Who Do You Think You Are? an International Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Boundaries of Asian Identities ATM 16 October 2018 10Am - 5Pm the Whitworth
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Who do you think you are? An international interdisciplinary symposium on the boundaries of Asian identities ATM 16 October 2018 10am - 5pm The Whitworth Produced by Manchester School of Art, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Manchester Metropolitan University Image: Masumi Saito ‘In Praise of Shadow’ 2016. Taken by Koya Yamashiro Sixteen Days Fifteen Venues HOME Bury Art Museum MMU Special Portico Library Tony Wilson Place & Sculpture Collections 57 Mosley St Manchester Centre All Saints Library Manchester M15 4FN Moss St, Bury Manchester M2 3HY BL9 0DR M15 6BH Manchester Craft Partisan Collective and Design Centre Manchester The Whitworth 19 Cheetham 17 Oak St Art Gallery Oxford Rd Hill Rd Manchester Mosley St Manchester Manchester M4 5JD Manchester M15 6ER M4 4FY M2 3JL Manchester Manchester The Manchester Cathedral The Holden Museum Contemporary Victoria St Gallery Oxford Rd Manchester Manchester Manchester Manchester Central M3 1SX School of Art M13 9PL M2 3GX Manchester Castlefield Gallery Metropolitan Alexandria Library 2 Hewitt St University, 247 Wilmslow Rd Manchester Grosvenor Manchester M15 4GB Building M14 5LW Cavendish St Gallery Oldham Manchester 35 Greaves St M15 6BR Oldham OL1 1TJ Asia Triennial Manchester is supported by @triennialmcr #ATM18 Arts Council England and project partners: www.asiatriennialmanchester.com Who do you think you are? The Whitworth Gallery As one of the many performative 16th October 2018, 10am – 5pm reiterations of this year’s Asia Triennial, the symposium will centre on visual An international interdisciplinary culture that does not only celebrate symposium on the boundaries of Manchester’s diverse communities but Asian identities will interrogate and attempt to respond to the provocation, Who do you think What does it mean to be Asian today? you are? How can we begin to define negotiate, negate or remodel the boundaries Who do you think you are? is a of this vast continent in relation to reframing of the ambiguous and identities and issues of gender, race, impossible demand so often community, ability, borders, conflicts encountered by people of colour in or their intersections? Why are Asian a post-industrial, multi-cultural city narratives often marginalized in in the UK, Where are you [really] discussions on race? To what extent from? The provocation invites artistic, is the migratory experience central to cultural and political responses to Asian identity? What are the myths narratives around Asian identities, surrounding Asian migration and their intersection with present cultural how do they perpetuate pervasive preoccupations on the nature of stereotypes? How far have we moved identity, organised around dialectics of on from colonial terms such as, ‘near’, gender and sexuality; community and ‘middle’ and ‘far’ when we frame Asian migration; technology and humanity. identities in relation to Western geo- The day will conclude with with a ethnography? How are Southeast and performance by artist Venuri Perere. East Asian women and non-binary people represented in conversations about race and feminism? We have invited a host of international artists, curators and academic scholars to engage with some of the above questions (but not limit their responses to these). Who do you think you are? The Whitworth Gallery, Grand Hall 13:30 Lunch @ The Whitworth 16th October 2018, 10am – 5pm Cafe 09:30 Coffee and registration 14:30 Tomasz Wendland 10:00 Welcome by Professor 14:50 Valentina Gioia Levy Tim Brennan 15:10 Fon And Fa 10:20 Alnoor Mitha 15:30 Qasim Riza Shaheen 10:40 Dr Emma Roberts 15:50 Venuri Perera 11:00 William Titley 16:10 The symposium 11:20 Coffee Break will conclude with a performance by artist 11:40 Jung Me Chai Venuri Perera 12:00 Professor Rina Arya 17:00 Closing 12:20 Anjum Malik 12:40 Amina Ansari 13:00 Professor Jai (Jagjit) Chuhan Abstracts and Biographies Professor Tim Brennan in public spaces, cultural change and power, critical notions of identity, transnationalism, Tim Brennan, Professor of Art and Head and pre and postcolonial cosmopolitanism. of Department of Art at Manchester School Key research achievements include the of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University notable impact of new acquired knowledge will give a welcome to the day, and a short in the field, bridging multiple artistic and reflection on Asia Triennial Manchester and cultural strands. Mitha studied fine arts at its theme of ‘who do you think you are’ the University of Wolverhampton under the and...who he thinks he is. distinguished sculptor, Anish Kapoor. Alnoor Mitha He is an authority in South Asian contemporary art, having founded Shisha From a radical feminist response to (2001-2011) the international agency European exotic fantasies of South Asia, for contemporary South Asian crafts and to a spectacular public procession that visual arts. He has programmed emerging invites us to explore how communities and mid-career international artists in the evolve through shared rituals, ATM18 country including, Rashid Rana, Imran reframes existing narratives around Asian Qureshi, Subodh Gupta, Shilpa Gupta, identities as they intersect with contemporary Shamsia Hassani and many more. He has debates around gender and sexuality, also produced around 15 scholarly books community and migration, technology on contemporary art from Asia. He is a and humanity. Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). Focusing on young and mid-career artists from South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Dr Emma Roberts China, Sri-Lanka and the UK, while Poised Between East and West: fostering international and local curatorial Painters of the Philippines collaborations and new partnerships, ATM18 seeks to questions how Asian This illustrated paper examines the changes identities are constructed and understood in painting practices and subject matter in in an accelerating world of mass migration, the Philippines from the 1820s until the disputed borders and conflicting ideologies. present as Filipino artists questioned ‘who they are’. As a colony of Spain and the USA, Alnoor Mitha is Founding Artistic Director and then a republic, artists had to consider of Asia Triennial Manchester. Born in Uganda, their personal identity and public role as East Africa, he is a researcher, writer, curator artists. From Damian Domingo’s depictions and cultural producer, and is currently a of regional ‘types’, Juan Luna’s immersion in Senior Research Fellow at Manchester School European academic traditions, to Fernando of Arts & Humanities. He is the author of Amorsolo’s sexualisation of female labourers, numerous works exploring international artists can be seen to interrogate their biennials/triennials including exhibitions position as Filipino Asians and as artists. (continues to the following page) Abstracts and Biographies Dr. Emma Roberts is Programme Leader of Jung Me Chai BA (Hons) History of Art & Museum Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. If You Are Not A Bird Roberts gained a Ph.D. in Art History in 1997 from the University of Liverpool on the topic 1. destroy of the sculptor, Barbara Hepworth and is Kill Mother (KILL patriarchy) author of The Liverpool Academy: A History ‘The best thing, according to Sophocles and Index (1997) and The Public Sculpture in Oedipus at Colonus, would be to not of Cheshire and Merseyside (2012). She was be born. for ten years a Visiting Lecturer at the Victoria Emil M. Cioran, The Trouble with and Albert Museum, London. In her spare Being Born (1973) time, Roberts is a lecturer in History of Art on board cultural cruise liners worldwide. 2. transcendental illusion - Women refugees from North Korea, William Titley Ryeohaeng, Heung-soon Im It’s an illusive, slippery something. - Chimeras, Frame, Crucifix, Jimok Choi Me today you tomorrow, a fickle friend. - Narcissism as masochism, Instrument I, We, as in me and I as in you. A repetitive yet Hyungkoo Lee slightly out of earshot rhythm of becoming. 3. imagine William Titley is a Senior Lecturer/Course Leader for the MA Fine Art at UCLAN, Preston. What would you do if you were a bird? He is a co-founder and director of ‘In- Situ’, a non-profit arts organisation in East Jung Me Chai is the director of DISKURS Lancashire. He is a PhD candidate at MMU Berlin. From 2011 to 2014 she has worked and adopts artistic research methods by as project manager for the project “Transfer making work in the place where he lives, Korea - NRW “ at the NRW Kultursekretariat which could be considered a form of auto- as well as an assistant curator at the ethnographic artistic research. His research Kunstmuseum Bochum. She has curated analyses social artistic processes from the exhibitions such as No More Daughters perspective of the artist, adding to debates And Heroes, Aram Art Gallery, The Goyang around what social arts practice is, and what Cultural Foundation, Korea // Organ Mix, Total its limits are in its original social context and Museum, and Korea // Kleines Affektchen systems of dissemination. (Part Film, Video, Performance), Museum Bochum. she has been invited as a guest Image below: Still from Ryohaeng by IM Heung-soon curator for 4th Mediations Biennale, Poznan. She has contributed articles to, among others, the well-known art magazines ArtNow, Nobless and Wolgan Misul. Professor Rina Arya It is a freedom and restriction I exploit as an artist, through my poetry, scriptwriting, Who do you think you are? performances, exhibitions. Multiple heritages Identity is a fluid thing. Sometimes the are a treasure toolbox I have been handed variables of one’s identity align, other times, by life. I love playing with it. less so. Being British and South Asian were historically viewed as being incompatible Anjum Malik is an established scriptwriter, because of the radical cultural differences poet, artist and performer, has written several between them. The challenges of each much-acclaimed original scripts for BBC, ITV generation of South Asian migrants are and theatres in UK, and shown word-based different and involve balancing acts between exhibitions in art galleries.