diacritic | art and culture

Over the last months, Chaw Ei and I were able to meet students and share our work in several cities including Boston, New York, Chicago, Providence, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. It has also been a good opportunity to catch up with old friends and to meet new ones and foremost to remind ourselves of the pleasure of learning. We even attended an evening mold making workshop in New York and in the span of an hour learned more than days scouring books. Below are some images of some of the locations and people we've engaged.

School of the Art Institute Chicago (SAIC)

Chaw Ei speaks about her work and performance art in Burma

Professor Nora Taylor of SAIC and Chaw Ei moments before her presentation

Northern Illinois University, DeKalb

Art Students from NIU DeKalb

Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston

North Hall at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design

Sharing work with the Studio for Interrelated Media at MassArt

New York City

Chaw Ei delivers an art presentation at the Open Society Institute in New York.

Providence, Rhode Island

Chaw Ei speaks at the International Writers Project at Brown University

Tokyo, Japan

L-R: Mitsunori Sakano (Command-N), me, Naoko Horiuchi (Arts Initiative Tokyo)

Presentation at Kandada, as a part of the Regional Code Asia program and my exhibition.

Hong Kong

I had the pleasure in April to work with a unique group of students with the Para/site curatorial program. Students enrolled in the Para/Site curators program presented and defended the concepts for their exhibitions-in-progress. A select team of international curators based in Asia shared their experience, critique and insight through a special platform utilizing Facebook.

The curatorial student team (Nana Seo, Kathy Lam Hoi Sin, Iris Lo and Evangelo Costadimas) will present their final exhibition, Feigned Innocence, at the Osage Gallery Kwun Tong in Hong Kong on May 29, 2009.

International Curators' Talk Series: Public Lecture
"Curatorial engagements in the Mekong Subregion of the Southeast Asia"

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I'm looking forward to working with the Para/Site Art Space in Hong Kong in a couple of days. I've been organizing a workshop for student's of Para/Site's curatorial program and I'm quite excited about the experiment. Students have for the last weeks been finalizing their exhibitions-in-progress and we'll be conducting what I'm referring to as a curatorial defense. The online experiment will attempt to leverage the new communications technologies to create an environment, similar to a masters thesis defense. Students will be uploading text and images that best communicates their curatorial concepts and organization. I've assembled a team of fantastic Asia-based curators that will be critiquing their projects.

The curatorial critics:
+ Russell Storer. Curator, Contemporary Asian Art. Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art. Brisbane, Australia
+ Zoe M. Butt. Deputy Director, Long March Space, Beijing, China
+ Joselina Cruz. Independent Curator. Manila, The Philippines
+ Biljana Ciric. Independent Curator. Shanghai, China
+ Simon Soon. Independent Curator. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
+ Naoko Horiuchi. Curator. Arts Initiative Tokyo (AIT). Tokyo, Japan
+ Online facilitator: R. Streitmatter-Tran

I'm also now preparing my presentation as a part of the International Curator's Talk Series: I've posted below information from the Para/Site press release.

Public Lecture
"Curatorial Engagements in the Mekong Subregion of Southeast Asia"
by R. Streitmatter-Tran

Date: Friday 17 April 2009
Time: 7:30 PM
Venue: Room C01, Hong Kong Art Development Council
14/F, East Warwick House, Taikoo Place
979 King's Road Hong Kong
Limited Seats: 60

Para/Site Art Space is honored to present a Public Lecture by Rich Streitmatter-Tran, Co-curator with the Asia Pacific Triennial (APT6)

Streitmatter-Tran is going to introduce some of the conditions in the Mekong sub-region that affect contemporary art practices with a particular stress on the curator-artist relationship. He will draw upon his previous research with the Mediating the Mekong project, which is a connection to his current curatorial research with the development of a Mekong-based platform for the Asia Pacific Triennial. He will attempt to provide some insight from the perspective of an artist working with curators and what an artist might consider a "good curator" as opposed to an art critic, institution, and the public at large.

More info
+ Para/Site Art Space
+ Curatorial Engagements in the Mekong Subregion. Press Release. (PDF)

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