ETHICS AND POLITICS OF CURATING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA / A DISCUSSION 'CURATED' BY TONY GODFREY

TONY GODFREY: You are some of the younger curators or critics working in Southeast Asia—Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore—the area Sukarno saw as being a greater Indonesia or Malay world. What I would like us to contemplate is the state of Art and what is changing in this region, what is the future for Art? Is the most interesting art being shown, and is there a ‘regional identity’? And what can the forthcoming Singapore Biennale tell us about the current situation? One thing that struck me when I moved here from London two years ago was the paucity of direct State support to artists, the dominance of and the prevalence of speculation in the art market. Working as curators or critics in this context how do you avoid being compromised? Could you begin by addressing this latter question?

TESSA GUAZON: I am based in a university and that somehow affords a certain distance from the bewildering art scene that Manila has developed in recent years. Not being compromised means writing about artists I believe in and whose practices are grounded in material realities, the market included. For commissioned writing, this translates into consistently providing the bigger picture, the contexts of artistic development. Yet, I think academics too should be immersed in the panorama of activities that defines the Manila art scene for us to intimately know its pulse. In my research for the past six years or so, I have written largely about projects, and artists who examine urban issues. Not being compromised in this sense, means my being able to share my critique of their projects and their being open to such. So artists expect that it’s not all praise about them or specific projects.

ALAN OEI: In Singapore our art market doesn’t exist (completely), while State funding for the arts is fairly extensive, but expressed in the dominance of museum and government institutions, which are run for and by the government. Whether it exists or not in practical and real terms, there isn’t even an ideological understanding that the art institutions need a certain arm’s length and independence. Which curator would ever believe or admit he/she is compromising oneself by being paid to write and plan exhibitions, etc? So that’s something I’m less interested in. The most damning compromise that needs to be examined occurs not on the level of individual curators and critics but at the institutional level, which is also much more powerful in influencing the art market. In Singapore, we have a pragmatist government which does not even conceive that allowing commercial galleries to sponsor national museum solo exhibitions is problematic. The question I think that would be more fulfilling answered is where external pressures emerge from in Southeast Asia, in what structural form and how that form is shaped by the country’s culture and politics.

TONY GODFREY: You are expanding the issue beyond art market pressures to the governmental and ideological. Before we move in that direction could I have some feedback from Agung and Alia who work in Indonesia where the pressure of the art market is clearly much more powerful, and insidious? I believe two thirds of the art market in Southeast Asia is connected to Indonesian art, yet it seems not to receive any State support. Agung, you work for a private organisation; Alia you for commercial galleries as a freelance curator. Does this present either of you with any ethical problems?

ALIA SWASTIKA: It is interesting to compare all different answers here. For me, the question is difficult as I work as curator in commercial galleries. I feel I have to define what “compromise” might be for me. As a freelance curator, it is very difficult to be independent from market pressure. One of

the best practices I do is to select the gallery and help them to develop their market, building a circle of collectors who will spend money—also on non-commercial projects. These are the people who can invest money to build an art infrastructure, in lieu of government funding. The support needed is not only financial, but also policy and education. I believe that being a curator in Indonesia is therefore a big undertaking. There are no art history departments or art management courses in Indonesia. We curators are best positioned to be at least part of the source of reference, so that we—at least from my experience—also ‘educate’ and share experience and knowledge with gallery owners, and with collectors. My “compromise” began when I started to become part of this market circle. Before, I used to work in a non-commercial art space (Cemeti Art House) where the pressure of the art market was never a problem. Another step forward has been developing new strategies—to arrange gallery programs and to support more young artists and introduce them to the art market without pushing them to follow the market’s trends, and to introduce established artists into non-commercial projects and to new collectors.

AGUNG HUJATNIKAJENNONG: I think Tony’s first question also deals with how art curatorship has been developed in the Southeast Asian region, especially the relationship between the power of market and the State. I’m really interested in responding to this. In Indonesia, the relationship between art market, the private sector and the State cannot be one of simple binary opposition. In my experience the connection between the two can also be analysed differently—for instance, looking at how the art market actually operated under a certain ideology of the State. For example, during the height of New Order era, especially in the 1980s, the State was involved in directing the kind of art practice that was considered valid, by censoring and muffling all arts that expressed a critical voice toward socio-political conditions in Indonesia. This was presented through the commercial galleries’ practice of showing non-political arts. Although the term “curatorship” did not exist at the time, I tend to believe that the practice had already been developed by gallerists or dealers who selected works, put them on display, and asked some writers (mostly art critics who also wrote in newspapers or magazines) to give a framework for the public to interpret and understand the exhibition. This may be too loose a perspective to understand the term “curatorship”, but it can be useful as an alternative to reflect upon the “paucity of State support” stated by Tony.

