Symposium

PROGRAMMES / OCT 2017-FEB 2018

SYMPOSIUM

REALITY IN ITS DOUBLE BIND:
Emotional Signifiers In The Undercurrents Of History

9 & 10 DEC 2017

In collaboration with The Cube Project Space (Taiwan), Lostgens’ Contemporary Art Space, Rumah Attap Library & Collective (Malaysia) Reality in its Double Bind is a two day symposium which brings together curators, critics, researchers and artists from Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore.

Synopsis:

“The complex effects of the war, mediated through our bodies, have been inscribed into our national, family, and personal histories. In short, the cold war is still alive within us.”

Kuan-Hsing Chen, Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization (2010)

The starting point of any chronology drawn by the historicist always has its corresponding endpoint, but the experiences of any given recent past continuously manifest themselves in the present, especially the traumatic past. When it comes to the present, whether it is manifested in the name of history, memory, oblivion, or specter; the commonalities shared among the above-mentioned forms of the past is rightly suggested by Holocaust survivor Filip Müller: “To remember, one must imagine.”

Reality in its Double Bind is a symposium that takes a dialectical look at the historical Present of the Cold War in light of contemporary inter-disciplinary artistic practices. This symposium emerges from the collective critical inquiry initiated by curator Amy Cheng in her exhibition titled Towards Mysterious Realities (2016, Taipei) with the aim of expanding the conversations cultivated during that exhibition into a discursive exchange between artists and scholars, blending disciplinary approaches, creative interventions, issues of contemporaneity and aesthetic dimensions of historicisation.

In 1974, Malaysia established formal diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China (PRC) by recognising the People’s Republic as the sole representative of the Chinese government. Events like these foreshadowed the gradual illegitimacy of the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan as an internationally recognised sovereign state. In the same year, Mystical Reality, a Jointly Initiated Experience, an exhibition conceptualised by Redza Piyadasa and Sulaiman Esa, took place at the Sudut Penulis (Writer’s Corner) of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP), the national language and culture institution of Malaysia. It marked a paradigm shift for the terrain of Malaysian contemporary artistic practice, to which the exhibition title — Towards Mysterious Realities — makes a direct reference. By situating the subject of the Cold War in the visual narratives of contemporary art, this symposium takes these two seemly tangential moments of the year 1974 as points of departure and unfolds their contemporary relevance through three interdependent perspectives — decolonisation, de-Cold War, and the implicated capitalism.

The artists’ talks at the symposium embody a collective attempt to reconsider the project of decolonisation defined by the independence of nation-states after the World War II, which was arguably interrupted by the increase in Cold War anti-communist anxieties characterised by bloody civil wars throughout Asia, from the Korean War (1950-1953) to the Vietnam War (1955-1975). By putting historical processes into perspective, the discussions touch upon how the influence of the Cold War in Asia speaks through the naturalisation of American aid in the name of strengthening the war’s strategic frontiers, which gradually translated into state-led developmentalism. Reality in its Double Bind is a trans-disciplinary comparative endeavor not only to address the relevance of social thought in artistic practices but also to respond to the sense of political urgency to relate these aesthetic debates with the resurgence of interest in the Cold War in Asia, represented by the PRC’s One Belt One Road Initiative and the reopening of the American naval base at Subic Bay in the Philippines.

 

The Symposium is open to the public.

 

SCHEDULE

12/8, FRIDAY
VENUE: Lostgens' Contemporary Art Space

→ 20:00-20:10
Opening Remarks by Amy Cheng and Hsu Fang-Tze

→ 20:10-20:40
Title: Mystical Reality: Speculative Realism, Decoloniality and Art History
Speaker: Simon Soon
Discussant: Lee Weng-Choy

→ 20:40-21:10
Q&A

 

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12/9, SATURDAY
VENUE: ILHAM Gallery

→ 12:30 
Arrival of guests

→ 12:55-13:00
Opening Remarks by Hsu Fang-Tze

13:00-13:40
Keynote
Title: When We Were Malayan
Speaker:  Thum Ping-Tjin
Discussant: Simon Soon

→ 13:40 -14:10
Q&A

→ 14:10-14:40
Coffee Break

→ 14:40-15:40
Artist’s Talk (30+30 min,  presented in Chinese, followed by English interpretation)
Title:  The Corporeal Modus Operandi in Historical Contexts
Speaker: Hsu Chia-Wei
Discussant: Show Ying-Xin

→ 15:40-16:10
Q&A

→ 16:10-16:25
Break

→ 16:25-16:55
Artist’s Talk 
Title:  Transfiguring Borders: Trials and Imagination of the Body
Speaker: Au Sow-Yee  
Discussant: Ngoi Guat-Peng

→ 16:55-17:25
Q&A

→ 17:25- 17:40
Closing Remarks

12/9  SATURDAY
VENUE: Rumah Attap Library & Collective

→ 20:00-22:05
Screening: People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose (110 min)
Skype Q&A with John Torres (15 min)
Moderated: Hsu Fang-Tze

12/ 10, SUNDAY
VENUE: ILHAM Gallery

→ 12:30-13:00
Arrival of guests

→ 13:00-14:20
Keynote (40+40 min, presented in Chinese, followed by English interpretation)
Title:  Revisiting Malaya: A “Rhizome-based” Method for the Archaeology of Knowledge
Speaker: Ngoi Guat-Peng 
Discussant:  Lim Qinyi

