Asia Contemporary Art Week (ACAW)

FIELD MEETING Take 5: Thinking Projects
October 14–15, 2017

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Asia Contemporary Art Week (ACAW) curatorial & educational platform (October 5–26, 2017) is pleased to open registration for the 5th iteration of its annual signature forum FIELD MEETING in New York on Saturday, October 14 and Sunday, October 15, hosted at Asia Society Museum and SVA Theatre.

Conceived as an exhibition and aimed at emulating the experience of a studio visit on a communal scale, FIELD MEETING Take 5: Thinking Projects is once again meticulously curated to explore art as a journey of ideas through timely staging of extraordinary people, their creative process and research. Creating a performative and experimental realm, the program commissions over 25 of today’s outstanding creative personalities from Asia and beyond to embody their work through newly conceived performances, lecture-performances, and lively discussions in the presence of an exclusive audience of New York- & US-based curators, scholars, and museum directors.

Curated by ACAW Director Leeza Ahmady, with performances and lecture-performances by:
Nancy Adajania (Bombay), Meitha Al Mazrooei (Dubai), Marwa Arsanios (Beirut), Nadiah Bamadhaj (Jogjakarta), Laura Barlow (Doha), Hera Chan (Hong Kong & Montreal), Yin-Ju Chen (Taipei), Tiffany Chung (Ho Chi Minh City), Dai Guangyu (Beijing), Simon Fujiwara (Berlin), Joyce Ho (Taipei), Hu Weiyi (Shanghai), Taus Makhacheva (Makhachkala & Moscow), Kingsley Ng (Hong Kong), Suhanya Raffel (Hong Kong), Marat Raiymkulov (Bishkek), Yuliya Sorokina (Almaty), Abdullah M.I. Syed (Karachi & Sydney), Philip Tinari (Beijing), Hajra Waheed (Montreal), Adrian Wong (Hong Kong & Los Angeles), Brian Kuan Wood (New York), among others

Complementary advance registration before August 30 for arts professionals: here

The art world today consists of a bubble of projects that is more globally interconnected than ever, with artists passionately pursuing endless array of projects across localities and regions that ultimately define the parameters of their personal and professional biographies. Yet when the United States, self-entitled "leader of the free world," declares a travel ban against six majority Muslim countries while intimating entry-denials to dozens of other nationalities in the guise of a “project of national security," it urgently calls for a deciphering of the term “project” and its more soberly usage in the world today. Not only have such regulations directly impacted ACAW’s mission as an organization and the work of all of our collaborators worldwide, it is also impossible to ignore the surmounting effects of the Trump administration’s curtailing policies across all sectors of knowledge, humanities, philanthropy, and activism.

If works by creative individuals are interpreted as “projects," what are their functions in society? Are they merely passive intellectual investigations, or do they actively contest the daunting multiplicity of paradoxes spawned by the prevailing right-winged and democratically masked authoritarian governments worldwide? Across art historical horizons, wide-ranging multidisciplinary research is increasingly instrumental in retrieving marginalized or forgotten narratives. Yet, do not such distributions of formerly hermetic knowledge painstakingly excavated by independent practitioners also play into the ever-capitalist consumerist fervor; paving way for quick a-la-mode institutional appropriations that ultimately feed the voracious appetites of the art market? Within the current climates of regional destabilizations, religious profiling, war-mongering, and escalating deterioration of our natural environments, how can artistic communities contribute positively to the world while keeping the integrity of their own humanity and work intact?

Traversing between disciplines of visual arts, art history, science, social history, architecture, mythology, film, music, folklore, and subculture, FIELD MEETING presentations reflect on superheroes and pageants, cosmic speculation, feminism as ecological consciousness, Lenin’s rendezvous with Jesus, telepathic animal communication, links between Chinese ink painting and global warming, the transformation of ancient symbols in the digital age, and much more. FIELD MEETING: Thinking Projects delves into the nuances of multidisciplinary research taken by practitioners within their everyday practice to create meaningful exchanges while sparking lasting relationships between US- & Asia-based artists, arts professionals and organizations for future collaborations. And once again, the roster of presenting professionals also expresses the great flux of often-overlooked programmatic achievements and institutional efforts both inside and outside of Asia. 

As part of 12th edition of Asia Contemporary Art Week (ACAW) October 5 through 26, 2017 with cutting-edge exhibitions and public programs at 30 leading museums and galleries citywide. Alongside ACAW curated pop-up exhibitions THINKING PROJECTS at select venues showcasing long term process-oriented artistic endeavors. Artist: Nadiah Bamadhaj (Jogjakarta), Guo Hongwei (Beijing), İrfan Önürmen (Istanbul), Yang Xin (Beijing), Judy Blum Reddy (New York), and Sumakshi Singh (Delhi); including Li Jun (Shanghai), Yu Fan (Beijing) and Song Dong (Beijing) co-presented with Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation's inaugural Creative China Festival in New York.

Consortium Partners / Participants:
Asia Society Museum / ArteEast / Asia Art Archive in America / Japan Society / Metropolitan Museum of Art / MoMA / Queens Museum / Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) & New York City Department of Cultural Affairs / SVA MA Curatorial Practice / Solomon R. Guggenheim / Taipei Cultural Center / Twelve Gates Arts / +91 Foundation / Reversible Destiny Foundation / Sylvia Wald & Po Kim Art Gallery / Aicon Gallery / C24 Gallery / Chambers Fine Art / Christie’s / DAG Modern / Doosan Gallery / Klein Sun Gallery / Mana Contemporary / Owen James Gallery / Ronin Gallery / Roya Khadjavi Projects / Ryan Lee Gallery / Sundaram Tagore Gallery / Tyler Rollins Fine Art / Ab/Anbar (Tehran) / Alserkal Avenue (Dubai) / Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation / Exhibit320 (New Delhi) / Edouard Malingue Gallery (Hong Kong) / Ink Studio (Beijing) / M+ (Hong Kong) / Richard Koh Fine Art (Kuala Lumpur) / Space Station (Beijing)

For ACAW 2017 full agenda and FIELD MEETING updates, visit acaw.info.

Press inquiries: sonja.acaw [​at​] gmail.com