The current situation in the Indonesian art sector has become more complicated and problematic. True, we can still see the continual lack of government support and the prevailing “insidious” market. Following the honeymoon period of the 1990s with international and regional art events, and the rise of Indonesian ‘independent curator’ as a new actor on the art stage, Indonesian art has undergone changes, especially with the new market boom in the mid-2000s. But with an absence of a professional bond amongst curators—where most have not emerged from the State’s art institutions or the academic field, the notion of curatorial practice has always been free-floating. To use my own experience as an example, although I work in a private and non-profit institution, I still have possibilities to work with other galleries, artist-run-initiatives, individual artists and the city government, both for commercial and non-commercial projects. This might also be the situation for other Indonesian curators. Thus, the “compromise” cannot be simply seen from the institution where the curators work, as indicated in Alia’s comments; neither can it be examined from one, two, three typical works/exhibitions that they did.

SHARON CHIN: I wonder if this question of compromise is not a little disingenous when applied to what we do in the art world. It seems to suggest that there’s an ideal state of intellectual and artistic integrity, a purer condition divorced from self-interest or needing to maintain our rice bowls. I find myself compromising on a daily basis. As an artist, I sell my work to make a living. I choose not to be represented by any gallery, but I have shown work in them. I also need to maintain professional relationships and networks, which is another type of currency. I have worked with the Malaysian Federal and State Governments, private collectors, commercial galleries, indepedant initiatives and as Agung put it so well, the “free-floating” independent curators. There is no formula, no safety. Every encounter means negotiating power, agendas and personal vision in order to make something happen. I think declaring our self-interests and weaving that transparency into the working process is the most intellectually honest thing we can do, even if it does us no favours, and from personal experience, it often doesn’t! What really shifted my convictions about this whole ‘making love to your enemies’ business was taking part in the Beyond Pressure performance art festival in Myanmar. We artists had to explain our work to Myanmar government officials for them to approve, reject or suggest ‘improvements’. At the end of the day, the festival was government sanctioned, which meant it could be held in a public space. We had collaborated with the leading tyrants of an oppressed nation, but we got what we wanted, an opportunity for Myanmar people to attend our event openly, without fear. At best, the art world is an open playground to do whatever we want with the tools we have. At worst, it’s a supervised nursery for institutionally approved experimentation, mutual ego massage, and cold, hard commodity trading. The baffling complexities that exist in Malaysia and the rest of Southeast Asia are to me an opportunity and a gift. In between the corruption, the failed democracy and the numbing consumerism are still many ‘soft’ places where you can slip in, plant seeds and create something incredible. Everything depends on how much we are willing to give up of our ideas of how things are supposed to be.

TESSA GUAZON: Practice has a lot to do with choices. Whether in curating or criticism, what one chooses to exhibit or write about reflects the changing conditions curators, academics and critics contend with. The recent proliferation of curators in Manila raises issues of practice. What is not strongly recognised is that curating has to be regarded as more than the mounting of exhibitions; it has to concern itself with a range of other engagements. I feel in Manila at least, there seems to be a strong divide between those who practice independently and those who are affiliated with institutions. Hence, the greater challenge of finding avenues for collaborations. However, like Agung, there are the few who are able to curate within a vast range of platforms. When one is able to do this, curating or art writing becomes advocacy. I think it is important that one reveals choices and elucidate them beyond the confines of an exhibition.

TONY GODFREY: I want to go back what Alan Oei said earlier, that there are a number of external pressures on art making and curating in Southeast Asia. Some are presumably specific to particular countries, some more regional. Which are the most problematic for you to deal with? Perhaps, so we don’t get too abstract in talking about this you can each give an example of an exhibition you have been involved with that dealt with those pressures forthrightly and successfully.

