RESPONDING
TO THE LOCAL
Gebang
Seni bersama artis Jay Koh dan Chu Yuan berlangsung pada 28 Julai
2006 di rumahykp dengan tajaan bersama Lat dan Muzium & Galeri
USM Penang.
Kedua artis telah membuat presentasi mengenai konsep berkarya mereka
yang banyak menjurus kepada pertalian antara seni dan komuniti setempat
melalui topik "Responding to the Local". Mengangkat sedikit
semangat aktivisme, Jay dan Chu Yuan banyak menjalankan projek-projek
seni seperti bengkel seni dan pameran di ruang awam di peringkat
antarabangsa.
Jay turut menekankan aspek kesatuan seni dengan bidang-bidang lain
untuk menyerlahkan lagi kreativiti dan kualiti sesuatu produk atau
hasil. Namun begitu, beliau menyaran agar seniman mula bersedia
meneroka ilmu-ilmu lain selain seni dan sanggup memikirkan metodologi
dan struktur sesuatu projek dengan lebih profesional dan teratur
demi untuk mendapatkan hasil yang baik.
Khalayak turut diberi panduan tentang bagaimana untuk mencetus sesuatu
projek tanpa menjadi artis otopedik yang dilihat sebagai seseorang
yang kononnya dapat menyelesaikan masalah dalam satu-satu ruang
dan konteks. Mereka juga menekan agar seniman tidak harus lagi bekerja
secara individu tetapi mula bekerjasama sebagai kumpulan dan menjalankan
projek-projek yang lebih berfungsi untuk masyarakat sekitar.
SINOPSIS:
Title: "Responding to the Local"
Brief introduction to Our Art Practice by Chu Yuan and Jay Koh
Contemporary
art practices are increasingly diversified and artists are connecting
to different traditions of knowledge and disciplines.
Jay
Koh and Chu Yuan are artists who adopt a 'multi-faceted approach'
in their art practice. This 'package' includes making public-interactive/
dialogue-based art projects, creating structures for art - self-organisation,
networks, collaborations, knowledge-building and resource-sharing;
curating and organising locally-responsive events and programmes
and carrying out research and discourse.
Quite
often people ask them why they call themselves artists. Let them
tell you why.
Some
current projects that they will discuss with audience:
1. Dictionary of Participatory Practices, in collaboration with
CityArts, Dublin and other interested research groups.
2. BCI - Bureau for Cultural Interconnectivity, a platform that
activates appropriate models of cultural productions and programmes
in response to localised needs and conditions. e.g. of programmes:
Open Academy, Site of Rights and Expressions, etc.
3. Advisory and consultation works. e.g. Panorama 239, an independent
artist run space in Tijuana by Julio Orozco; Spaces of Inclusion,
an interdisciplinary project in the Santa Fe district of Mexico
City by the architect and professor Enrique Martin-Moreno C., etc.
NICA,
Yangon - Networking & Initiatives for Culture and the Arts:
http://www.artstreammyanmar.net/cultural/nica/nica.htm
IFIMA - International Forum for InterMedia Art:
http://www.artstreammyanmar.net/cultural/nica/IFIMA.htm
Biographies
Chu
Yuan is a visual artist. She received her B.A. in English from the
University of Malaya, Malaysia, in 1988. Since then she has been
involved in a variety of engagements and disciplines, which includes
full-time feature writing, book editing, teaching, and art administration
(fundraising, publicity and programming) with The Substation, the
oldest independent artspace in Singapore. She took part in her first
public (group) art exhibition in September 1993, and from then onwards,
she was involved in projects with the Artists Village and Fifth
Passage, 2 artists-initiated collectives dating from the late 1980s
in Singapore, and in the mid 90s was working with an independent
grouping of women artists in organizing and carrying out site-specific
projects in women-related sites in Singapore.
From
2000, she began working as a director for projects with IFIMA (International
Forum for Intermedia Art), a not-for-profit international cultural
organisation focusing on forging intercultural collaborations, networking
and resource-sharing across disciplines, and on advancing a socially
responsive and engaged way of art making. Her work involves organising,
training, research, writing, advocacy and building networks and
discourses. With IFIMA, she has been involved with the setting up
of NICA (Networking and Initiatives for Culture and the Arts) an
arts and cultural resource development initiative based in Yangon,
Myanmar, from 2002. At NICA, she served as the Director of Programmes
and Training from 2003 - 2005, responsible for identifying suitable
programmes and methods of implementation, developing informal learning
and training programmes for youths and adults, as well as developing
intercultural resource-sharing programmes for the initiative.
She
has worked in collaboration with Singaporean born artist Jay Koh
since 2000. Focusing on public and community engaged ways of art
making, they adopted an ´Artists in Multifaceted Practice´
approach, where they take on diverse roles in order to negotiate
with social-political structures on site and conceives of appropriate
actions in response to each site.
She
also maintains an individual art practice, in which she employs
a variety of media such as mixed-media drawings, installation, soft
sculpture, performance, poetry and text, and is interested in making
projects which involve dialogue, interaction and collaboration with
audiences and communities.
Jay
Koh, artist, curator and cultural activist was born in Singapore
in 1955, and since 1999, has been a German citizen. He has, in his
relatively short career of 15 years in the field of art and culture,
created projects and shown his installations, videos, performances,
given lectures and had his writings published in more than 35 countries,
mostly in Asia and Europe. Currently, he is the director of NICA
(Networking & Initiatives for Culture and the Arts) an arts
and cultural resource development initiative based in Yangon, Myanmar.
In 2005, he was invited to speak at the symposiums "Art and
Social Intervention: the O + I Legacy" at Tate Britain (London,
UK) and "Art and Knowledge" at Helsinki Art Museum and
Academy of Fine Art (Helsinki, Finland), and in 2006, he works as
the resource curator for the workshop "The Multifaceted Curator"
for 25 young curators from Asian+3 and European Union in Bandung
and Jakarta, Indonesia.
In the fall of 2006, he will begin as the first foreigner to do
a research doctoral studies in contemporary art practices at the
Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki; facilitate a workshop "Alternative
Strategy for residency programme" for Intra Asia Network and
an exhibition with Chu Yuan in "Public Moment", both events
are part of the Artist Forum International 2006, Seoul; workshop
plus residency with BizArt, Shanghai and research plus workshops
with Arts Council Mongolia, Ulanbatoor.
