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Project Introduction | Two Responses to Social Practice

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Project Introduction | Two Responses to Social Practice Introduction #3 Arts November January openfrom and Hall Town Chen 崇真艺客

The first Trans-Southeast Asia Triennial research exhibition series PROJECT #3 ：Does it matter that we've just met, if our hearts understand: Two responses to social practice

Host: Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts

Organizers: Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts / Research Center for New Art Museum Studies, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts

Duration of project: November 21, 2021 to January 9, 2022 (open from 9:00-17:00 on Tues. to Sun., closed on Monday)

Venue: Exhibition Hall 5 and Hall 6, Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, University Town, Panyu District

Honorary Principal Advisor: Li Jinkun
Principal Advisors: Apinan Poshyananda, KwokKian Chow and Hou Hanru

Academic Advisors: Deng Qiyao and Yang Xiaoyan

Artistic Directors: Wang Huangsheng, Hu Bin and Chen Xiaoyang

Overall Project Initiator: Chen Xiaoyang

Curators of the two responses: Cathleen Siming Pan and Stephanie Lu Sipei

Space Design and Support: Guo Zhenjiang, Chen Xujie, Ji Yinan and Wang Chao

Visul Design: Cai Yunqi

Project Production: Luo Yubin, Li Tiejun, He Quan, Huang Xingbiao and Zeng Weifeng

Pubic Programme: Wang Xiuyuan, Liu Ziyuan, Yu Shuang and Yang Liu

Special Support of Project Production: Xu Ran

Research Assistants: Sau Bin Yap and Chen Yanxin

Production Assistants: Wen Shiwen, Qin Yuqi, Huang Xiaoxing, Chen Yanxin, Lin Caiyi, Guo Baoyu、Wen Cejun and A Le

Writing and Translation: Qiu Shuang, Chen Yanxin, Xu Guanqi, Huang Xiaoxing, Qin Yuqi, Xie Yingying， Ouyang Yangyi, Li Cheng， Jin Qiaoer, Hu Shuwei, Wu Jialin, Li Zi, Zheng Cuiyin, jiahui, Raaaadiah, Tang Fukuen, Feng Junhua, Zhang Hanlu, Wang Qing, Hu woer, Feminist translator W, Feminist translator A, Lu Gu, Wu Qiongying, ourwork.is and Queenie Wong

Response #1

Unfolding Rendezvous: Relationality via Spatial Praxis

Curated by Cathleen Siming Pan

Participating Spaces/Collectives and Themes：

Baan Noorg Collaborative Arts & Culture

BAANNOORG IS FUTURE IS NOW: 365 DAYS LIFE MUSE

Los Otros

MY HOME IS THE OTHER

The Observatory

EVERYTHING IS VIBRATION

Ergao Dance

SOUTHERN DANCE HOUSE

Participating Artists & Institutions (not limited to): Baan Noorg Collaborative Arts & Culture, Jiandyin(Jiradej and Pornpilai Meemalai), Rachan Klomklieng, Chaw Su and Kyaw Moe, Ma Ei, Suraporn Lertwongpaitoon, Varsha Nair, Okui Lala, Maung Day, Los Otros, Shireen Seno, John Torres, Melchor Bacani III, Raya Martin, Tito & Tita, Jon Lazam, Jangwook Lee, The Observatory, Yeo Siew Hua, Haino Keiji, NUS Guitar Ensemble & NUS Talents, Playfreely Festival, Eric Lee, Banglar Kantha-Dibashram, Than Naing, Billal Hossain, Isan Band, Malay Ghosh, Ujikaji, BlackKajiXtra x Nusasonic, Ergao Dance(Er Gao, Zhang Dianling, Liu Qingyu), Zhang Lu

*with thanks to Singapore International Festival of Arts(SIFA), and Arts In itiative Tokyo(AIT)

Response #2

Threading through the Eye of the Needle

Organized by Stephanie Lu Sipei

I. BULLET TEXT: Piercing the Margins of Semi-Autonomous Publishing

（RESEARCH & CONCEPTION：Display Distribute）

With

Buku Jalanan （with：Prickly Paper）

Indisczinepartij

Namkheun

New Pessimism

Overseas Chinese Students Collective

II. Boundless Sea: Becoming An Artist-Researcher

（ RESEARCH & CONCEPTION：Caroline Ha Thuc）

Participating Projects

Else, All Will Be Still (Ravi Agarwal）

Liquid Stories (Portefaix & Ha Thuc)

Make Sea (Junyan He）

The Ise Bay Project (MAP Office)

III. Making Things and Working Together with All Hands and Feet

With

Five Arts Centre and Collaborators

Namamahay（ Organizer：KWAGO)

Pangrok Sulap

（ Collaborator：Woodcut Wavement）

Shunde Practice

Curatorial Statement：Response #1

（Written by Cathleen Siming Pan）

This principle of veracity is at the heart of the emancipation experience.

