The JapanFaun ation As·aCenter
2016

volume 02

Rm,ortInternational Symposium

THE1990s
The Making of Art with
Contemporaries

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Art

StudiesTHE MAKING
OFART
1TH
CONTEMPORARIESInternational Symposium 2015
Day1 May23,2015 Saturday 13:00-17 :00
Day2 May 24, 2015 Sunday 13:00-16:00
Venue B2F Auditorium, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Organizers

The Japan Foundation Asia Center, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

TrcJapanFoundation As1aCenter

Art
Studies02
THE 1990s: The Making of Art with Contemporaries
ReportFuruich1 Yasuko
Hoash1Aki

SanoMeikoAndrew Maerkle

Hashimoto Azusa
Hayashi Sumi
Hirano Mayum1
Horiuchi Naoko
Iida Shihoko
Matsuura Naomi

This symposium was held on
Saturday, May 23 and Sunday,
May 24 in 2015 for two daysat the B2F Auditorium ofMuseum of Contemporary Art
Tokyo as a related program ofthe "Time of others" exhibition, organized by the JapanFoundation Asia Center andMuseum of Contemporary Art
Tokyo.
The symposium was assisted
by Japanese/English simultaneous interpretation,
conducted by Yokota Kayoko,
Kobata Kazue, andKobayashi Akiko.

Aikawa KenichiThis report consists of thepresentation papers submitted and transcription of the
discussions that took place
during the symposium.
Sawara Printing Co., Ltd.

fhe Japan Foundation Asia Center4 4 1 Yotsuya, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
160-0004, Japantel 81 3 5369.6140
fax 81 3 5369.6141
http·//www.jpf.go.jp/ www.jtac.jp
Published on March 2016
©2016
The Japan Foundation/ Authors
all rights reserved.

The original presentation
papers were revised andfinalized by the panelists after
the symposium.
The Japan Foundation Asia
Center is responsible forediting and finalizing thematerials included in thisreport.
Position title/affiliation ofthe
panelists are current as of
May 2015.
The order of family names andgiven names of people spelled
out in Japanese and English
follow a set of standard rules
applied by the JapanFoundation, except for thosenames that are artist names.
As a rule, Chinese, Korean,
and Japanese names are
spelled out in the order offamily name and given name.

THE1990s
The Making of Art with Contemporaries

Art

Studies
02
Contents

004
006

Panelist Profiles
Symposium Program

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032
034

Artists ·and Curators · Views:
Foreign and Domestic
Representations of "Asia
DinhQ.Le
Joan Kee042

Discussion

057

072
077

Artistic Engagements of
Public Institutions:
The Visualization andDiscourse of Asia
Ahmad Mashadi
Alison Carroll
Kishi Sayaka
Discussion

086

094
097

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031

058
066

1

105

Globalization and the
Expansion of theAlternative Art Scenes
Gridthiya Gaweewong
Flaudette May Datuin
Ade Darmawan

008
014

102

Kamiya Yukie
HoashiAki

100

Furuichi Yasuko

122
124

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Contemporaries

Panelist Profiles

Session
1 I Presentation
1

Gridthiya Gaweewong
Positiontitle/ affiliationof thepanelistsand
moderators
arecurrentasof May2015.

ArtisticDirector,Jim Thompson
Art Center

Born in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Received MA (Arts
Administration) at the School of the Art Instituteof Chicago. Gaweewong co-founded Project 304,
a non-profit, independent arts organization in
1996. Her curatorial projects address issues ofglobalization, migration, and alienation raised bycontemporary artists in and outside Thailand.
Organized exhibitions include "Traces" (JimThompson Art Center, Bangkok, 2012),"Primitive" (Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok,
2011 ), "Between Utopia and Dystopia" (Museo
Universitario Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City,
2011 }, "Politics of Fun" (Haus der Kulturen derWelt, Berlin, 2005), and "Montien Boonma"(Galerie Beuderley, Paris, 1997). She is also
involved with building networks among Asianand global art communities through seminars,
conferences, and workshops in Asia and abroad.
Lives and works in Bangkok.
Session
1 I Presentation
2

Flaudette May Datuin
Professor,
Departmentof theArts,Universityofthe Philippines
DilimanBorn in Los Banos, Laguna, the Philippines.
Received PhD (Philippines Studies) from the
University of the Philippines Diliman. Datu inpursued postgraduate work as a Visiting
Research Fellow, University of New South Wales(2011-2013),Asian Public Intellectual and Asian
Scholarship Fellow (2004-2005), and Australian
National University Humanities Research Centre
Visiting Fellow (2008). Major international exhibitions curated include "Nothing to Declare" (Blanc
Compound, Yuchengco Museum, Vargas
Museum, Manila, 2011), "Trauma, Interrupted"(Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila, 2007),and "Women Imaging Women" (Cultural Centerof the Philippines, Manila, 1998). These curatorial
works emerge from research interests on female
artists in Asia, contemporary art, trauma, art andhealing, and art and ecology. Editor of Alter/(n)ations in the Art of Imelda Cajipe Endaya(University of the Philippines Press, 2010) andauthor of Home Body Memory: Filipina Artists in the
VisualArts, 19th Century to Present (University of
the Philippines Press, 2005). Datuin also cofounded Ctrl+P: Digftal Journal of Contemporary Art
in 2006. Lives and works in Manila.
Session
1 I Presentation
3

Ade Darmawan
Director,ruangrupa

Born in Jakarta, Indonesia. Works as an artist and curator. Studied at the Graphic Art
Department, Indonesian Institute of the Arts
(ISi) during 1992 to '97 prior to doing a residency at the Institute for Advance Art Studies
and Research, Rijksakademie van Beeldende
Kunsten during 1998 to 2000. After returning from the Rijksakademie, he founded ruangrupa-an artist-initiative organization which
focuses on the visual arts and its relation to thesocio-cultural contexts especially in urban environments-with
five other artists from Jakarta.
With ruangrupa as a collaborative platform, heparticipated in the 7th Asia Pacific Triennial ofContemporary Art (2012), Singapore Biennale
2011 (2011), 9th International Istanbul Biennial(2005), and the 4th Gwangju Biennale (2002).
From 2006 to 2009, he served as a member of
the Jakarta Arts Council, and in 2009 he became
the Artistic Director for the Jakarta Biennale XIII:ARENA, prior to being appointed the Executive
Director of the Jakarta Biennale in 2013. Lives
and works in Jakarta.
Session2 I Presentation
1

