne of Blood, Cathay: Three Tales of China, Kwaidan, andDeshima. His ALAXSXA|ALASKA was presented at LaMaMa in Fall 2017and continues to tour. In 1992, he created the first Undesirable Elements
production, an ongoing series of community-based oral history projects.
Representative works include BEYOND SACRED: Voices of Muslim Identity,
CRY FOR PEACE: Voices from the Congo, and GAIJIN. UNDESIRABLE
ELEMENTS/JAPAN premieres in January, 2019. TCG published twovolumes of his plays “The East West Quartet” and “Undesirable Elements:
Real People, Real Lives, Real Theatre.” Ping Chong is the recipient of a
Guggenheim Fellowship, a USA Artist Fellowship, two BESSIE awards, two
OBIE awards, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Ford Foundation Art ofChange Fellowship and a 2014 National Medal of Arts.

Jay Brown
Director, Lijiang Studio
www.lijiangstudio.org

In 2004, Jay founded Lijiang Studio, an arts practice based in a rural
farming village in southwest China’s Yunnan Province. Since then, Lijiang
Studio has facilitated and produced residencies and exhibitions in urban,
rural, domestic, public, and private settings. These events are co-curated
with the artists involved and with members of that local community. Besides
the artworks and experiences involved, event highlights include Jianghu
Mobile Video, Kunming, 2005; To Raise One Question After Another,
Beijing, 2007; Another China, Berlin, 2008; Our Host! Gone Just Like That,
New York/Providence, 2011; EXOTIKA, Berlin/Bangkok, 2013; Lijiang Studio
INDEX, New York, 2015; and Mapping the Affective Landscape, Lashihai,
2018. Before Lijiang Studio, Jay worked at the Nature Conservancy’s China
Program, based in Yunnan. Jay graduated from Princeton University in 2001
with a degree in Art History and certificate in East Asian Studies.

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Cui Qiao
President, Beijing Contemporary Art Foundationwww.bcaf.org.cn

Cui Qiao is the president of Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation. With
more than 15 years of extensive experience in the art and culture industry,
she is leading the organization's efforts to oversee the strategic positioning
and social responsibility, build up professional working system, andachieve stable long-term development. Previously, Cui was the Director of
the Public Relations Department and Cultural Projects Department of theGoethe Institute (China), Vice Director of UCCA, Chinese consultant of the
Mercator Foundation in Germany, and the China Representative of the BMW
Foundation. Cui has participated in the China-EU cultural research project
as official "Senior China Expert” and non-governmental cultural exchange
policy research between China and India/Japan/Germany etc. Since 2002,
Cui has organized a wide range of art programs to support cross-culturaland international exchange, including collaborative projects with Rem
Koolhaas, Pina Bausch, Wim Wenders, and Abbas Kiarostami etc.

Cecily Cook
Director of Programs, Asian Cultural Council
www.asianculturalcouncil.org

Cecily Cook is the Director of Programs at the Asian Cultural Council (ACC).
She joined the staff of ACC in 1994 as Program Officer, and in this capacity
she has worked closely with artists from all over Asia and the United States,in a wide range of artistic disciplines, to create fellowship programs thatconnect individuals across borders. Cecily received her B.A. degree in
Italian from Brown University in 1985 and an M.A. degree in folklore fromthe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1989. From 1989 to 1993,
she ran the Refugee Arts Group, a Boston-based non- profit organization
supporting traditional arts conservation programs for Southeast Asian
communities, and following that she worked as a full-time traditional arts
consultant for the New England Foundation for the Arts. From 1990 to
1995, Ms. Cook co-directed the Cambodian Artists Project, a partnershipof Cambodian dancers and musicians in the U.S. and Cambodia that
produced a series of dance and music programs and which was funded inpart by ACC.

Jane DeBevoise
Chair, Board of Directors, Asia Art Archive, Hong
Kong and New York
aaa.org.hk, aaa-a.org
Jane DeBevoise is Chair of the Board of Directors of Asia Art Archive inHong Kong and New York. Prior to moving to Hong Kong in 2002, Ms.
DeBevoise was Deputy Director of the Guggenheim Museum, responsible
for museum operations and exhibitions globally. She joined the Museumin 1996 as Project Director of China: 5000 Years, a large-scale exhibitionof traditional and modern Chinese art that was presented in 1998 at the
Guggenheim museums in New York and Bilbao. Her book Between State
and Market: Chinese Contemporary Art in the Post-Mao Era was publishedin 2014 by Brill.

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESDavid J. Diamond
Curator, La MaMa Umbria International Programs
lamama.org/programs/la-mama-umbria
www.davidjdiamond.com

David curates the La MaMa Umbria International Symposia, which bringrenowned artists from around the world to Spoleto, Italy for workshops,
residencies and performances in the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds. He
recently received the CEC ArtLink Residency in St. Petersburg, Russia.
He serves on the Steering Committee for Theatre Without Borders. He
is a Founder and Trustee of Barrow Group Theatre Company. He is anauthor, community activist, and Facilitator of Forum Theatre. As a FulbrightSpecialist in Theatre, he recently completed a residency with Dah Theatre
in Belgrade, Serbia. David is President of Career Coaching for Artists which
presents workshops, including Directing Your Theatre Career annually atColumbia University and Yale School of Drama. His most recent publications
are a chapter in Dah Teatar: A Sourcesbook (2016) and the Preface to Butta
La Pasta: Cucina a La MaMa Umbria (2017).