TESSA GUAZON: External pressures on art making and curation in Manila? Success in auctions and awards for art competitions become incentives for younger artists and I’ve seen ‘winning’ or ‘more successful’ styles replicated endlessly. I think this kind of pressure impacts upon the kind of art being made, with little else new being said or more interesting queries posed through art. So I feel there are more interesting projects being done outside Manila’s orbit. It is worth noting though that auction purchases are mostly from Filipino collectors. Cross-cultural exchanges also exert a certain amount of pressure. With little follow through done after mounting exhibitions one is left wondering about what exactly constitutes a collaboration. When exchanges are not invested with time and sincere

interest or when relationships are not sustained, exchanges can become convenient veneers. In a recent project with independent curators, we had numerous difficulties with works that were put together in situ. Despite adequate orientation on parameters and limits of museum space, there was a constant tug-of-war during the installation. Constant negotiation is demanded of cross-cultural exchanges, and parameters have to be clearly laid down between host institution and curatorial partners. For this particular project, I think sensitivity to material conditions such as space and logistical needs, and understanding of local contexts were left wanting. The curators felt the museum infringed on ‘artistic expression’ and had been inflexible somehow. Given the fact that adequate project briefs from visiting artists were not provided, I felt the heavy hand of power when the visiting curator took the liberty of dispensing advice on how a local museum, grappling with conditions he did not have any idea about, should be run. Cross-cultural exchanges should also be founded on considerations of power and if projects are pursued without this initial recognition, I think they have slim chance for success. I think a discussion venue is needed for these issues to be addressed. Beyond printed exchanges, I don’t think these had been discussed. One other exhibition I was left to oversee had works that were strongly political, addressing the plight of workers and migrant labourers. Its questioning of the art market it seemed was not of immediate concern to the project proponents, but it was something that the museum repeatedly raised through the exhibition text, the opening program and tours with artists. Some of these artists maintain a strong activist affiliation yet most of them also do very well in the marketplace. How they negotiate this position is of interest, and should be discussed not just among them but with exhibition audiences as well. Being a university museum, we are fortunate to have a ready (if not captive) audience for our exhibitions. And when conversation strands are teased out through our exhibitions, we sustain discussion in our classes. However, there is more to be done in terms of expanding our audience reach and crafting exchanges that go beyond exhibition-making.

AGUNG HUJATNIKAJENNONG: In a situation where the public/State art institution exists predominantly for itself, the difficulty for a curator is how to position oneself as mediator between the artists and their artworks and the audience. Since curatorship in Indonesia has not developed from the museum tradition, there is a current tendency towards a curatorial practice that merely serves the art crowd (you can now find the phrases “art lovers” and “art collectors” appearing more than ever before in many Indonesian catalogues). Thus, curating or exhibition-making becomes esoteric and self-centered, and worse, stereotyped as a process that functions merely to validate art practice for the sake of small number of people. I can also see an attitude change among Indonesian curators since demands from galleries and the art market tend to treat the curator as the ‘servant’ of their clients or patrons (or the gallery itself, or often the artist). Although I can assume that it may also have happened elsewhere, I think with the lack of public institutional basis and higher education for curators, the practice of curating in Indonesia is in danger of being ‘insensitive’ toward real public interest. Contemporary art will become more of a commodity, adrift from public domain and alienated from its silent majority. This may explain, for example, why a group of Muslim fundamentalists could easily manage to stage a protest and urge the curator of an international biennale in Jakarta in 2005 to close it down. Another problem, that of an under-developed curatorial practice, has resulted from a lack of an institutional platform that would facilitate experimentation for curators. As mentioned earlier, I work in a private art institution situated in Bandung, a middle-scale city which has a much quieter art market platform compared to Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Bali. As a curator, my goal is to increase public attendance over commercial aspects. Although it is not a public institution, I had the experience of being in a perplexing position, in which my personal desire to improve and experiment—for instance with theoretical discourse or a new exhibition approach—remained compromised by the reality of the city, in which visiting an art exhibition is never considered important or necessary. This has kept me thinking about how to slow down the scale of experimentation, in order to ‘serve’ the expectation of the general public, and avoid the decrease of attendance.