Dinh 0. Le
Arrt1stBorn in Ha-Tien, Vietnam Received his BA (Art
Studio) at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, and his MFA (Photography and Related
Media) at the School of Visual Arts in New York
City. Returned to Vietnam in 1994, and settled
down in Ho Chi Minh City in 1997. Through his
artistic practice, Le constantly challenges how
our memories are recalled in tandem with
contexts within contemporary life, excavating
history to reveal alternative ideas of loss andredemption. Recent solo exhibitions include"Dinh Q Le: Memory for Tomorrow" (Mori Art
Museum, Tokyo, 2015}, "Project 93: Dinh Q Le"(The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 201011)and "Destination for the New Millennium,
The Art of Dinh O Le" (Asia Society, New York,
2005). Le also participated in the 2013 Carnegie
International (2013-2014), dOCUMENTA (13)(2012), and "Delays and Revolutions" (the 50th
Venice Biennale, 2003). He co-founded Vietnam
Foundation for the Arts (VNFA) and San Art, themost active non-profit gallery and residency
program in Vietnam, and is the recipient of theRockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center
Residency Program (2014) and the Visual Art
Laureate for the Prince Claus Awards (2010).
Lives and works in Ho Chin Minh City.
Session2 I Presentation
2

Joan Kee
AssociateProfessor,
Departmentof theHistoryof Art,
Universityof Michigan

Born in Virginia, USA. A graduate of Yale
University, Harvard Law School and the Instituteof Fine Arts, New York University, Kee holds thefirst academic position in North America specifically created for the study of modern and contemporary art in Asia. A contributor to
Artforum, Art History, Art Margins, Archives ofAsian Art, and the Oxford Art Journal, she coedited an issue of Third Text on contemporary
Southeast Asian Art (Vol. 25, Issue 4, August2011) and edited a special issue on contemporary
Asian art for Positions: East Asia Cultures
Critique (Vol. 12, No. 3, Winter2004).
She curated "From All Sides: Tansaekhwa on
Abstraction" (Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, 2014),
the first major survey of Tansaekhwa (monochrome painting) outside Korea. Kee is the authorof Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and theUrgency of Method (University of Minnesota
Press, 2013), a finalist for the College Art
Association's annual Charles Rufus Morey Book
Award, given to an especially distinguished bookin art history. She is also the co-editor of ToScale(Wiley-Blackwell, January 2016}, a transnational

005

Chapter1anthology of essays on questions of size andscale in the visual arts. Lives and works in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, USA.
Session3 I Presentation
1

Ahmad Mashadi
Head,NUSMuseum

Born in Singapore Mashadi served as a Senior
Curator at the Singapore Art Museum, which
inaugurated in 1996, prior to joining the National
University of Singapore (NUS) Museum in 2007.
Curated and co-curated exhibitions at theSingapore Art Museum include "Telah Terbit(Out Now)" (2006), "Cubism in Asia" (2006), and"Modernity and Beyond: Themes in Southeast
Asian Art" (1996). At the NUS Museum, Mashadi
co-curated "Archiving Apin: Works andDocuments from the Mochtar Apin Collection"(2013), "Camping & Tramping Through theColonial Archive: The Museum in Malaya" (2011),"Jendela: A Play of the Ordinary" (2008),"Picturing Relations: Simryn Gill and Tino
Djumin1" (2007) and "WE" (2007). He also
curated Singapore participations for the 26th
Sao Paulo Biennale (2004), 49th Venice Biennale(2001). and the 10th Triennale-lndia (2000). Lives
and works in Singapore.
Session3 I Presentation2

Alison Carroll
Founding
Director,As1alink
Arts

Born in UK. Earned two degrees in Art History
from the University of Melbourne. Carroll has
curated over 50 exhibitions, including "East andWest" (Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide,1985), the first maJor review in Australia of themeeting of Asian and European (and Australian)art In addition to curatorial projects, She hasorganized many art exchange programs in Asia
during her years running Asialink Arts, including
a series of exchanges with Japan in the early
2000s. Southeast Asian exchanges were a focusof her work in the 1990s. She was appointed to
the National Advisory Committee for the first
three Asia Pacific Triennials of Contemporary
Art. She has published many books, including
The Revolutionary Century; Art in Asia 1900-2000(Macmillan, Australia, 2010), and also was thepresenter of a television series on Asian Art, A
Journey Through Asian Art (ABC TV), in 2014.
Live and works in Melbourne.
Session3 Presentation
3

Kishi Sayaka
AssociateProfessor,
Facultyof Letters,TsuruUniversity

Born in Tokyo, Japan. Completed PhD programs
at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences,
University of Tokyo, and Ecole doctoraled'histoire, Universite de Paris. Kishi was a Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science Research
Fellow prior to joining Tsuru University in 2006.
Specializes in international cultural relations andsociology of art. Author of "Bijutusu ni okeru 'A}ia'
no hy6sh6-Fukuoka Ajia Bijutsukan no tenji
katsud6 [Representation of 'Asia' in the VisualArts-Exhibition Engagements of the Fukuoka
Asian Art Museum]" (Kokusai bunka kankeishi
kenkyu,ed. Hirano Kenichir6 et al., Tokyo Daigaku
Shuppankai, 2013), "Y6roppa t6g6 to bunka

seisaku-sengo bijutsu no soz6oryoku wa d6
henseshitanoka [The European Integration andCultural Policy-Transformations in Postwar
Art]" (Gendai y6roppa no shakai keizai se,saku, ed.
Hirota lsao, Nihon Keizai Hy6ronsha, 2006)
among others. Lives in Tokyo and works in
Yamanashi.

Moderators

Kamiya Yukie
ChiefCurator,Hiroshima
CityMuseumof Contempora,yArt

Born in Kanagawa, Japan. Kamiya served as
Associate Curator at New Museum, New York,prior to joining the Hiroshima MoCA in 2007.
Curated exhibitions at Hiroshima MoCA include"Do Ho Suh in Between" (2012). "Simon Starling- Project for a Masquerade" (2011), "Tsuyoshi
Ozawa: The Invisible Runner Strides on" (2009),
and "Cai Guo Oiang" (2009). Kamiya also
co-curated "Re: Quest-Japanese Contemporary
Art since the 1970s" (Museum of Art, Seoul
National University, Seoul, 2013) and "Under
Construction: New Dimension of Asian Art"
(Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, The JapanFoundation Forum, Tokyo, 2002-2003)
In 2011, Kamiya was awarded with the Academic
Prize from the Foundation for Advancement of
the Arts. Served on the advisory board for
Yokohama Triennale 2014 and PARASOPHIA
Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary
Culture 2015, and jury for "DAAD Artists-inBerlin." She is one of contributors of CreamierContemporary Art in Culture (Phaidon, 2010) andRavaged-Art and Culture in Times of Conflict(Mercatorfounds, 2014). Lives and works in
Hiroshima.
• Director of Japan Society Gallery (New York)
from October 2015.
Doryun Chong
ChiefCurator,
M+

