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A special programme series featuring exhibitions, projects, written works, performances, a blog, and publication marking Asia Art Archive’s 15-year anniversary.
Asia Art Archive extends 15 Invitations to creative practitioners to look within and beyond the organisation as an archive, a collection of material, a digital platform, and a node in a wider collective network. The 15 Invitations take various sizes, forms, and directions—literary, polemic, political, sonic, physical, and digital—and function as a series of “drop pins” to alternatively navigate where AAA originated and where it may be going. AAA’s e-journal Field Notes traces the 15 participants as they contribute notes and entries to document the process.
March–ongoing
Guangzhou-based Hu Fang and Zhang Wei intervene into the AAA library stacks with a selection of books inspired by experimental botany, farming, architecture, and gardening philosophy that activate alternative readings of the AAA collection. Responses to the texts gathered through a series of reading groups, field trips, and conversations will be shared in the coming months.
June–September
Following his 2014 residency, New York-based artist Walid Raad has developed Section 39_Index XXXVII: Traboulsi. The project stems from his research into AAA’s Ha Bik Chuen Archive and consists of several “sculptural spaces” built by Raad’s fictional collaborator, Suha Traboulsi, who creates reproductions of canonical modern paintings by Arab artists. An artist talk takes place on June 20.
August–September
Jakarta-based artist collective ruangrupa stages Toko Pura-Pura as a play on “toko rupa-rupa,” or “assorted shop”—where many of Hong Kong’s Indonesian domestic workers’ daily needs are met. Utilising old and new archives, the shop serves as a transactional space where knowledge and ideas are exchanged through collaborations with Hong Kong-based artists, musicians, designers, and cultural initiatives.
October
Wong Wai Yin, the Hong Kong-based artist and 2011 AAA resident, presents Talking Archive to uncover the “true opinions” behind the material in AAA’s collection by inviting psychic medium Percy Mak to speak to them. His findings will be shown in the form of a video and site-specific installation.
Jaffna-based visual artist and art educator Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan responds to the AAA collection by drawing parallels between methods of archiving and art making, while delving into the idea of “home” within the context of ethnic conflict.
November
Recognised for her work in “immersive journalism,” Nonny de la Peña draws from the AAA collection to create a new iteration of an earlier performance that pushes the boundaries of virtual reality and digital technology.
Hong Kong-born British poet Sarah Howe gives a talk to present a new poem based on her research of the AAA collection and to share her experience and discoveries during the process.
December
Solomon Benjamin and Wing Shing Tang, Hong Kong and Bangalore-based scholars of critical geography and urban studies, lead a set of workshops and walks to consider the politics of contested urban settings through the lens of the recent art of Asia.
Pakistan-based artist Rashid Rana inquires into the possibilities of fiction to construct multiple pasts through notes, images, and schematic representations of his collaborative work-in-progress Present Elsewhere.
15 Invitations for 15 Years is supported by the S. H. Ho Foundation Limited, the C. K. & Kay Ho Foundation, and The Hong Kong Arts Development Council. The programme is part of the ADC 20th Anniversary Celebration Series. Special thanks to Hani Charaf, Kemistry Design; and Spring Workshop.
Asia Art Archive (AAA) is an independent non-profit organisation initiated in 2000 in response to the urgent need to document and make accessible the multiple recent histories of art in the region. With one of the most valuable collections of material on art freely available from its website and onsite library in Hong Kong, AAA builds tools and communities to collectively expand knowledge through public, research, residency, and educational programmes.
