Framer Framed

6 May 2021
13:00 - 15:00

Online Roundtable: Curating Against Oblivion

The program Now water can flow or it can crash, my friend consists of a series of online/offline roundtable discussions, interactive workshops, screenings and lectures to explore notions of art, archive, and activism in the context of East Asia and beyond. After having kicked off with an online launch and a first roundtable discussing creative modes of resistance in Hong Kong over the past few years, we now continue with our May program. First up: an online roundtable exploring curating as a form of resistance and remembrance.

Online Roundtable

Date: May 6th, 13.00-15.00
Moderator: Nuraini Juliastuti
Panelists: Chien-Hung Huang, Dar-Kuen Wu, Binna Choi

The event is FREE and will be live streamed via YouTube. The language is English.

What can we learn from the past, and how can we use fluid tactics to form transnational alliances against the resurgence of autocratic forms of government? Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising, we invite veteran curators to discuss how might curatorial projects express contemporary struggles while giving a platform to previously suppressed narratives.

By looking into the ways in which variant exhibitions connect the historical-geopolitical context of Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea, we wish to critically reflect on the legacies of the Second World War and the Cold War in East Asia, and further imagine new ways to shape relational networks as well as communicate global struggles for democracy today.

Contributors

Nuraini Juliastuti is a trans-local practising researcher and writer focusing on art organisation, activism, illegality, and alternative cultural production. She is the co-founder of Kunci Study Forum & Collective in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Chien-Hung Huang is a curator and professor at the Taipei National University of Arts in the Institute of Trans- disciplinary Art. He is also a film critic and critic of contemporary art and the spectacle. He has translated books by G. Deleuze, J. Baudrillard and J. Rancière.

Dar-Kuen Wu is an artist and curator with a strong focus on the development of contemporary art and Asian cultures. He is currently senior curator of Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB).

Binna Choi is the director at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons in Utrecht, where she engages with both its artistic program and the organisational and (de)instituting.

Live Stream

Time: 13:00 – 15:00
Language: English
The live stream can be followed free of charge on the Framer Framed YouTube channel. Subscribe to get a notification. Comments and questions to panel members are welcome and can be posted in the ‘chat’. The recording will be kept available after the event.

Live stream link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNTjFiaeDpQ

Background of the Series

How to live life in a time of intense insecurity? A pandemic time, with a climate crisis looming and with populism, systematic racism worldwide on the rise? What can we learn from art practices and recent social movements hailing from East Asia to imagine a more sustainable future from our own situated context? The title of this program, taken from Hong Kong American martial artist Bruce Lee’s philosophy, reminds us that resilience and care come from fluidity, flexibility, and tenacity. In a turbulent time, we need even more so friends close and afar to make alliances for a journey in building a better world.

Together with artists, collectives, activists, and scholars, this new series digs into the question: what role do cultural practitioners play in social movements in East Asia? How do they transgress nation-based boundaries and join the flows with others? How can we archive actions that are always in flux, and so often, on the verge of destruction, disappearance, and alteration by the ruling powers? What symbolic and material techniques do artists mobilise to address ethics of resilience? And how can such artistic practices be restored so that we can learn from them?

In the coming months, we invite you to explore the various forms and creative potentials of resistance, remembrance; of fluidity, porosity, non-oppositionality, and care. Through this program, we advocate for a better world where we attend to our interconnectedness, where we float freely yet at the same time hold each other firmly, like water—formless and shapeless, maybe, but also more resilient.

Credits

This series is a collaboration of Framer Framed and ASCA/University of Amsterdam.

Research Team: Emily Shin-Jie Lee, Jiyoung Kim, Yvette Lok Yee Wong, Zoénie Liwen Deng
Visual identity & Graphic Design: Simo Tse
Facilitator: Jeroen de Kloet

Agenda

Network

Chien-Hung Huang

Curator

Dar-Kuen Wu

Curator and artist

Nuraini Juliastuti

Researcher and writer

Binna Choi

Curator