Chong was Curator at the Walker Art Center andAssociate Curator at the Museum of Modern
Art, New York, prior to joining M+ in September
2013. As the inaugural Chief Curator, he oversees all curatorial activities including exhibitions
and symposia, acquisitions for the collection, as
well as learning and interpretation programs.
Exhibitions co-curated at MoMA include "Tokyo
1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde" (2012-2013).
"Projects 94: Henrik Olesen" (2011), among
others. Also curated exhibitions at the Busan
Biennale 2006 (2006) and the Korean Pavilion of
the 49th Venice Biennale (2001). Contributed tojournals such asArtforum,Aftera/1, and The
Exhibitionist, and also co-edited From Postwar to
Postmodern, Art in Japan, 1945-1989: Primary
Documents (Museum of Modern Art, New York,
2013). Chong is the recipient of the first ICI Gerrit
Lansing Independent Vision Award (2010) andhas also served as many prize juries including
the Hugo Boss Prize (2015). Absolut Art Award(2015), and the Contemporary Chinese Art
Award (2014). Lives and works in Hong Kong.

HoashiAki
Art Coordinator
I
ProjectManager,
Organizing
Committee
forYokohama
Tnennale
OfficeBorn in Yokohama, Japan. Received MA(Museum and Gallery Management) at City
University in London . Hoashi has worked oncontemporary art projects as a free-lance art
coordinator, working on projects focusing on
Asia at the Japan Foundation (1997-2010), public
art projects at the NLI Research Institute (20002002), and as Director of the artist-in-residence
ARCUS Project (2003-2007). She has beenworking for the Yokohama Triennale since the
4th edition in 2011, and is currently preparing forits 6th edition scheduled for 2017. She also works
as Japanese/ English interpreter and translator.
Lives in Tokyo and works in Yokohama.

IllE..ru2I

006

The Making of Art wtth
Contemporaries

Art Studies_02

Symposium Program

DAY1

SESSION2

May 23 (Sat), 2015 I 13:00-17 :00
13'00-13.05
Welcome Address by the Organizer
SESSION 1
Globalization and the Expansion of theAlternative Art Scenes
Mode

01

Kamiya Yukie
ChiefCurator,
Hiroshima
CityMuseumof Contemporary
Art

DAY2

May 24 (Sat), 2015 I 13:00-16:00
Artists ' and Curators ' Views:
Foreign and Domestic
Representations of "Asia"

rvOJl'r I\
Doryun Chong
ChiefCurator,
M+

SESSION3
Artistic Engagements of Public Institutions:
The Visualization and Discourse of "Asia"

Hoashi Aki
15:10-1535
Presentation
Dinh 0 . Le

Art Coordinator/ ProjectManager, OrganizingCommittee
forYokohama
Triennale
OfficeTrue Journey is Return

13:00 13·10
Day Recap
Kamiya Yukie

ArtisticDirector, JimThompson
Art Center

15:35-1600
Presentation 2

1310-13.35
Pr
n
10n 1

Shifting Asian Contemporary Art Networks

Joan Kee

Ahmad Mashadi

AssociateProfessor,
Departmentof theHistoryof Art,
Universityof Michigan

Head,NUSMuseum

13:05 13:30
Presentation 1
Gridthiya Gaweewong

1330-13:55
Presentation 2
Flaudette May Datuin
Professor, Departmentof theArts,
Universityof thePhilippines
Diliman

ArtistThe Scale Question inContemporary Asian Art

16 00- 16:30
Discussion (O&A)

Off-Track

13'55-14.20
Presentation 3
Ade Darmawan
Director,ruangrupa

Homemade Structure andSmall and Medium-sized Speculation

16 30 17 00
Day 1 Wrap· up

Contexts and Predicaments:
Singapore 1996-2006

13 35 14:00
Presentation 2
Alison Carroll
Founding
Director,
AsialinkArts

The Political and the Personal:
Australia's Experience in Visual Arts Exchange
in Southeast Asia through the 1990s

14 00 14:25.,rntatio 3
Kishi Sayaka

14:20-14·50
Discussion (O&A)
14:50-15:10 I Break

AssociateProfessor,
Facultyof Letters,TsuruUniversity

Cultural Diplomacy andMuseum Management:
Beyond an Imaginary Asia

14:25 '4:40 I Break
14:40 15:10
Discussion (O&A)
15.10 16:00
Plenary Discussion

16:00 I Closing

Chapter1

HIEJjl9 _0s
TheMaklngofArtwith
Contemporaries

007

Day1
Session1
Globalizationand the Expansionof
the AlternativeArt Scenes
After the formation of nation-states of the post-Cold
War period and against the backdrop of economic
development from the mid-1980s, Southeast Asian
countries underwent rapid modernization which
subsequently largely transformed the status quo of
local art scenes. Having acquired objective perspectives towards their homelands and the will to propose new possibilities through the arts, artists who
had trained overseas and others who had exerted
their skills as organizers or curators returned to theirrespective countries . These practitioners establishedcommunities-or alternative spaces-which, despite
their small scale, were highly active and mobile, andwhich became the impetus for new types of art thatwere open to communities and the society. These
spaces simultaneously emerged in regional areas
such as Baguio, Bacolod, Yogyakarta, and Chiang
Mai, where artist-initiated festivals were establishedand, due to the flexibility which existing organizations
lacked, quickly became hubs to connect art practitioners who shared similar values and social awareness.
New spaces of expression were thus created-supported by networks which spread from the local to
the global-which characterizes the art scenes ofSoutheast Asia today.
Taking into consideration the involvement of the arts
in socio-political contexts of the early 1990s to 2000s
in Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, this session shed light upon the artistic endeavors of the time,
where the three speakers presented case studies
along with the social effects they caused for subsequent art practices .