——Jacques Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster

“Nanyang” has been the Chinese name of Southeast Asia since Ming and Qing dynasty. The migration trend of “Xia Nanyang” (translator’s note: going down the Southern China seas) by people mostly from Guangdong and Fujian in modern history evokes our closest memory of this region, projecting an imaginary map of friendship, family history and political unity. Since the World War II, Southeast Asia has been formally established as the name covering the Indochina peninsula and the Asian portion of the Malay Archipelago. However, the discourse ondecolonization in recent years once again brought up Nusantara, a Javanese notion dated back to the 13th century, in an effort for self-identification. A series of narratives generated by this renewed title and the perception by the subjects compel us to rethink the inter-regional relationship and our inceptive attitude.

To participate is to create connection actively, and the establishment of a relationship is not based on a unilateral initiation. Rendezvous suggests a sincere participation that encourages both parties for equal engagement. The space hosts objects and generates experiences, offering the possibility of ongoing relationship building and validity of participation. The exhibition of “Unfolding Rendezvous” attempts to navigate participatory art practices from the varied practices of “participation”: practitioners in South China trying to understand the already highly interconnected Southeast Asian network, as a research method for artists' social practices, as an alternative exploration due to the lack of space, and the experience of building communality as alternative spaces in the face of different communities.

Through extended coexistence, presence, gathering, sharing and discussion, these hybrid forms of "participations" gradually move from "assemblage" to "happening", fabricating social imaginations and connections, expanding creative communities, opening up spaces and platforms in the imperfect art ecosystem, and upscaling the diversity of the art infrastructure. While constructing the discourse of their own practice, the artists as spatial practitioners and event organisers, are also able to encounter daily conversations that are different from those within the art system but still oriented around their work. Both the artists' individual creations and the communities in which they work grow and react to one another in an ongoing loop of happening.

“Unfolding Rendezvous: Relationality via Spatial Praxis” invites four artist-run alternative spaces and collectives in an attempt to present a mutually enriching state of art creation and platform formation. They have been engaging in lengthy indigenous practices in Ratchaburi in Thailand, Quezon City in Metro Manila, Singapore and Guangzhou through the media in which they exercising respectively, and renewing the action of "participation", from being socially “aware”,“interventional” and “engaged” to "participatory" in specific social contexts and experiences. Theses experiences of spatial praxis are scattered in the exhibition as individual rooms with different degrees of openness and distinctive characters, transferring the process of their practices for the audience who are not in sync with the art creation process, and inviting them to be part of this constellation.

Project Introduction | Two Responses to Social Practice Introduction #3 Arts November January openfrom and Hall Town Chen 崇真艺客 On Adaptation: the Lost Capital, Jiandyin (Jiradej and Pornpilai Meemalai), 2020

single channel video, full HD, color, directional sound, 7.18 min, loop

installation view at Baannoorg is Future is Now: 365 days life muse

Project Introduction | Two Responses to Social Practice Introduction #3 Arts November January openfrom and Hall Town Chen 崇真艺客 ASEAN, Ma Ei, Colour print, metal shelf, 2016, photo courtesy of Baan Noorg Collaborative Arts & Culture

Project Introduction | Two Responses to Social Practice Introduction #3 Arts November January openfrom and Hall Town Chen 崇真艺客 A child dies, a child plays, a woman is born, a woman dies, a bird arrives, a bird flies off (CCTV edition), Shireen Seno, installation view(part) at Los Otros: My Home is the Other, 2021

Mixed-media installation with 17-channel video, sound, desk, chair, calendar, telephone, security guard apparel, electric fan, notebook, thermos cup

Project Introduction | Two Responses to Social Practice Introduction #3 Arts November January openfrom and Hall Town Chen 崇真艺客 Authority is Alive Performance live, Haino Keiji&The Observatory, Playfreely Festival 2019, Photography by Third Street Studio

Project Introduction | Two Responses to Social Practice Introduction #3 Arts November January openfrom and Hall Town Chen 崇真艺客 Disco-teca, 2015-2018

Disco-teca, Ergao, installation view(part) at Southern Dance House, 2021

Mixed-media installation with video, sound, wooden stand, metal shelf, books of Chinese pop culture, disco apparel, flash cards, cassette tapes, roller skates

Cutatorial Statement：Response #2

（Written by Stephanie Lu Sipei）

Project Introduction | Two Responses to Social Practice Introduction #3 Arts November January openfrom and Hall Town Chen 崇真艺客

Sometimes, we try to understand a project based on a predetermined geographical area — Southeast Asia, China or some other ‘local place’. In my experience, this can be helpful, but more often than not, it may be misleading — causing generalizations by imposing meaning and creating blindspots. Once in a meeting, I revealed my ignorance when trying to bring attention to the fact that oral translation services ‘without accent’ are very expensive. This idea somehow reflects my western-centrism: I considered British and American English as an accent-free ‘orthodox’ while other kinds of English are ‘substandard’, therefore valuing the higher cost as a justifiable addition. Non-native accents and ‘unorthodox’ languages are recognized as representations of diversity in certain contexts, while in other scenarios they are just a set of numbers on budget sheets.

