On 14 and 15 May 2022, CHAT will host (Un)winding: Spinning East Asia Response Forum in response to the Spinning East Asia exhibition series with guest curator Dr Pan Lu from Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Conducted over 5 online sessions, this forum invites scholars and curators from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea not only to interpret and respond to artworks created by the participating artists in the exhibitions, but also to share their knowledge and experiences based on East Asian studies. In the process, they will conduct in-depth discussions on various issues surrounding East Asia through examining history, borders, moving images, archives, cross-disciplinary research and more.

Lectures on the first day will focus on East Asian cultural studies from both theoretical and practical perspectives. The speakers include Sun Ge, Yoshitaka Mori, Sing Song-Yong, Ma Ran, Pan Lu, Shimada Yoshiko and Cho Juhyun.

Second-day lectures will revolve around curatorial practices and experiences based on the East Asian context. Speakers include Lee Yongwoo, Mia Yu, Park Joowon, Sasaki Gentaro, Li Jie, Hsieh Feng-Rong, Lee Chun Fung and Krystie Ng, and Sun A Moon.

Keynote: Formation of Asian Discourse and its Possibilities 
10:00am-12:00pm  (Hong Kong, UTC+8) 
Speakers: Sun Ge, Mori Yoshitaka 
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These two keynote lectures will examine the formation of Asian discourse and its possibilities from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Professor Sun Ge will outline the ideological underpinnings of the creation of Asian principles. Professor Mori Yoshitaka will analyse how the politics of East Asia is entangled with DIY culture, punk, underground art and other cultural practices.

Session 1: Asia Through Film, History, Media, Space and Migration
1:00-3:00pm (Hong Kong, UTC+8) 
Speakers: Sing Song-Yong, Ma Ran
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The two talks in this session provide a means of understanding Asia through the relationship between film and history, media, space and migration. Sing Song-Yong focuses on the ways in which Taiwanese cinema in the digital age has changed the space of film viewing and the audience’s relationship to it. Ma Ran examines the past and the present of Chinese and Korean zainichi migrants in Japan in the context of contemporary documentary and art cinema.

Session 2: Art and Visual Archives in Asia
4:00-6:00pm (Hong Kong, UTC+8)
Speakers: Pan Lu, Shimada Yoshiko, Cho Juhyun
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The three speakers in this session have contributed critical writings on art and visual archives in Asia as artist, scholar and curator. Aside from sharing how they use art archives in their individual artistic research, creation and curatorial practices, they will also discuss the definition of these archives in Asia, artist’s space in relation to archives, and the relationship between community life and art archives through different case studies. 

Sunday, 15 May 2022

Session 3: East Asian Cultural Studies Through Curatorial Practices 
10:00am-12:00pm  (Hong Kong, UTC+8)
Speakers: Lee Yongwoo, Mia Yu 
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The speakers in this session will share their curatorial practices and artistic research on East Asian studies.  Curator Mia Yu has been developing a series of research and curatorial projects within the framework of ‘North × Anthropocene’, exploring the mutual entanglement between human and more-than-human co-existence, suppressed colonial violence and the complex postcolonial condition of the Anthropocene in and beyond northeast China. Curator Lee Yongwoo will present his current curatorial projects in which he examines how the rediscovery of archives is an important curatorial methodology to unearth the hidden history in modern Asia, and further explores how such methodology has been integral to the forming of alternative historiography in Asia. 

Roundtable: Curatorial Network in East Asia 
1:00-4:00pm (Hong Kong, UTC+8) 
Speakers: Park Joowon, Sasaki Gentaro, Hsieh Feng-Rong, Sun A Moon, Li Jie,  Lee Chun Fung and Krystie Ng  
Click here to register for Zoom webinar

6 curators across East Asia will share their curatorial practices in this roundtable. In their discussion, they will address not only the local art ecosystem and industry, but also examine transnational and multicultural exchanges. Curator Park Joowon from the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea has planned various group exhibitions of young Asian artists; Sasaki Gentaro, the curator of the Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto is conducting a series of research and curatorial projects based on the art and culture of the Kyushu area in Japan; Li Jie, the curator of Luxelakes・A4 Art Museum, Chengdu is constantly developing the art museum’s public relations and social co-creation models through diverse art projects; Hsieh Feng-Rong, curator at the Planning Office of New Taipei City Art Museum has currently launched a series of research and curatorial projects on the history of avant-garde art in New Taipei City. Hong Kong-based independent curators Lee Chun Fung and Krystie Ng have planned a series of self-organised woodcut collective projects in inter-Asian context; Sun A Moon, an independent curator living in Seoul, is developing an art project space which examines the immigrant community and related issues in Korea.

Supported by
Sutton PR Asia Ltd