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SHARON CHIN: I run an art website, Arteri (www.arterimalaysia.com). Its major goal is to encourage more dialogue within the Malaysian art community, and one of the biggest challenges I face is language. Malaysian society is intensely communalised. This inheritance from the divide and rule policy of British colonialisation has today morphed into the powerful myth of ‘1Malaysia’, a country where Malays, Chinese, Indians and ‘Others’ live in harmony while (paradoxically) identifying most strongly with their own communities politically, racially, religiously, economically and above all, linguistically. The art scene is a micro version of this larger environment. We have to try very hard to publish material that is relevant to a healthy cross-section of the Malaysian art world. It’s about stepping out of our communal comfort zones—in my case, English-speaking middle to upper middle class. I force myself to write in Bahasa Malaysia, even though it takes me twice as long. Intellectually, I grapple with the idea that going wide is just as urgent as going deep. Arteri’s strategy is to reach out to these various communities and get them to write in their own voice, about their own concerns. In the process, it may be possible to identify common issues that affect us all, resulting in a deeper solidarity that can help bridge language barriers. Genuine dialogue also helps to break down unspoken power cartels that exist within more or less closed networks. Another strategy is to focus on what is happening with our neighbours in Southeast Asia. It is necessary to expand our world view so that we can mentally train ourselves to think beyond the communal box.

ALAN OEI: I present an annual project called Open House, which stages artworks and interventions inside domestic spaces in Singapore. For this project, it’s less about ‘pressure’. What I most often have to contend with is bureaucracy. Sometimes it’s understandable, sometimes it almost takes on a Kafkaesque character. In running an artist project space (Evil Empire), I’ve worked with Valentine Willie Fine Art Gallery several times. Valentine is super cool and doesn’t interfere in the curatorial process. I do things the best way I know, and he does the selling and dealing, and helps me out when I need contacts and logistics. So I’ve been lucky that way, and I’m grateful.

ALIA SWASTIKA: I think because Indonesia is the largest country in the region in term of its geography and population, there is therefore always pressure upon us as curators to be ‘the biggest’ in what we do. Of course, if we talk just about the notion of market economies, then the Indonesian art market is by far the largest in the region. Having worked both in commercial galleries and alternative spaces, I feel the demands of the art market have influenced my relationship to and connection with the concepts and discourses of artistic practices. I feel somehow we lack discourse compared to other countries in Southeast Asia. Recently, there has been more interest from the international art world in Indonesian art. But most of these exhibitions have been driven by market forces and interests. I think it is important to present exhibitions with other artistic influences that open up discussion and connect with the current issues, both aesthetic and political. I curated an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, in October 2010. My aim was to present Indonesian artists who were working with the idea of art as a project rather than a product. Seven artists were involved, and most are still unknown in the Southeast Asia marketplace. I received many responses from the public that they had seen and learned something new. This project presented a development of artistic and aesthetic discourse, in the socio-political context of current Indonesian society. In the 1990s these kinds of projects attracted international exposure. We now need to reclaim that.

TONY GODFREY: Let’s get back to the intersection of dealers and freelance curators. I saw all of you except Sharon Chin at Art Stage (January, 2011), the big new swishy art fair in Singapore. We heard of big sales—Murakami (Japan) for $2,200,000; Geraldine Javier (Philippines) for $55,000; Jane Lee (Singapore) for $22,000; and so on. Is this new art fair going to change the art world of Southeast Asia in any positive way?

ALAN OEI: Asia’s art market is driven by auctions and speculation. Will a new art fair change this? It will probably only make this situation even more pronounced. It’ll be more again about highlight sales—Murakami for this much, Picasso for that much. If anything, it will further solidify the notion of

artworks as brands and stocks. That’s bad news for the art purists. You can see the effect in the regional auctions that are crammed with so many facsimiles and derivative artworks. The good news is that more artists just might get a slice of the action. There’s no guarantee that Art Stage will thrive and/or find its own niche against Art HK (Hong Kong).

ALIA SWASTIKA: It is interesting for me to see how Art Stage brought together so many Asian artists in one place. This art fair has become one of the new important events for the Asian art scene, compared to Art HK it’s more broadly international. While focusing on the region, Art Stage could open opportunities for a more intense interaction and collaboration with Asian art practitioners, something that is usually blurred by the tendency to go to the Europe and American art markets. I curated a small exhibition at Art Stage for Ark Galerie, that gained quite positive responses from Asian and even American galleries and museums/curators etc. While the distance between Southeast Asia and America/Europe remains large, this kind of art fair, in a way, could be a step forward in opening up opportunities for Southeast Asian artists to present their artistic uniqueness to a broader public, and to develop a healthy competition and somehow, exchange.

