Art Stage Singapore 2017 - Southeast Asia Forum: The Free and the Brave: Privately Founded and Funded Institutions

Art Stage Singapore 2017

Southeast Asia Forum

The Free and the Brave:

A two-part session on independent art initiatives in Southeast Asia

Part II: Privately Founded and Funded Institutions

With Zoe Butt, Gridthiya Gaweewong and Aaron Seeto

Moderated by Chương-Đài Võ

Date: Thursday, 12 January 2017

Time: 4:00pm - 5:30pm**

Venue: Marina Bay Sands, Sands Expo & Convention Centre,

Level 3, Angsana Room (3E and 3F), 10 Bayfront Avenue

Art centres are on the move in Southeast Asia, as museums, galleries, and cultural spaces multiply and think big. Privately founded and funded organisations can and do play a significant role in shaping the cultural identities and priorities of their communities and beyond. With a focus on four organisations — three of which are new — this panel enquires into how such organisations are constructing themselves in their localities and the larger art scenes, leveraging their funding models and strategies for sustainable development, and negotiating the advantages and challenges of their positions.

Panellists:

Zoe Butt

Artistic Director, The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City

Gridthiya Gaweewong

Artistic Director, Jim Thompson Art Centre, Bangkok / Consultant and guest curator, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai

Aaron Seeto

Director, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara, Jakarta

Moderator:

Chương-Đài Võ

Researcher, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong

**Post-Session Event

Book Launch of SouthEastAsia: Spaces of the Curatorial

5:30pm - 6:00pm

This session will be followed by the first launch in Southeast Asia of the anthology SouthEastAsia: Spaces of the Curatorial, published by Sternberg Press. The book will be introduced by the co-editor of the book, Professor Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director of NTU CCA Singapore, in the presence of several of the publication's contributors.

For more information on SouthEastAsia: Spaces of the Curatorial, please visit:

http://ntu.ccasingapore.org/publications/southeastasiaspaces-of-the-curatorial/

About the Speakers

Zoe Butt is a curator and writer. Beginning February 2017, she will be Artistic Director of The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Previously she was the Executive Director and Curator of Sàn Art in Ho Chi Minh City. From 2007 to 2009 she was Director, International Programmes, Long March Project, Beijing, China; from 2001 to 2007 she was Assistant Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia. Her curatorial referral work is pan-Asian, working with private collectors and researchers, independent curators and major museums globally. Zoe is a member of the Asian Art Council for the Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York City; a member of Asia 21 Young Leaders of the Asia Society, New York City, and in 2015 became a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.

Gridthiya Gaweewong is a founding member of Project 304, an independent art organisation set up in 1996. She has curated art exhibitions and film festivals including Politics of Fun, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2005); the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, (1997–2007); and Saigon Open City, Vietnam (2006–2007). Her recent project, commissioned by Independent Curators International, New York, is a travelling exhibition of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's The Serenity of Madness, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai (2016). Her recent research projects include: The History of Exhibitions in Thailand from the 1970s to the Present, funded by the Asian Cultural Council, Korea; and a Thai translation of Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art: An Anthology, funded by the Office of Art and Culture, Ministry of Culture and the James H.W. Thompson Foundation. Currently, she is Artistic Director of the Jim Thompson Art Centre in Bangkok.

Aaron Seeto is Director of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN). He was formerly Curatorial Manager of Asian and Pacific Art at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, where he led the curatorial team responsible for the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT8) in Brisbane. For eight years prior, he was the Director of Sydney’s 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. While at 4A, Aaron commissioned major projects and solo exhibitions by artists such as Shen Shaomin, Yang Fudong, Qiu Anxiong, Ming Wong, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Song Dong and Dadang Christanto; and helped to build the organisation’s reputation as a leading institution for contemporary Asian and Australian art.

Chương-Đài Võ is a Researcher at Asia Art Archive and an independent curator; her interests focus on modern and contemporary art in Southeast Asia. Her publications can be found in Taipei Fine Arts Museum’s Modern Art Quarterly, the anthology Film in Contemporary Southeast Asia: Cultural Interpretation and Social Intervention, and Journal of Vietnamese Studies. She is a former Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; in addition, she has received fellowships and curatorial grants from apexart, Asian Cultural Council, Fulbright Programme, National Endowment for the Humanities, and University of California Pacific Rim Research Programme. She has a PhD from University of California, San Diego, and a BA from Johns Hopkins University.