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Mutual Unknown
2017
Invited by Curator Chum Chanveasna
CuratorsLab with the support of Goethe-Insitut, Portikus, Staedelschule Frankfurt
Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jalan Medan Merdeka Tim. No.14, Jakarta Pusat, Indonesia
Mutual Unknown refers to an experimental exhibition format where participating agents : curators, artists, and audiences, are intertwined to foster new encounters and learn more about each other from each other, instead of presenting a definitive thesis. The project aims to be an arena to generate networks of Southeast Asian younger art practitioners through interaction and collaboration. It is facilitated by Southeast Asian young curators who have been gathered by the Goethe Institute in 2015-2017. The Mutual Project is derived from “Mutual Unknown” – a term proposed by the Southeast Asia curator’s lab members to refer to the fact that we have still yet to learn properly about each other. We still have a journey to go in terms of understanding each other’s context and finding ways to move forward together. Moving forward with this concern, the project aims to facilitate shared questions on the regionality of Southeast Asia : do we have a ‘shared regional thinking’?
How could an exhibition and related art activities create possibilities among sporadic networks and varied interests? How could an exhibition present an ongoing process of creating and working through differences? Situated in the National Gallery of Indonesia the exhibition will simulate a decentralized form of art exhibition where individual voices turns into a shared authority that an exhibition and it’s collaborating artist will function as a structure that facilitate interaction, discussion and art creation. The exhibition will be generated from a set of intensive journey, discussion, research trip and production that take place in Indonesia from May – June 2017 done by participating artist and curators.
The ‘production’ starts off with a collective journey, followed by a research trip of participating artist and continued by artwork production at gallery space. Program Structure In the course of 6 weeks (May – June 2017), the project will run in three parts. It will start with an initiation gathering, seminar, lectures and workshop in Bandung from 10 to 16 May, 2017 The second part is a self-conduct research trip or collaboration with art initiatives based on their preferences in Indonesia from May 17 – 22, 2017, The last part will be pre-production process exhibition for public which will be held at National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta
From the interview with Vera Mey
During Mutual Unknown all the usual dynamics in Galeri Nasional Indonesia changed with setting up things unconventionally: workstations with materials like ladders, tables, chairs, glue guns, measurement tools, pens and papers… were exposing the process and not putting a focus on the result. The power dynamics also changed between the institute, curators and artists who were progressing on the works while visitors came in. For the Institute, all of a sudden, the gallery space was very alive, visitors were talking, things were in action, people were sitting on the mats on the floor… Maybe they couldn’t touch the art work, but they could be in touch with the artist and the curator and even other people visiting. People came back and returned to see what was happening on another day, to follow how the art works were taking different shapes, to continue a conversation they started before. Curators couldn’t name or frame what artists were doing because everything was still moving. Artists normally work in isolation but during Mutual Unknown, we could be part of a collective space that gave a dynamic experience to our research and creation. We all had to find other ways to relate, also with the visitors who were invited to write or draw on the white walls of the museum. Their presence was very important for the whole experience of Mutual Unknown that became a sort of live exhibition or were just a series of live situations without a director and with everyone co-creating.
Schedule
Week 1 Workshop and Conceptual Frameworks Introduction with curators
Week 2 Self-Conduct Research Trip
Week 3 Production Preparation
Week 4 – 5 Installation and Open Studio Exhibition
Week 6 Dismantle
Artists
Tan Vatey, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Kaung Myat Thu, Yangon, Myanmar
Azam Aris, Kuala Lumpur, Malayasia
Leonard Yang, Singapore, Singapore
Nuttapon, Bangkok, Thailand
Thuy Tien Nguyen, Hanoi/Saigon, Vietnam
Renz Lee, Manila, Philipiness
Noy Xayarham, Vientiane, Laos
Fajar Abadi, Bandung, Indonesia
Curators
Sally Texania, Jakarta, Indonesia
Henry Tan, Bangkok, Thailand
Rifandy Priatna, Bandung, Indonesia
CuratorsLab
This Project is the outcome of a two years long exchange program “Curators Lab” which consist of 14 young curators from South East Asia organized by Goethe Institute Jakarta. These curators united as a group because of their shared geography, a cultural category which actually feel ambivalently defined by. It is a term which emerged during the cold war, whose affects can still be physically seen within the region even though many of the people living in the region were not taught about this formally.
Curators Lab was a journey of curators and their advisers visiting art spaces and institutions in Bandung, Berlin, Frankfurt, Köln and Kassel. Within this period curators studied various form of institutions and art spaces while in the same time sharing ideas and thought of what a next South-East Asian exhibition should be through this dialogue we realize that we are bound not necessarily by shared mutual reference points -quite the contrary- a diverse region carries mutual unknowns due to an absence of shared languages and often historically tense relationships across various borders burdened by a colonial legacy. We are tied by a region which still feels in nascent development of a unique regional identity.
Among these curators, the relationship grows as a people to people connections rather than as diplomatic or authoritative representation that participant tends to use intuitive ways of understanding each other, without knowing specifics of each other’s histories, is a friendship which goes beyond the facts of language and how the curators ‘defined’ the ‘region’ remained ‘open for discussion’. Based on this experience, Instead of adding to the pool of region based exhibitions, curators lab project attempts to facilitate a continuous projects entitled Mutual Unknown and Mutual Learning.
Curators
Sally Texania, Jakarta, Indonesia
Chum Chan Veasna, Phnom Pehn, Cambodia
Henry Tan, Bangkok, Thailand
Rifandy Priatna, Bandung, Indonesia
Lara Acuin, Manila, Phillipines
Nguyen Long, Saigon, Vietnam
Pojawan Pajinda, Chiangrai, Thailand
Hayman OO, Yangoon, Myanmar
Syafiq Ali’am, Kualalumpur, Malaysia
Faizwan Mat. Sarawak, Malaysia
Vera Mey, London, UK
Renan Laru-an, Manila, Phillipines
Chuu Wai Nyein, Mandalay, Myanmar
Nguyen Kim Tolan, Saigon, Vietnam
Advisors
Agung Hujatnikajennong
Fabian Schoeneich