AGUNG HUJATNIKAJENNONG: I don’t think an art fair or even a biennale can change the art world in the region just by having them occur once or twice. What I can hope from the fair, or from the role of Singapore in general, is to provide an infrastructural model that at least can trigger more vibrant art practices in the region, and more robust competition among the art scenes in the various countries. Singapore may be the only country in Southeast Asia that has the power and money to follow through with government art institutions that can develop more extensive collections, research and publications, as found in more established art scenes in the West. For the next ten years, such a model is still important to maintain a better mechanism of validation through curating and exhibition making, since it can hardly exist in a country like Indonesia.

ALAN OEI: This is interesting. I think both Agung (and Tessa, earlier on) in some ways posit the institutional/State support as a kind of mediation to the market and how it inhibits both curatorial and artistic experimentation. Whereas, I am so tired of government institutions stultifying the market and artists. I don’t think this is necessarily a grass-is-greener symptom though.

TONY GODFREY: We have an odd situation: a lot of State support in Singapore and not enough private gallery/collector action; the exact opposite in Indonesia and Malaysia where government support is negligible or incompetent. Maybe that gives Singapore a potentially important role as meeting place and “arts hub”.

AGUNG HUJATNIKAJENNONG: It’s also interesting to compare that situation with the Galeri Nasional Indonesia in Jakarta. Until now, most of their programs rely on proposals from commercial galleries, which makes the Galeri Nasional a luxurious ‘space for rent’. At its worst, the relationship between the art market and government institutions is susceptible to nepotism. This persistent lack of government autonomy has also made me wonder, does it mean that Indonesian art has submitted to the neo-liberal economic system since its early inception? You may take my question as sarcasm.

TONY GODFREY: Is it not then significantly appropriate that the next big overseas exhibition of Indonesian art will apparently be at the LVMH Foundation (Vuitton Museum )in Paris? Can alternative spaces like your space, Sankring, Cemeti or Platform compensate for this to any extent?

AGUNG HUJATNIKAJENNONG: As Alan Oei has said, as well as making art works even more blatantly brand products, in this kind of event (Art Stage) speculation is highly celebrated; repetition and derivatives are so rampant. I can see the obvious hierarchy or ranking of an artist by their sale price. In the Southeast Asian art market, Indonesia is undoubtedly the biggest player, in terms of speculation. Apart from relying on the auction, with the new fair the speculators now have a new field of play and it is even closer than Hong Kong.

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ALIA SWASTIKA: To compare Agung’s, Tessa’s and Alan’s responses, it is interesting to see how there is a longing for government support of art. Singapore places itself as the art centre for the region, thus presenting interesting and more complex power relations within Southeast Asia. For example, many Indonesian artists desire to be exhibited at or having their works collected by the Singapore Art Museum. The international exhibitions that have recently been presenting Indonesian art (including the upcoming Vuitton Museum as mentioned) have been positively appreciated by the artists since they need that so-called ‘leap’ into the international forum to measure their achievement from other than just Indonesian commercial galleries. The latter is something that is too easy and that’s why most of these international exhibitions are under-curated. I think local institutions must be strengthened to provide a better overall infrastructure for future generations. While perhaps the idea of established museums might be considered as ‘failed’ in the West, in Indonesia, somehow we still need these as the symbolic power countering the market. While we have submitted to a neo-liberal economic system, can we use the market as a tool to develop philanthropic action that will help this institutional development?

