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SPECIAL FEATURE 03

Undoing Regionalism in Southeast Asia

Mella Jaarsma, Asal - Floating Images, 2005
batik, military costumes, embroidery and aluminium dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist

Text by June Yap

The question of regionalism has slid back onto
the table. It probably had never left, but in recenttimes it has reared its head again, with the ASEAN(Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Economic
Community scheduled for 2015 gaining discursive
momentum with its nearing deadline. While largely
an economic and political plan, the sense of theregion having some significant force again, appears
real and imminent, recalling the epoch of the Asian
Dragons or Tigers, led by expanding markets andindustrialisation of their time. Interest in the regionof Asia is certainly not recent, the speed and impact
of contemporary Chinese and Indian art upon theinternational art scene, their respective economic

growths facilitating, a not so distant past. Southeast
Asia on the other hand while riding on the coat-tailsof these transformations has appeared to be slower
on the uptake and its bounty, however the increasingpresence of art from this part of the region in art
fairs, exhibitions and other platforms are of import,
not to mention the individuals contributing to itsvisibility.
The consolidation of a regional aesthetic
discourse even prior to this has not been lacking,the foundations of which have been laid by many
artists, curators, art historians and institutions thathave in their own ways attempted to forge networks
of understanding and exchange. The question ofregionalism however lingers, what does it imply,
and how does it contribute to local discourse andBijutsu Techo / BT13aesthetic developments? The quest for a regional
front often appears in an analysis of the differentyet-related practices and aesthetics of the region,
fashioned into nationalist discourses with varying
introductions of dominant or marginal aesthetic
highlights. The Venice Biennale, ostensibly themost popular nationalist platform for contemporary
art is an interesting site in which one may watch
nationalism play out within each pavilion, case inpoint the sense of exciting radicalness that pervaded
the Polish pavilion of 2011, with its presentation ofIsraeli artist Yael Bartana. At Venice, Southeast Asia
has had its sporadic forays, helmed by Singapore
and Thailand, with artists from Indonesia, Malaysia
and Philippines making appearances in its mainand collateral exhibitions; that is till 2013, whenIndonesia comes on stage this time as a national
pavilion, and Singapore, a hiatus. In spite ofintermittent participation, these episodes arearguably important in the visibility of the region
and thus their regional brethren, if claimed regional
association is by any means true.
The history of regionalist discourse in art may
be traced in recent times back to the modernisms ormodernities that have been theorised, and that leave
their modernist narrative mark on contemporary
aesthetics. In as much as these served well in
locating regional practices, the trope of hybriditythat characterises the definition of modernisms of
the region has some limits, not that these aesthetic
explorations, pairing local and other, have not beenstimulating, however their assumption of happy
conjunction, and implication of chaste cultures andramifications have perhaps not been fully plumbedto reveal the inherent contestations and conflict that
occurred in the production and promotion of theseartworks. In addition, the attribute of a tensionof distinction and correlation, both inter-regionaland nation-to-nation, couched upon tradition andhistory as criterion of authenticity and value, tethers
contemporary art practice, restricting its productionand exchange, and where tourist and market
exoticism has had a hand in keeping the local ‘local’enough. Though that is not to say that differentiation
by reason of locale, history and politics, and evenindigeneity, does not have its place and is crucial to14

art practice and its context, but that we may need tothink also of purposeful regionalism in relation tothe project and politics of globalisation, and in turn
how these two relate to other apparently fractious
developments of initiatives, response and impulse
within the region as rejoinders to the former two.
In the midst of still evolving economies anddeveloping infrastructure in the arts, contested
borders, cultural overlap and traumas unaddressed,
is there a cultural regionalism that may be spokenof? The perennial problem of observations of theregion as a whole, is imagining that there is such a
regional perspective, that there exists an objective
vantage point to view the region. The narrativesof modernities and nation one would imagine
would baulk at such concomitance. Yet disparate
perspectives from different parts of the region does
not quite make a region. In its place perhaps may
be hazarded the proposition of neo-conceptualist
tendencies as a means to corral the nations
involved. Certainly the formalism of conceptual
art has had its visitation, and beyond that a neoconceptualist dematerialisation of form and theproduction of alternative symbolic vocabulary andmeaning, that has become more common within
the region. Such tendencies have also played theirpart in the transformation of aesthetic expression
into a modality for the trafficking of ideas, giving
voice to the estranged, and in suggesting change.
But it is enough, and does it side-step the crux ofregionalism? And before it would appear that thequestion of regionalism has been edged off in its
entirety here, it is assured that this is not the case.
On the contrary it is a particular understanding ofregionalism that is being undone. The subject ofregionalism instead, if it should be deemed relevant,might do well to expand in a few respects, suggested
here via three artworks.
Dutch-born, Indonesia-based (though ‘based’
does injustice to her almost 30-year residence there)
artist Mella Jaarsma’s Asal - Floating Images (2005)
presents the form of the ‘shelter’ distinctive in herpractice with the motifs of cloud and water sharedin Persian Timurid and Chinese paintings, and in
the Mega Mendung batik motif of the sultanateof Cirebon. The term ‘asal’ referring to a question

Bijutsu Techo / BT│SPECIAL FEATURE 03│

often asked of the artist ‘Asal dari mana?’ or, where
are you from, with the etymology of asal denoting
authenticity, that the artist is constantly up againstdefending. That regionalism implies encapsulation,
and with it an implication of authenticity, is the firstproblem.
Cambodian artist Svay Sareth grew up in a
refugee camp in Thailand returning to his birthplaceof Battambang in the early 1990s. In Hunter(2008) a work in iron of an image depicting agroup of hunters in the French village of Larôn,
as he traversed the countryside, that reminded
him of encounters of soldiers in the forest whileaccompanying his father as a child, is beaten into themetal surface using the numeric characters of metal
movable type. In Sareth’s work, and for the artistat that moment, histories collide — Cambodian,French and otherwise without distinction. To
contextualise Sareth’s work necessitates a sensitivity
to the subjective chronologic rationale and tendency
for historical filtering that takes place in regional
discussion.
Finally, in Vietnamese artist Le Quang Ha’s The
Night Dogs (2012), canine shapes, of dogs and flying
beasts, charge out from the dark, slavering and fangs
bared, undisputedly confrontational. The metaphorsthat Le Quang Ha employs in his works are
generally understood as social critiques and appear
barely concealed in their allusion. Yet recognising
the implications of their accusation, it justcircumspectly falls short of being entirely explicit.
One irrefutable shared experience of the region is theproscription of narrative, and the artwork invokedhere suggests through these shape-shifting figuresthat the somewhat shifty nature of the question ofregionalism obscures the more present question, notof what regionalism might involve and entail, butwhom it is being produced for.

Svay Sareth, Hunter, 2008carving on iron, 140×70cm
Courtesy of the artist

Le Quang Ha, The Night Dogs, 2012
oil on canvas, 195×155cm
Courtesy of the artist

June Yap is an independent curator, based in Singapore.
Currently on a curatorial residency - the Guggenheim
UBS MAP Global Art Initiative as curator for South andSoutheast Asia.

Bijutsu Techo / BT15