Over the past two years, our ways of keeping in touch with the world have been limited to online channels. The signal is sometimes poor and the message not always clear — often causing misunderstanding, deviating imaginations or exaggerated illusions of consensus. But the congestion of connection has been with us all along. The three chapters of “Threading through the eye of the needle” come from the desire to broaden definitions and provide possible answers to the question of ‘what we can do together’ through ongoing practice.

Coming back to our territory here, the university — the reflection of the function of this specific place, ideas of reading, writing and education, as well as the designated framework of‘Southeast Asia’, have all motivated me to invite Display Distribute to help develop the first chapter of the exhibition. Their research, publishin gactivities, the LIGHT LOGISTICS courier network and other platform-building practices touch upon such issues, and we have similar views on how exhibitions can act to facilitate conversations. Departing from the concept of ‘Southeast Asia’, “BULLET TEXT: Piercing the Margins of Semi-Autonomous Publishing” shares the work of five publishing groups as well as the outcomes of several inter-regional interactions during the past few months. These contributions, the majority of which are new commissions for this exhibition, interact with local practitioners and other works in the exhibition, hoping to bring forward a kind of energy that does not always stimulate in a comfortable manner. Apart from the five commissioned artist groups, “BULLET TEXT” also offers audiences the open space of a reading corner. We hope this library can continue beyond the exhibition, to find itself in the outside world, connect people and make space — as its publications do.

The second chapter, “Boundless Sea: Becoming An Artist Researcher”, is curated in collaboration with Caroline Ha Thuc, researcher of the Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and the Research Center of New Art Museum Studies. Here, the "territory" of the sea is ambiguous and fluid, and the regions are not only defined by people. We follow the streams of thoughts of the exhibition’s practitioners, learn about the different dimensions of "participation", connect makers and together gain a better understanding of each of our own personal positions.

Finally, in “Making Things and Working Together with All Hands and Feet”, I have chosen to work with five different collectives as a response to the urgency of making connection. Members of Pangrok Sulap live and work in Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia. Using woodcarving as medium, they write the stories of the village with other inhabitants. Their artworks are closely related to villagers’ interpretations of local stories, legends, music, handcraft and dance. The members of Pangrok Sulap are also themselves village carpenters, teachers and volunteers among many roles. Only a few of their members can speak English, casting those few automatically into another role as spokesmen of the group. While preparing this exhibition, they were sometimes working in areas with poor network signal, and we lost connection. But their lives and practice are inseparable, and it is from this crucial perspective that we present their work. In addition, I have also invited Shanghai-based group Woodcut Wavement, another woodcut collective premised upon collaborative creation, to engage in the research and presentation of Pangrok Sulap’s work.

The next group, Kwago, is a lab for independent research and publishing. Interestingly, they are the organizer of a regular online publishing. They are the organizer of a regular online meeting for artist, interestingly called ‘Bad Connection’. Recently, Kwago also created a guide and toolkit to assist people during the exceptional period of the pandemic, providing new imaginations for cross regionaland cross-disciplinary communication. In “Making Things and Working Together”, Kwago has employed a Raspberry Pi device as a technical medium to build a portable archival system in collaboration with more than twenty artists, publishers, popular science organizations and practitioners from other fields. With their tool, Kwago sends an invitation to audiences in Guangzhou to connect with, explore and respond to all the participants’ work.

And last but not least, Five Arts Centre and Collaborators and Shunde Practice begin together from the problems that concern them most, digging deeply into the past and the present, using documentary theatre and interviews as the main methods respectively. Both see themselves as open collectives without solid fences and are glad to welcome different collaborators into their work. Under this framework, individuals and the collective nurture one another, but at the same time, chaos occurs and demands more encounter, adjustment and exploration.

Curating is not my profession. These past few months have simply been another way for me to continue practicing with friends. Uncertainties and quarrels are frequent, but during the process of untying these knots, we listen to one another, gain better knowledge about where we are and what we want to say, and we continue threading through the eye of the needle.

Project Introduction | Two Responses to Social Practice Introduction #3 Arts November January openfrom and Hall Town Chen 崇真艺客

Installation view of the five publishing groups and reading area in “BULLET TEXT: Piercing the Margins of Semi-Autonomous Publishing”

Project Introduction | Two Responses to Social Practice Introduction #3 Arts November January openfrom and Hall Town Chen 崇真艺客

Jabnyb Adventure, commissioned by this exhibition and created based on the conversation between New Pessimism (founded by Riar Rizaldi and Natasha Tontey) and Restu Ratnaningtyas, with Komikwawawa (9 yrs)’s comics.

Project Introduction | Two Responses to Social Practice Introduction #3 Arts November January openfrom and Hall Town Chen 崇真艺客