~The Making of Art with

Session1

Art Studies_02008Contemporaries

Shifting AsianContemporary Art
Networks

Gridthiya Gaweewong
Artistic Director, Jim Thompson Art Center

A new world order emerged at the end of the Cold War with the geopolitics of Asia leading
the way as an integral agent for change in the global landscape . In Southeast Asia, the birthof ASEAN in 1967 came about because of Regionalism, a movement instigated and steeredby postwar American policy, focusing not only on political and economic collaboration but
also on social and cultural interaction . The economic boom in Asia that started in the 1980s
shifted the social strata to the next level. Thus the boom in art and cultural activities in the
Asia-Pacific during the 1990s, the dawn of globalization, was not simply an accident.
But what made contemporary art in As ia shift to the global art landscape? How did
the invisible infrastructure of personal networks exist and play an influential role in thischange? This paper explores the role of alternative spaces in the region over the past two
decades . It tries to investigate how artist/curator collectives, DIY-approaches and grassroots organizations were able to challenge the former art institutions in their own localities .
What were their tactics and the rationale behind their initiatives in the broader context?
Why did they fail or succeed? What factors affected the community and society at large?
Prologue: The ASEAN Government-to-Government Networks

In the Cold War period, Asian art networks were formed based on the official, government-to- government (G2G) connection . Prior to the setting up of ASEAN, a regional exhibition of Southeast Asian art was held in the Philippines . In 1957, the "First Southeast Asia
Art Exhibition : A Southeast Asian Competition and Exhibition" was organized in Manila
and chaired by the president of the Art Association of the Philippines. Malaya's Patrick Ng
Kah Onn won the first prize, with the Philippines' Vicente Manansala coming in second.
Other known participating artists included Dave Shanti (India), Syed Ahmad Jamal (Malaya),
Simon Saulog (the Philippines) and J Sultan Ali (India). Q!
While the G2G networks allowed artists in the region to get to know each other, this was stillat the institutional level. Since then, more than fifty shows have been organized by ASEANrelated committees and alternately held in different countries in the area. Most of the works
which are related to ASEAN have been drawn from the mainstream art school's connections
with the majority of participating artists officially selected from established schools .
In the 1990s, Japan and Australia played a competitive role in the region. Their foreign
at cultural policies to integrate themselves within the Asia -Pacific region led to the initiation of large-scale regional exhibitions such as the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale andQueensland Art Gallery 's Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, respectively. These
kinds of exhibitions allowed regional artists to be more fluid and mobile, and made cross ing borders easier than before.
Within these exhibition-driven projects, the connection between artists extended to
institutional and curatorial networks . That is not to say the official G2G networks disappeared. They still existed but only within the small circle of the "old boy network," government agencies, and established art schools . Sometimes, the same people were involved,

Gridth ya Gaweew

gPresentation1

Chapter1009

at least in the case of Thailand . The curators involved in the early versions of the triennales held in Fukuoka and Queensland worked only with the two major institutions, theSilpakorn University and the Chulalongkorn University . Two senior artists-turned-curators,
Professor Somporn Rodboon and Dr. Apinan Poshyananda, became the main gatekeepers of the contemporary art scene in Thailand. Their roles were to introduce young artists
to the international institutions, co-curate regional shows, and write catalogue, as wellas introduce international artists and curators to the local art community by conducting
workshops, lectures and studio visits. From the late 1980s to the '90s, both played a significant role in facilitating artists' mobility within the region and beyond.
Thai-specificity: Alternative Networks

The collapse of the bubble economy in the region during the late-1990s could not stop theflux of the alternative art movement in Asia. The major international shows had created amomentum but there were no spaces for artists who dealt with global issues to show theirworks in their own countries. The alternative art scenes, non-profit art movements, andartist collectives in Thailand were different from those of the Western context. We existed
as an alternative to nothing. Thailand lacked infrastructure, funding, institutions, and audiences for experimental, conceptual, and new art forms to develop. Alternatives spaces
became unknown territory, presenting unknown art to imagined audiences .
Unlike the artist initiatives in Indonesia and other countries in Southeast Asia, it was thecurators, administrators, and artists who initiated the alternative spaces in Thailand during
the 1990s. In Indonesia, spaces like those run by ruangrupa were influenced by popular
culture of the '90s, leftist politics, and a critique of the Suharto regime . With a strong spiritof resistance and striving for independence and democracy, the Indonesian art scene wasfull of energy and inherited the spirit of artist collectives that continued to exist since the'30s . In Thailand, the alternative spaces existed with different contexts and influences . It
was to fill the gaps that occurred from the lack of infrastructures, to counterbalance thecascade of mainstream popular cultures and Hollywood influences.
Project 304 was initiated by author, curator, artist, and architect friends whom I met
at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. These included film director Apichatpong
Weerasethakul, actor-artist Michael Shaowanasai, and internationally known, midcareer artists based in Bangkok and Chiang Mai such as the late Montien Boon ma,
Kamol Phaosawasdi, and Chatchai Puipia, who sought to create a space that served artists and art communities that were interested in conceptual and experimental arts which
addressed socially engaging issues. We worked with artists from all disciplines dealing with conceptual artworks, experimental films, video art, and so on, and focused on
medium and time-based art. About Cafe was dedicated to contemporary arts, education, music, and fashion, headed by Klaomard Yipintsoi and her partner, a photographer,
Noppadol Khaosamang. Both Project 304 and About Cafe were gathering places for theart community, and became the talk of the town. Tadu Contemporary Art Gallery worked
with more traditional media and focused more on theater . Most of these spaces opened
around 1996 and closed around 2002. The Tadu Contemporary Art Gallery still continues
to run projects, and Project 304 has also continued its Bangkok Experimental Film Festival
working with young curators including David Teh, Adadol lngavanija, and Mary Pansanga.
About Cafe kept its original space, although it is now rented out, while About Photography
was passed on to Mary Pansanga to run her own Messy Sky/ Cloud project.
Even though the alternative spaces were short-lived, the emergence of these projects andspaces in the 1990s shook up the art scene . They became another window to the world foryoung artists . The artists would be able to sneak outside the national networks and institutions, as well as the main gatekeepers' networks . The mushrooming of biennales in Asia
was another factor that drew many curators to the region. A few art exhibitions and projects focusing on networks that deserve noting include "P_A_U_S_E," one of the Gwangju

DAY 1 MAY 23, 2015

Shifting Asian Contemporary Art Networtcs

01

S,mon Soon, "Maps 'lf the Se "hnp //www.soarct>--art as,at,nachments/
f1les/MAPoftheSEApdf(Accessed June 2015)

~

Session1

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010

Art Studies_02

Contemporaries

Biennale 2002 projects, co-curated by Sung Wankyung, Charles Esche, and Hou Hanru .
This project brought two hundred alternatives spaces from Asia and Europe to self-curate
their own exhibitions . This exhibition of exhibitions allowed artists who ran alternative
spaces to interact, connect, and later collaborate with each other. It broke the conventional ground in networking and collaborating, placing it on a larger scale . Its impacts arestill viable and significant today .
Peer-to-Peer Connections: Within and Outside Asia