SHARON CHIN: I find this conversation seems to present a consistent binary between government/institutional support and art market forces. In my experience the relationship between the two is very slippery—they buttress and reinforce each other’s agendas, and the curator often plays a power broker or mediator role between them, the art, the artist and the public. Last year, National Art Gallery of Malaysia hosted the exhibition 15 Malaysian Art Friends, featuring works not only from the collections of private collectors, but also selected by them. The whole endeavour was in collaboration with a local boutique art consultancy which has more than ten years experience in the art market. There was no critique on the conflicts of interest that arise with such blurring of boundaries between public institutions and private enterprise. The rhetoric here is of curators/gallerists/collectors wishing to advocate on behalf of artists, i.e. ensuring deserving artists get their chance in the spotlight or are given sufficient support. I wonder where artist autonomy

and self-representation comes into play, if at all. Regarding Art Stage: the very name itself suggested a theatrical platform where entertaining and the powerful performances of contemporary art are played out by major actors—artists, curators, the market, the State, etc. There was an artificiality to the proceedings which was then disseminated as concrete reality. It’s like a news cycle that reports and comments constantly on its own news, trading on hype and visibility. I have no doubt some amazing art was shown and seen, but the structure itself had its own interests at heart. As artists, curators and intellectuals, we should ask for more. It’s interesting that many Malaysian galleries took part in Art Stage but not in last year’s Malaysian art fair, Art Expo. The idea of Art Stage or Singapore as an exchange hub for contemporary art in the region is great as long as we remember only a very specific facet in the development of any local art scene will be represented. It’s the gap between the hype and complex realities that interests me in this art game—I think curators live, breathe and manipulate that gap.

ALIA SWASTIKA: When I offered my thoughts regarding Art Stage, I was also aware of the artificiality this event presents. So I wouldn’t see it as something that we should believe in. It is part of the glamour of the global art market economy that plays a more intense role these days. Artists and curators of course can’t see the art fair as a platform where they achieve everything they wanted, but how do we engage it strategically in terms of the penetrating global market? It’s not about taking this need of market exchange for granted, but of requestioning artistic practices in the region. What subversive ideas we can offer to the market?

SHARON CHIN: I agree, but I question the effectiveness of injecting the market economy with subversive ideas. I would like more transparency in curatorial practice such as calling attention to its process of legitimisation and promotion and how this links directly to economic value. It needn’t be a whole mea culpa thing—it can be honest but still be strategic. The uncovering itself is radical and subversive.

TESSA GUAZON: Art Stage helped pool audiences, not just for itself but also for exhibitions that opened during the week of its run. But beyond that, I am skeptical as to its gains. When we have mammoth events like this, effort should be given to organising parallel events that do not replicate art market goals. So it was good to view the Roberto Chabet exhibition at the Instiute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, and attend Alan Oei’s Open House during this time. I think it is possible to have a parallel State supported event or exhibition that casts a critical eye on patronage and the art market, less ‘spectacular’ and more reflexive. So I expected more from the Collector’s Stage exhibitions both at Singapore Art Museum and Helutrans. (This was an exhibition of over thirty ‘masterworks’ of contemporary Asian art borrowed from leading private collection. Tony Godfrey.) While Art Stage illustrates the reach of the international art market, it should also be seen as imperative for organising events from a different perspective; those that promote dialogue, invite questions, and encourage diverse audiences. These can feed off the art fair promotion, as parasitic as they are they should not end within the big event duration. Parallel events should be sustained until such time the next big state supported event comes along.

TONY GODFREY: At the beginning of this discussion I said we should think about art in the region, whether there are new developments or shifts in the making of the actual objects, installations or events. But we have mainly talked about the institutional and commercial framework that we work within. You are all involved in your respective art worlds, are you seeing something new and particular emerging, are younger artists just making work for the market or exploring concepts and situations for a wider public?

TESSA GUAZON: I would like to mention that in the context of Manila, State or institutional support is not the sole ‘mediator’ for the market. In more successful projects (of course, the rubrics of success have to be constantly rethought), we have a lot more parties going on board—NGOs and artists collectives, especially. While they receive project support from the State (these are not artist’s grants, by the way), they are given room to manoeuvre. Of course, there is always the threat of being co-opted and embracing State rhetoric. Here lies the role of scholarship and criticism and of critics doing groundwork. This is not a ‘grass-is-greener’ option, though. Art fairs, State infrastructure and biennales alert us to what needs to be done and how to be more creative in carving more publics for art. I agree with Agung that ‘the biennale’ cannot foster dramatic change in how art from/in the region is seen. While Singapore may be seen as a model of infrastructure in the region, its positioning itself as an “arts hub” also presents numerous problems, discursively and in all matters geographic (locationally and metaphorically). All centres carry the weight of power—what it chooses to disclose, what it leaves out, and the mechanisms it deploys. How are we going to work through the ‘hub’s’ systems? What manners of exchange will it promote? Or censor perhaps? Do we favour a strong centre or multiple ones, like nodes connected by networks of various kinds? What excites me more are ongoing initiatives that involve artists working with partners other than those from the market and the State. Some of our artists are involved in collectives, in projects conceived with partner NGOs, and they do work in regions outside Manila. Some of them receive funding from local governments and the State and have successfully organised projects alongside local festivals. However, constant feedback is needed for them to stay the course and not be overwhelmed by demands of individual careers or the market. And here criticism and its venues should be fostered. I feel it is important that critics should be in constant discussion with these collectives, evaluating initiatives of this kind and looking for ways to make them thrive amidst the more powerful mechanisms of the market and the State.