→  14:20-14:50
Q&A

→  14:50-15:20
Coffee Break

→  15:20-16:20
Artist’s Talk (30+30 min, presented in Chinese, followed by English interpretation)
Title:  The Cold War and Its Return: The Cover and Disclosure of Content-Object
Speaker:  Li Shih-Chieh (Ilya) 
Discussant: Amy Cheng

→  16:20-16:50
Q&A

→  16:50-17:05
Break

→  17:05-18:45
Roundtable Discussion
Moderator: Hsu Fang-Tze

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SIMPOSIUM
Dilema Realiti - Penanda Emosi dalam Arus Sejarah
8 - 10 Dis 2017

Dengan kerjasama The Cube Project Space (Taiwan), Lostgens’ Contemporary Art Space dan Rumah Attap Library & Collective (Malaysia), Reality in its Double Bind adalah simposium selama tiga hari yang menghimpunkan kurator, pengkritik, penyelidik dan artis dari Taiwan, Malaysia dan Singapura.

Simposium ini dibuka kepada orang ramai.

“Kesan peperangan, yang dirasai melalui tubuh kita, telah menjadi sebahagian dari sejarah nasional, keluarga dan peribadi. Pendeknya, masih terdapat peperangan dingin di dalam sanubari kita.”

Kuan-Hsing Chen, Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization (2010)

Setiap titik permulaan sebuah kronologi oleh sejarahwan tentu sahaja wujud padanan titik pengakhiran, namun pengalaman lampau ketara berlarutan sehingga kini, istimewanya trauma peristiwa lalu. Apabila menyentuh tentang masa kini, sama ada dalam manifestasi sejarah, memori, kelupaan dan kengerian; titik persamaan yang dikongsi dalam bentuk-bentuk di atas membenarkan ungkapan kata dari Filip Müller, mangsa Holocaust yang terselamat: "Untuk mengingati, kita harus berimaginasi."

Dilema Realiti ialah sebuah simposium yang mengambil pendekatan dialektik terhadap sejarah terkini Perang Dingin menerusi praktik artistik inter-disiplin kontemporari. Simposium ini terhasil dari persoalan-persoalan kritikal secara kolektif inisiatif dari kurator Amy Cheng dalam pameran beliau yang bertajuk Towards Mysterious Reality (2016, Taipei) yang bertujuan untuk mengembangkan lagi ruang lingkup perbualan semasa pameran untuk membentuk pertukaran diskursif di antara artis dan ilmuwan, gabungan pelbagai disiplin, pengolahan kreatif, isu-isu kontemporari dan dimensi estetika dan pensejarahan.

Pada tahun 1974, Malaysia telah mementerai hubungan diplomatik bersama Republik Rakyat China mengiktiraf negara republik tersebut sebagai repesentatif kerajaan China. Peristiwa ini membayangi hubungan yang merenggang di antara Republik Rakyat China dengan Taiwan, yang tidak diiktiraf sebagai sebuah negara bebas. Dalam tahun yang sama juga, pameran Towards Mystical Reality, a Jointly Initiated Experience, yang dihasilkan oleh Redza Piyadasa dan Sulaiman Esa, berlangsung di Sudut Penulis, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, institusi bahasa dan budaya Malaysia. Ia merupakan sebuah anjakan paradigma di dalam praktik artistik kontemporari Malaysia, di mana ia menjadi rujukan langsung terhadap tajuk pameran - Towards Mysterious Realities. Dengan mengetengahkan subjek Perang Dingin sebagai naratif visual di dalam seni kontemporari, simposium ini berpaksikan dua momen di tahun 1974 dan merungkai tahap relevan mereka melalui tiga perspektif yang saling berkaitan - penyahjajahan (decolonization), nyah-Perang Dingin (de-Cold War), dan implikasi kapitalisma.

Bicara artis di simposium ini mengungkap sebuah percubaan secara kolektif untuk mempertimbangkan semula projek nyahjajahan yang didefinasikan sejak pembebasan negara bangsa selepas Perang Dunia Kedua, digugat oleh peningkatan kebimbangan terhadap gerakan anti-komunis Perang Dingin melalui peristiwa-peristiwa perang saudara di serata Asia, dari Perang Korea (1950-1953) sehingga Perang Vietnam (1955-1975). Dengan meletakkan proses sejarah dalam perspektif, perbincangan akan menyentuh pengaruh Perang Dingin di Asia yang dilihat melalui naturalisasi bantuan-bantuan Amerika di atas kepentingan memperkuatkan strategi barisan hadapan perang, yang perlahan-lahan dirungkai sebagai pembangunan yang diteraju negara (state-led). Dilema Realiti ialah komporatif trans-disiplin yang bukan hanya mengangkat relevan pemikiran sosial di dalam praktik artistik, ia juga sebagai respon terhadap desakan politik untuk mengaitkan perdebatan estetika ini dengan pertumbuhan minat terhadap Perang Dingin di Asia, terbukti memlalui projek One Belt One Road oleh Republik Rakyat China dan pembukaan semula pengkalan tentera laut Amerika di Subic Bay, Filipina.

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(image: Anthony Lau, Sea Harvest | Hasil Laut, 1968, Metal, 63 x 30 x 30 cm)