The model of "P_A_U_S_E" reconfigured the artists/curators and organization networks.
There began a shift from the G2G connections to more grassroots, Peer-to-Peer (P2P)
channels. At the local level, many artist collectives and initiatives bonded and strengthened their ties between artists in the regions. For example the Philippine Arts Festival andArtists' Villages in Singapore-both of which regularly worked on AsiaTopia, a performance-based project in Thailand-conducted projects that reinforced relationships withlocal artists. In the 1980s, many networks tended to associate with each other based ontechnique, as seen in the cases of the ASEAN Watercolor Exhibition, International Print
Biennale, performance and film festivals, and so on . The multidisciplinary approach grew
popular towards the end of the twentieth century. One project initiated by Chiang Maibased artists and art lecturers from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University (CMU),
was the Chiang Mai Social Installation . An ad-hoc operation organized by artists, it wasdemocratic, inclusive, and without selection. Instead, the organizers served as facilitators for artists who wished to work in any area around the city of Chiang Mai. This project
became the catalyst for artists of this generation, with most participating in this important
project from its birth in the early 1990s. The network, which expanded and ended in thelate '90s, served to connect artists on local , regional, and international levels.
On the other side of the Chiang Mai Social Installation was a network of artists in theregion, especially the Mekong area, wh ich was initiated by US-based foundations such as
the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Many art and cultural projects wereactivated and promoted between Asian -American and American artists and artists basedin the Mekong region. Funding from these two organizations encouraged artists to conduct research on and work within this area, while the Asian Cultural Council-also fundedby the Rockefeller Foundation-supported Asian artists to work and pursue research
in New York for at least six months. Another American foundation that supported theregional network was the American Foundation, which awarded grants to young curators
and artists . Furthermore, the Fulbright scholarship provided funding for exchange
programs between artists from the two areas. European organizations such as HeinrichBoll Foundation and Friedrich Ebert Foundation were actively engaged in socio-politicalprojects and funded some art-related programs addressing such issues as globalization andidentity, one example of which is the "Identities versus Globalisation" exhibition curated
by Jorg Loschmann and held at the Chiang Mai Art Museum in 2004 and also traveled to
National Gallery, Bangkok in the same year. The Goethe-lnstitut also supported the Asia
Pacific Art Network project through its regional office in Jakarta, while Art-Connexion
brought together local curators and art ists to collaborate with German artists in its project,
best described as "hit-and-run ."In Japan, the ASEAN Culture Center (later renamed and reorganized as the Asia Center) was established in the early 1990s by the Japan Foundation to promote understanding between Japanand the ASEAN countries. It created a strong momentum and provided artists, curators, andinstitutions in the region the chance to show , exchange, cross borders, and develop their
engagements to the next step, thus advancing their careers. Examples included the solo exhibition of the late Montien Boonma at the Japan Foundation ASEAN Culture Center Gallery
in 1991,and the group show "Under Construction : New Dimensions of Asian Art" held at
the Japan Foundation Forum and Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery in 2003, the latter of whichallowed me to travel and create a network of young artists and curators .

Gndth1ya Gaweewong

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011

Many Asian artists attempted to create an Intra Asian network among artist-run or alternative spaces. This was an idea that was discussed for the last twenty years, brought to theattention of ResArtis-the global network of artists-in-residencies in which many alternative spaces participated-but,
unfortunately, has never fully materialized .
More recently, the Korean government drew up plans to build the Asian Cultural Complex(ACC) in Gwangju to celebrate Asian culture and facilitate its art-space network throughthe Alternative Space LOOP. Meetings and discussions about the possibility of collaborating among networks were held, but while the ACC will open this September(2015), the network is no longer so active .

For the last thirty years, networks of contemporary art in Asia have been initiated and led
by international agencies. The paradigm shift after the Cold War period triggered ASEAN
and networks of artists from these countries to work together. This started from the institutions and government -to-government associations and spread to peer-to-peer connections. Later, it developed from the top-down, international agenda to a bottom-up
approach .
What were the outcomes of this development, and how did it contribute to communities
and societies at large? It enabled artists, institutions, and artists to access resources, produce new works, and reach out to a much wider audience that were previously beyond
their own territory . Yet despite being inconsistent and unsustainable due to changes inpolitics and policies, and decline in funding, the networks did not collapse entirely . Nameschanged and agencies closed, but the spirit survived; networks gradually reinvented
themselves and shifted their shapes to other forms and structures. One example of such
shape-shifting is the Japan Foundation and Asia Center. The Japan-East Asia Network of
Exchange for Students and Youths (JENESYS)program which provided grants for artists
and curators in the late 2000s, has recently morphed into a series of curatorial workshops
in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia . Regional and internationa l networking and exchanges between alternative spaces and institutions were also reinvented . Afterthe "P_A_U_S_E" exhibition at the Gwangju Biennale, the curator Charles Esche reactivated and reconnected the network in Yogyakarta for the "Fixing the Bridge" conference
held collaboratively with the Cemeti Art Foundation in 2003. This was recently picked up
again by ACC, the Korean government agency in Gwangju, under the Asian Arts Space
Network (AASN) program facilitated by the Alternative Space LOOP.
Local initiatives that took up the bottom-up approach of the regional contemporary art
networks were initiated and supported by international institutions. The Rockefeller and Ford
Foundations closed their support to art and cultural programs and contributed their last
financing to a local art agency in the mid-2000s. They poured the last portion of their funding
into the Arts Network Asia (ANA) based in Singapore, whose committee was made up of
many artists as well as curators. This organization provided grants to Asian artists to work,
research, and collaborate with other Asian artists in the region . Hosted by TheatreWorks anddirected by Ong Ken Seng who initiated the Flying Circus project, ANA brought artists fromthe region to attend workshops and funded residencies for international artists alike. Thisintensive network project allowed artists to experiment and exchange with their peers.
Flying Circus traveled to different cities including Saigon and Yangon .
Iowards the SustainableArt Proj~

Unfortunately, many of the projects were not sustainable and depended on funding fromeither governmental agencies or private foundations. Their dependence rendered themsensitive and fragile. Today, many art projects have started to configure new models tosustain their work, focusing on local audiences and contexts, yet remaining connected to