Ursula Eagly
Choreographer
www.ursulaeagly.org

Ursula Eagly makes dances characterized by a “rabbit-hole logic” (NYTimes) that consider the potential of porosity, an interrupted physicality, andyou. Her work has been commissioned and presented in New York by The
Chocolate Factory, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, and Mount
Tremper Arts, among others, and internationally in Albania, Denmark, Italy,
Japan, Macedonia, Manipur, and Mexico. Her work has been sustained by
grants from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation/USArtists International, The
Suitcase Fund, FCA/Emergency Grant, Japan Foundation/Performing Arts
JAPAN, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and the Queens Council on the Arts.
Other projects include writing for magazines from Artforum to ARTnews
and editing 53rd State Press Dance Pamphlet (inaugural edition), MR
Performance Journal (#41 & 42), Critical Correspondence (2010-2011), andDanspace Project catalogues (PLATFORM 2010 & 2011). Ursula was Artistic
Advisor for NYLA's Fresh Tracks program (2014-2017) and currently serveson the Explore the Metropolis Advisory Board.

Susan Hapgood
Executive Director, International Studio &Curatorial Programiscp-nyc.org

René Lorenceau
Former CEO, Swatch Art Peace Hotelwww.swatch-art-peace-hotel.com

Susan Hapgood is Executive Director of the International Studio & Curatorial
Program in New York. Former director, and founder of the Mumbai Art
Room in India, Hapgood received her initial professional training at the
Guggenheim Museum and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. She wasalso Director of Exhibitions at Independent Curators International for sevenyears, and has curated over thirty exhibitions, including A Fantastic Legacy:
Early Bombay Photography, Flux Attitudes, Neo-Dada: Redefining Art 195862, and Slightly Unbalanced, and co-curated Energy Plus at the Shanghai
Biennale, and In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art. She has taught
curatorial practice for Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Bard
College Center for Curatorial Studies. Author or editor of seven books andmany articles on modern and contemporary art, Hapgood received an M.A.
in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

René Lorenceau, who was born in Paris in 1954, is currently based in
Switzerland. After earning a master’s degree in mathematics (Paris, 1980),
René worked as an artist (painter and filmmaker) between 1980 and 1987
in Basel, Switzerland. He ultimately decided to start a career managing
customer publications and annual reports with several Swiss companies.
He completed a master’s degree in history (Strasbourg, 1991) followed by
a PhD in Urban History (Strasbourg and Tours, 2001). He joined Swatch
Group in 2001, where he headed up a small team working on connected
watches. He then had the opportunity to become responsible for digitalcommunication and the corporate annual report. Since 2009, René has
managed the Swatch Art Peace Hotel artist residency project (concept,
setup and operation) and is in charge of the artist pre-selection. He wasnamed CEO of the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai in 2017, and retiredin 2019.

Li Mu
Visual Artist
www.iamlimu.org

Li Mu lives and works in Feng County and Suzhou in China. He graduatedfrom the Suzhou School of Art and Design, Suzhou in 1995 and theAcademy of Art of Tsinghua University, Beijing in 2001. Li Mu has createdworks of different categories, including video, photography, installationand performance. He looks forward to transcending the boundaries ofhimself and broadening his understanding towards art via these works.
Everyday life plays an important role in his works. A relationship between
the environment, the general public and him was established, blurring theboundary between art and life by resorting to his life experience. Li Mu has
had numerous group exhibitions and solo exhibitions including: Li Mu-A
Man, A Village, A Museum, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands(2015); Sol LeWitt and Lu Daode, Aurora Museum, Shanghai (2015);
Confessions of the Imperfect, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands.

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APPENDIX: PANELIST BIOS

Fito Segrera
Former Head of Research and Creation at
Chronus Art Center, Shanghai
www.chronusartcenter.org

Fito Segrera studied fine arts and audiovisual / Multimedia production at
Jorge Tadeo Lozano University of Bogota¡, Colombia and completed a MFA in
Design and Technology with honors at Parsons, The New School, New York,
while being a Fulbright Scholar from 2013 until 2015. His current researchand creative practice appropriates elements from digital philosophy, artificial
intelligence, monism and modern physics while using physical computing,software programming and information/telecommunication technologies toinquiry in fundamental ontological questions regarding the nature of reality
and the physicality of the universe. Some of his most recent shows include:"Open Codes 2", ZKM, Karlsuhe, Germany, 2018, "I am here to learn: On
Machinic Interpretations of the World", Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt,
Germany, 2018, "UNREAL: The Algorithmic Present", House of Electronic
Arts (HEK), Basel, Switzerland, 2017 & Chronus Art Center, Shanghai, 2017,
among others.