ALIA SWASTIKA: Aside of this ‘chaotic’ infrastructure in almost all the region, except Singapore, I am happy that I also experience a very interesting creative environment that reflects a very unique perspective of contemporary society. The rapid changing of societies and the lessening dominance of the Western grand narrative have made it possible for artists to work within subjectivite and interpersonal interpretations. There is a never-ending dialectic between the personal and the social. Some younger artists are less conscious about this, but with a better forum of dialogue that we hope can be

made in the future, we can reflect and analyse the personal experience, put it into a social context and engage political statements. I believe that this social and political engagement is still part of the value of artistic practices within what we have discussed. While the tendency to question the intervention of Western art history and the notion of contemporary art is becoming stronger these days, there is always some other artistic approach that refers to the local aesthetic tradition. This leads to some experimental works that differ from purely Western artistic practices. The question of originality is not very relevant anymore, but still every artist needs to develop one’s own identity. In this world where we are swamped with visual media, artists are challenged more to find their own visual language. Interaction with other artistic practices and languages becomes very important, not only for references and comparison, but also as a part of building identity. Some of the artists from Southeast Asia, I note, gather originality from both their personal issues and unique artistic languages and these become their strength and cultural capital. Their distance from Western notions of (contemporary) art are contributing more to their uniqueness, and suggest a new way to present art as a cultural project.

SHARON CHIN: In Malaysia we’ve seen a definite bloom in community art projects. For example, Pudu Community Art Project (2010) and Chow Kit Kita (Our Chow Kit, 2011) dealt with social groups and issues in two distinct urban sites in downtown Kuala Lumpur. Let Arts Move You (2007) was an interactive festival that placed live art in commuter trains and stations. The graffiti scene is also buzzing and very public-minded, creating large events that go far beyond fly-by-night tagging. There have been many more. What’s interesting is that these ambitious projects are artist-led—practitioners themselves put on the hats of curators, fund-raisers, marketers and producers. They negotiate directly with government bureaucracy, corporate sponsors and their target public. I don’t see this development as artists going against existing institutional and commercial frameworks at all. In fact they operate fluidly (you could say indiscriminately) across the board to pool whatever resources they need. A really interesting initiative called Art Triangle connects artists in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines—they organise a yearly sale of artworks and the proceeds go into a fund that gives grants for community art projects. I love this as an example of going beyond subverting the market economy and instead using it transparently for specific outcomes that benefit the vitality of art production. I think the idea of the ‘public’ is becoming an important concern for young Malaysian artists. Even in commercial galleries you see a lot of work that deals with social issues, though too often in a poor, superficial way. Over here, the idea of art as big business or a ‘creative industry’ is still in its nascent stages—the State is slowly catching on and major initiatives such a Malaysian Pavilion in the upcoming Venice Biennale are under the purview of all things, the Trade Ministry. So the Malaysian public’s awareness of art is still very low (landscape paintings, portraits etc). Artist-led community projects are building new audiences for art in a very grass roots, direct way. It remains to be seen how art develops in the consciousness of the people—another State-sponsored economic development vehicle or something deeper in the heart, the mind, the culture. It’ll probably be a bit of both.

TONY GODFREY: Let’s close there. Curation in the region, like art itself, is clearly in a dynamic state. There are real problems, difficult issues, but there are a lot of possibilities—and clearly a lot of energy and commitment.

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Page 63: Sopheap Pich, Compound (work in progress), 2011Photo courtesy the artistOpposite: Koh Nguang How, Artists in the News (work in progress), 2011Photo courtesy the artist