DAY 1 M AY23, 2015

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regional and global issues and the community. It is worth illustrating a few projects in the
Mekong region that are working along these lines .
In Cambodia, "Rates of Exchange, Un-compared: Contemporary Art in Bangkok andPhnom Penh," an exhibition project co-curated by Australian and Irish curators, Roger
Nelson and Brian Curtin, specializing in Thai, Cambodian, and regional contemporary art,
was shown at the H Gallery Bangkok in December 2014 and at the SA SA BASAAC Art
Project in March 2015. They invited Thai and Cambodian artists to undertake residencies
in each other's countries for exchange and make works to show in both cities .
The curator's statement is as follows:"Rates of Exchange, Un-Compared" is the concluding event in a six-month series of
symposia, gatherings, and artist residencies that steadfastly skirts a particular wayof looking at and conceptualizing contemporary art from these two cities . Ideas of
the nation-state, comparative histories, and the economic and institutional currencyof geography, among other typica l or potential frameworks, are held in critical relief .
As the title suggests, this project considers the cost[s] of distinct frameworks forapproaching and disseminating knowledge of contemporary art; instead, the project
explores unpredictable relationships between artists as part of a discursive inquiry
into current art from both cities . ~Both curators are working as scholars, writers, and independent curators based in thearea. Their attempt was to compare Thailand and Cambodia who have always had a lovehate relationship in terms of social values, politics, belief systems, as well as economy.
Focusing on fragmented experiences and networks between artists from two countries,
the curators noted:... Nevertheless, the project refuses any claim to represent or address similarities
or differences between Bangkok and Phnom Penh; in short, it insists on the criticalvalue of their remaining deliberately "un -compared.""Rates of Exchange, Un-Compared" activates connections between artists, curators, and galleries from Bangkok and Phnom Penh. Participants are at different levels of their careers, work in varying contexts, and carry diverse ambitions. A premiseof the project is that dialogue between them has been slight to date. But "Rates of
Exchange, Un-Compared" insists on the multiplicity of meanings inherent not only ina given art "world" and geographical location but also within artists' practices. ~At the institutional level, Bangkok University Art Gallery (BUG)initiated "Brand New," anannual program to support young artists. Initiated by art historian Ark Fongsamut, thisproject provided the platform for young, newly graduated arts students to have their firstsolo shows in galleries around the city . BUG invited regional and international curators to
select the works from potential artists to include in their solo show. It was an interesting
project, one that empowered young artists to begin their careers as professional artists.
The Jim Thompson Art Center initiated a series of regional exhibitions, such as "Traces"(2012), "Transmissions" (2014), and "Missing Links" (2015), to explore issues in the contemporary Southeast Asian context . We invited artists to work with us, and share experiences
between themselves and their audiences . We plan to do more in-depth and extensive
shows with individual artists in the future. Many of the exhibitions we organized havealso traveled in the region; among them "mnemonikos: Art of Memory in Contemporary
Textiles" traveled to Hong Kong University Gallery (2014-2015), and " Safe Place in the
Future(?) Dystopia Now Utopia Never" toured to the Museum of Contemporary Art and
Design (MCAD) in Manila (2013) . These exchange programs have become significant . Mostof the projects are the consequences of both personal and curatorial networks, supportedby their own institutions.

ur jth1ya Gc1weewong

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013

In 2013, the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC)organized a regional show, "Concept
Context Contestation: Art and the Collective in Southeast Asia ." The show tour ed to Hanoi
upon collaboration with the Goethe - lnstitut and aimed to exhibit the connections between
the social ideologies and expressive languages of Southeast Asian art, revealing artists 'critical views of society and their political narrations . The guest curators were Iola Lenzi(Singapore), Agung Hujatnikajennong (Indonesia), and Vipash Purichanont (Thailand). ~02
SA SA BAS SAC med ,a release on • Rates
of Exchange, Un Compared ••http://s1laka.org/wp-<:ontent/f1les
mf/1422069687med,arelease
RatesofExchangeUnCompared
SASABASSAC.pdf

03
Ibid

Beyondthe RegionalNetwork: The GlobalSouth04

In Saigon , Dinh 0. Le, Tiffany Chung , Tuan Andrew Nguyen, and his Vietnamese Amer ican friends co-founded an independent contemporary art space, San Ar t, in 2007,
now directed by a young and energetic Australian curator, Zoe Butt . Butt initiat ed" Conscious Realities," a three -year project carried out through lectures, workshops , and aresidency programs, inviting intellectuals, artists, writers, and other cross -disc iplinary
cultural workers to Ho Chi Minh City . This dialogue focuses on the shared histo ries of the
Global South , engaging the diverse reactions to those histories and the lessons to belearned in thinking laterally across these communities . These necessary dialogues are too
often overshadowed by the vertical discourse in which cultural work from formerly colo nized people is posited in relation to former colonial powers. "Conscious Realities," therefore, imagines the primacy of lateral dialogues between Southeast Asia, South Asia, Latin
America, and Africa . ~Shifting the direction to the Global South is equally interesting, as proven by th e
Yogyakarta Biennale - for each edition of the Yogyakarta Biennale, they focus on one
country in the tropical area, such as India, Egypt and Nigeria-and it attempts to connect
with these tropical countries . The expansion of local -to-local and regional networks has
already shifted from the North to the Global South, from Intra Asia, Asia, Africa , and Latin
America , meaning that the network of contemporary art is no longer only confined to
Asian territories .

DAYl

MAY23,20 15

Shifting Asian Cont empor ary Art N etwork s"Concept, Context, and Contestat,on,
Hano, Grapevme
http 1/hano,grapev,ne corn/2015106/

exh1b1t1on-concept-cortext-c,mtestat1on
hano1-art-and-the-<:ollect1ve ~ southeast as,a/(Accessed June 2015)05
San Art, ·consc1ousRealities..
h:tpJ/san art.org/consc1ous-reaht1es/
obout/(Accessed June 2015)

~Se_
ssio'!_1

TheMakingof Artwith
Contemporaries

Off-Track

Art Studies_02014

Flaudette May Datuin
Professor , Department of the Arts,
Univ ersity of the Philippin es Diliman