Karen Wong is the Deputy Director of the New Museum, NYC. She
cofounded the initiatives IDEAS CITY, which explores the future of cities withthe belief that art and culture are essential to our metropolises, and NEW
INC, the first museum-led incubator for art, technology and design. She has
widely lectured on the future of museums. She was the managing directorof Adjaye Associates from 2000-2006 and supports emerging architects
in her role as a board member of + Pool. In the early 90’s she founded a
Boston-based design firm committed to nonprofits and social causes. She
sits on the boards of Rhizome, a platform for emergent artistic practices thatengage technology and National Sawdust, a nonprofit music venue locatedWilliamsburg. She received an Inspiration Award in 2010 from Apex forYouth, a mentoring and education program for underserved Asian youth andis a current board director. She graduated magna cum laude from Brown
University.

Miho Walsh
Executive Director, Asian Cultural Council
www.asianculturalcouncil.org

Mia Yoo
Artistic Director, La MaMa Experimental
Theatre Club
lamama.org

Jennifer Wen Ma
Visual Artist
www.littlemeat.net

Jennifer Wen Ma is a visual artist whose interdisciplinary practice bridges
varied media of installation, drawing, video, public art, design, performance,
and theatre. Projects with international institutions include: Halsey Institute,Charleston, SC, 2019; Tang Contemporary, Beijing, China; Art Omi, Ghent,
NY, 2018; Cass Sculpture Foundation; Qatar Museums, Doha, 2016,
among others. Permanent public collections include: Nature and Man
in Rhapsody of Light at the Water Cube, The National Aquatic Center,
Beijing, 2013, among others. In 2015, Ma conceived, visually designed
and directed installation opera Paradise Interrupted, previewed at theMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and performed at Lincoln Center
Festival, Singapore International Festival of Arts, 2016, and Spoleto Festival
USA, 2015. In 2008, Ma was a core creative-team-member of the Beijing
Olympics opening ceremony, and received an Emmy award. Ma works andlives between New York and Beijing.

Karen Wong
Deputy Director, New Museum
www.newmuseum.org

Miho Walsh has worked for over 20 years in cultural and educational
exchange, first at the Consulate General of Japan in New York and later
as Associate Director of the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture
and Executive Director of the Institute for Japanese Cultural Heritage
Initiatives at Columbia University. She has also served as a cross-culturalcommunication specialist and consultant for New York State government
offices and the United Nations. Miho was raised in Tokyo, Japan, andreceived her B.A. degrees in both political science and French language
and culture from Vassar College. She is a graduate of Columbia University,where she completed advanced studies in conflict resolution and earneda Master of Arts degree in organizational psychology. Currently, she serveson the board of the ACC Philippines Foundation and ACC Hong Kong
Foundation. Miho joined the Asian Cultural Council in 2009 as its Associate
Director and was appointed Executive Director in 2013.

65

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCIESMia Yoo became La MaMa’s Artistic Director in 2011. She is a grant recipientof the New Generations Future Leaders Program, cooperatively designedby the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundationand the Theatre Communications Group. Yoo became Co-Artistic Directorof La MaMa in 2009. Yoo is the co-creator of the International Directors’
Symposium at La MaMa Umbria, now entering its eleventh year, and has
coordinated La MaMa Umbria’s summer theatre festivals and Playwright
Retreat since 1993. Mia Yoo has been a member of La MaMa E.T.C.’srepertory company, The Great Jones Rep., since 1995. In 2004, with Nicky
Paraiso, Yoo created La MaMa Moves! La MaMa’s annual dance festivalthat features up to 50 new and emerging choreographers and hundreds ofdancers, and reflects La MaMa’s longstanding mission to transcend politics
and unify cultures through performance.

Asian Cultural Council
www.asianculturalcouncil.org
Beijing Contemporary Art Foundationwww.bcaf.org.cn
Emailinfo@bcaf.org.cn
press@bcaf.org.cn
Social Media
Wechat: bjbcaf
Weibo: @ 譯鲷嫕魍頯梮▕㳟＝Instagram: bcaf_bj
Facebook: BCAF
Twitter: BCAF
Editors: Charlotte Fleming, Vivian Ying
Translators: Vivian Ying, Liu Siyu, Yao Wen, Shao Yixue
Coordinator: Shao Yixue
Designer: Zhang Ruiqi
Special Thanks
Jamie Bennett, Jay Brown, Ping Chong, Cecily Cook,
Cui Qiao, Jane DeBevoise, David J. Diamond, Ursula Eagly,
Susan Hapgood, Li Mu, René Lorenceau, Jennifer Wen Ma,
Fito Segrera, Miho Walsh, Karen Wong, Mia Yoo
Cover photo: Ursula Eagly performs Pieces with gaps foreach other at The Chocolate Factory, 2017. Photo by Anja
Hitzenberger; Mattia Casalegno, Aerobanquets RMX, 2017.
Image courtesy of Chronus Art Center
Back cover photo: Workshop at La MaMa Umbria
International. Photo by David J. Diamond
Copyrights©BCAF AND ACC 2020
All rights reserved

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