Imagine yourself visiting Baguio, Northern Philippines, and Bacolod, Central Philippines in
the 1990s. Let's say you're a curator/researcher wanting to know about artist-run initiatives
and organizations in the provinces of the three major islands of Luzon in the North, where
Baguio is, the Visayas in the Center, where we find Bacolod, and Mindanao, in the South.
In the '90s, the standard curatorial itinerary goes like this: get off the plane, hop into a taxi,
go straight to the galleries, meet the gatekeepers who will point you to artists; look at slides
and catalogues, go to artists' studios (only when there is time) then hop back on the plane . We
call this "parachuting." Curator descends from the sky, stay for a while, get what they need,then fly back. As I have written more fully elsewhere this standard curatorial route does notwork, especially in places outside Manila . .Q! You have had to get off this beaten track.
In Baguio, the best place to start is not the galleries or the artists ' studios (unless you had priorappointment with the big names of the group), but a restaurant called Cafe by the Ruins. It is a
one-stop shop, so to speak. You will most likely find the artists congregating there, and if
not, they will point you to them with phone numbers, directions to houses, and even tell you
where they will be immediately found if they are not home. You will also get a glimpse of
Baguio's history just by reading the information printed on the menu and learn that the Cafestands on a property on which the house of the first American civil governor of Benguet
province once stood, and was reduced to ruins after the 1944 carpet bombing, which nearly
destroyed this hill station for American occupiers. After reading this brief local history, one
chats with the manager and other "locals" who happen to be hanging out and one learns
that the history of the Cafe ntersects with your object of inquiry: the Baguio Arts Guild(BAG).They share founding members; they share spaces. The Cafe became a hub or meeting place for visual artists, filmmakers, anthropologists, writers, musicians. And through theyears, the two groups have given life to some of the most high-energy but low cost contemporary art events in the country, if not in Southeast Asia .
If your research happens to coincide with an event (such as the 1999 BAF: International
Baguio Arts Festival), you will have to bear with the confusion and make-shift conditions,and if you were coming from more structured research environs like me, you will haveto abandon your academic approach to participating, experiencing and assessing such
events. As I have written in an essay, one has to focus instead on those strands that grab
one's attention on a more visceral and "h uman" plane, like in my case, sampling the local
cuisine . ~ Today however, with benefit of hindsight and the concept of "Art Practice as
Research" suggested by Graeme Sullivan in his book of the same title, I realize that in making sense of artist-run initiatives, especially those outside imperial Manila, one also has tobring into question the concept of the artist as a solitary figure working solely and exclusively in his or her studio . ~ In the regions, the artists' studio practice is inseparable fromtheir cultural and research work, which as Sullivan suggests is as much intellectual as it isimaginative and affective and that this intellectual and imaginative work bears close similarity to what academics in the fields of humanities, social and physical sciences do . It isjust that the primary take-off point or platform of artists is the studio, which now extends tovarious sites-classrooms, the streets, even cyberspace, among others. As Sullivan puts it,"The critical and creative investigations that occur in ... places where artists work, are forms

F audette May Oatu1n

Presentatioo2

015

Chapter1of research grounded in art practice." (emphasis in italic by the auther) !!1
Art is not just a "tool" or handmaiden to a certain ideology, advocacy or purpose, but amethodology in itself, with specific and independent modes of seeing, doing and feeling,from where new knowledge springs . The artworks that artists produce transcend their status as objects or collectors' items; they are inseparable from the artists' process and practice as cultural workers, a phrase that also implicates their roles as organizers, collaborators,
educators, administrators, writers, theorists, quasi-ethnographers, healers, curators andin some cases, as owners of gallery and other spaces such as the Cafe by the Ruins, whereartists can congregate and discuss ideas, make and sell art, with varying degrees of success and failure .

01

Flaudette May Datuin, Land, Locality
and Communion," Pananaw 4: Ph111ppme
Journal of the Visual An I Luzon (Manila:
National Commission for Culture and theAns. 2002), pp.34-40.

02
Ibid

03
Graeme Sullivan, Artist Pract,ceas
Research. Inquiry m the VisualArts(Cahforrna London, New Delhi Sage
Publications, 20051
04

Whatever the eventual fate and however long or short the life span of artists' initiatives,
the outcome is one of "progress," to borrow Christo and Jean-Claude's assessment (via
Sullivan) of their own projects . Attitudes change, views broaden and awareness is awak ened for all people involved-participants, observers, organizers, alike. The long and bumpy
road-from conception, to endless negotiations with a range of agencies and persons up to
final realization-is creative and educational. "The pattern of planning, reviewing , managing, adapting, analyzing and revealing is characteristic of the transformative nature of visualarts research," writes Sullivan. ~Ibid p.XI

05
Ibid p.149
06

Patrick Flores, 'V1 the Visayas,
Pananaw 3: Phd1ppmeJournal of
VisualMl V1sayas(Manila: National
Commission for Culture and the Ans,
1999), p 11

07

Drawing on this concept of progress, this paper will address the question: How do artists/
researchers/cultural workers from the regions outside Manila contribute to the local andinternational art scene? For purposes of brevity and focus, I will frame my answer throughSullivan's three themes that capture this new dynamism in the field of Art Practice as
Research. They are as follows: "Making in Systems" which is largely exploratory, "Making
in Communities," which is "reinterpretive" and communicative and "Making in Cultures,"which is critical and ultimately transformative. In brief, Sullivan defines them as follows :- "Making in Systems"are complex and exploratory in nature as artists open up new visualforms and structures that are both grounded within discipline knowledge and skills, butalso transcend these boundaries to intersect with other domains of inquiry .
- "Making in Communities" is "reinterpretive" in character and mobilizes the communicative capacity of the visual arts to make new connections among individual ideas, public
issues and broader histories.
- "Making in Cultures"capitalize on the immediacy of a critical art practice and investigate
ways of challenging perceptions through visual encounters .
These themes are highly interrelated, as the following account will show .
Off-Line:Making in Systems

Under the theme of "Making in Systems" artists as Researchers I Cultural Workers change
our image of place, those that fall off the rigid lines and grids of our imagination for exampleof Baguio and Bacolod. Through Bacolod, we negotiate the Visayas as a heterogeneousgroup of islands-Panay and Guimaras, Negros and Siquijor, Cebu and Bohol, Samar andLeyte. In the work of Visayan artists, the romantic notion of a group of islands huddled
together happily, like a "string of pearls in the orient," is dispelled. Instead we see in theirpractice an intense engagement with social issues related to "urbanization, ecolog ical
disaster, and identity through a range of artistic options, from social realism to satire, andon to magical realism ." ru1 Although some artists have explored the international languageof interdisciplinary media, a sense of tradition pervades the works, realized by "rendering of
local color, appropriation of native materials (such as coconut wine as pigment) and accessing,both indigenous mythology and political mythmaking." !11.
Similarly, the artist-organizers of the BAG brings to high relief a notion of Baguio as locus

DAY1 MAY23, 2015

Off -Track

Ibid

~

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of multiple, often contradictory positions, not a harmonious "melting pot" where local
color, indigenous trinkets and various cultures meld and blend in a comfortable mix . Artists
involved in cultural work are then compelled to confront the environmental and cultural
realities of Baguio as a tourist spot, as point of convergence for ever-shifting populations,and as a rapidly modernizing, but not necessarily modern, fully functional and liveable city
-because the natural and built environments are rapidly deteriorating . ~Place here is not simply "local color;" sense of place is not simply appreciation of the noveland exotic, but a rootedness in a particular historical moment. Region is not site of essential
aesthetic, but "place,"that conditions art and is conditioned by art's capacity and potential
for transgression and transformation. The artist as cultural worker is not a static cipher ofracial and gender identity but an embodiment of flux and mobility facilitated by commerce,
trade, tourism, migration, education, and especially in this case, national and local artistic
exchanges (congresses,
collaborativeprojects,workshops,etc.).
Our definition of art and artist is similarly rethought, not just in surfacing hitherto invisible
voices, but in presenting examples of changing the methods and ethos of art making by
engaging in inter- and multi-disciplinary projects that encourage connection and conversation. As Norberto "Peewee" Roldan puts it in a conversation with Karen Flores:
We needed a movement, a structure and a venue for discussion for our advancement.
And we were not getting it from CCP and other Manila-based institutions. So, by beingorganized, we were gaining our own strength . l!l!
Collaboration and openness to exploring other ways of making art could also reduce dependency on the patronage of the State and the market. For example, the VIVA EXCON (Visayan
Art Exhibit-Conference)-creditedas the first regional congress on the visual arts in the Visayas
and the longest running such program in the regions outside Manila-was first held in 1990.
It was sponsored by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP),but was put together byfunds pooled by artists who compose the BAA or the Black Artists in Asia (Norberto"Peewee"
Roldan,NunelucioAlvarado,CharlieCo,DennisAscalon,amongothers). Since then, VIVA EXCON
was held five times for a period of ten years, at one point even going international, with foreign artists participating, and in another, in 2010, was even appropriated and renamed as
the Visayas Biennale, complete with conference and multi-venue exhibits. In its latest incarnation in 2014, it reverted to VIVA EXCON.
Such off-Manila initiatives take place almost independent of the State, without or with funding, which is often minimal. They have developed their own spaces and their own markets,
often capitalizing on the key members' visibility in the nation's chief cities (Cebu,Manila,Baguio,
Davao,PuertoPrincesa)
and in the eyes of national and international curators, collectors, writers.
lo/Sight: Makingjn_Communities

From the above account, it is clear that "Making in Systems" intersects with the theme of"Making in Communities," which emphasizes and underscores the need for education in
the arts (intheoryand practice)for both artists and their audiences . Such a process always
needs a forum or venue, as shown by the BAF and the VIVA EXCON. These forums gathered artists, writers, teachers, critics and patrons and local communities in an atmosphereof mutual learning. This kind of learning is enabling for all participants while they go througha process which results in art and artists gaining competence to communicate to their various audiences. Through these gatherings new knowledge is gained and new connections
are forged with various other organizations elsewhere in the country, thus multiplying the
expansion and renewal of vocabularies and knowledge exponentially.
In practice however, the effort to push the enterprise of art away from the narrow confinesof the "fine arts" is fraught in settings as complex and as diverse as Baguio and Bacolod,

Flaudelte May Datu1n

Presentauon 2

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Chapter1

not to mention Luzon and the Visayas. How do artist-educators make art more accessible tothe uninitiated public, and yet remain firmly conversant with the exacting and highly specialized-at times well-nigh idiosyncratic-languageof contemporary art? Roldan asks, forexample, "From what perspective does art practice spring in every island, or what constitutes contemporary regional art? And more important, I guess is how relevant are we to ourcommunities?" ~Off/Sight: Making in Cultures

08
Datu,n. La, d. Locality andCorn-murnor"

09

i<are Flores. "OfAit and Assoc,anon
Two Ar' sts Mee•.· Paf'.inaw J Pht/1pp,np
Jo1,r ,JI of Visual M V1sayas(Mar1Ia
Nat1cnal Conr-1ss1cn fi>rCLIt rear d tt-e
Arts. 1999). >36
10lb1<' p41

It is in this surfacing of issues, and continuous reflexivity and auto-critique that artists working within the domain of "Making in Cultures," a theme which compels the artists to confront,
reflect on and negotiate the many tensions in the course of organizing, creating and researching: that between individual creativity vis-a-vis collective struggle; that between personalneeds and the demands of organizing; that between tradition and modernity, authenticity andartistic license. "Of course," Roldan clarifies, "we don't expect VIVA EXCON to provide all theanswers, but at least it helps to bring the issues into our consciousness ." ~One issue has to do with sustainability . The International BAF, as it was conceptualized
and initiated by its founders (the late Santiago Bose, among them) is practically defunct but hasmorphed into many different forms . On the other hand, its counterpart in the Visayas, the
VIVA EXCON is still going strong; the last one was held in 2014. From these exper iences weask: Can collaborations between artists and local community sustain local art making without the aid of State and the market? What is the State's role if any-in fostering what Patrick
Flores describes as the "climate for the kind of art that may not necessarily be attractive tothe market?" Some of the art that emerges from the artist as cultural worker are potentially"anti-establishment." Can the State support the arts without necessarily compromising thelatter's ideals? If not, how can artists avoid being dependent on the State? gAnother issue has to do with the representation of place and identity given the nature andprocesses of collaborations on various levels. While VIVA EXCON and BAF showed someof the ways by which artists can collaborate on a regional level, and beyond to the national
and international level, they also recognized the many perils that such engagements entail.
For instance, the tendency to present an "essential" Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao aesthetic
or style or voice when representing one's place is a very real trap that artists can fall into, as
I wrote in an essay about Mindanao artists. ll Visibility also results in "jetsetting, " superstar
artists, who may be deprived of the time for continuous immersion, informed reflection andrigorous spadework that cultural work demands . On one hand, being recognized in the metropolitan centers had provided as earlier pointed out, more venues for education, exposure andnetworking. On the other hand, "recognition" can also restore the center-periphery map, withthe metropolitan centers remaining firmly as frame of reference and careerist aspirations .
Doing cultural work is indeed fraught with traps and artists-researchers and cultural workers must not lose sight of the landmines that litter the landscape. At the same time, we keep
the gains and triumphs firmly in sight; as we assess the contributions of the regional artist to
the overall contemporary scene, as follows:- The construction of new artistic personas, particularly that of the Cultural Worker .
- The renewal and enrichment of artistic vocabularies in terms of the local and the vernacular,
and openness to collaborative and interdisciplinary art-making .
- Documentation and research and the rich database that results in such spadework. M- The rethinking of art-historical, discursive and artistic methods in the metropolis .
Between Cracks

The summation looks very tidy and encompassing, but I assure you, it was far from tidy
in practice and in the make-shift conditions of ragtag events. Off the beaten track, I have

DAY 1 MAY23 , 2015

Off-Track

11

t.,c.
12

Patrc~ Fores. Central Station.
Par,anaw 4· Phi/1ppmeJourTJalr,f the
VisualArt Luzon (Man,I NaUonalt.v,..-r,,,1ss101
for Culture nd the Arts

2002), p,•,13
Fl udette May Datu11 Beyo, d
1 e T, bal Reth,rk rg Mindan oPananaw 2. Phd1pp1neJourn I of V•su,1/
Art!i/M1f'danao ,Manila 'llat1C'na1
Comr ,ss,on for Culture ard •~e A ts,"l9l , rP lf 29.
14

b1a
An exampl of such xh u t,v,, sra<'ework c.,n be seen ,n Norberto Bert"
Monterona and Abraha<" Abe· G re a'egw<:.rknu n M,ndarao