May 23–25, 2025
A symposium and workshop co-organized by documenta Institut and Goethe-Institut.
Conference: May 23–24, 2025
Emerging Scholars Workshop: May 25, 2025
Location
Conference: Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany
Workshop: Universität Kassel, Kassel, Germany
This symposium, “Navigating Multiplicity: Artistic exchanges in East, Southeast, and South Asia 1950s-1980s”, explores the artistic and cultural exchanges that shaped narratives and subjectivities in East, Southeast, and South Asia in the second half of the 20th century.
The Bandung Conference of 1955 often serves as a reference point for the solidarity among "Third World" countries in Asia and Africa. Against the backdrop of decolonization, Cold War realignments, and transnational solidarity movements, art was inevitably colored and co-opted, but artists also strove to maintain and exert agency. Researchers in this symposium map the border-crossing trajectories of individual artists, institutional practitioners and policy makers, and inquire into the extent to which artistic endeavors within these states aligned with, or diverged from, the nation- or block-centric political, ideological and cultural frameworks of the time. By linking the accounts of artists and artworks that are at once personal and serve a public purpose, the project hopes to unearth differentiated layers of dialogues between the self and the other, without losing sight of the shifting political grounds, political-economic realities, and institutional formations.
The research unfolds in a time of polycrisis and with a heightened awareness of its consequences for contemporary art policy. By revisiting and reassessing untold stories, it aims to provide not only the scholarly and artistic community, but also cultural policy practitioners with a balanced understanding of artistic claims and aspirations, political ideologies, and economic transformations.
The symposium consists of a two-day conference (May 23–24) featuring presentations and discussions by invited scholars, including Arlette Tran Quynh-Anh (Saigon), Grace Samboh (Yogyakarta), Kathleen Ditzig (Singapore), Koichiro Osaka (Kyoto), Merv Espina (Manila), Maria Neuman (Kassel), Michelle Wong (Hong Kong), Mi You (Kassel), Nikolay Smirnov (Kassel), Priya Jaradi (Singapore and Mumbai), Sooyoung Leam (Seoul), and Su Wei (Beijing). This symposium marks the conclusion of the three-year research project “Watch on a Promontory: Artistic Exchanges in East, Southeast, and South Asia in the 1950s-1980s” initiated by Su Wei (independent curator and art history researcher) and Mi You (Professor of Art and Economies, University of Kassel/documenta Institut), supported by Goethe-Institut China, Hanoi, Jakarta/Bandung, Kyoto, Manila, Mumbai/Kolkata and Seoul.
Following the two-day conference, the Emerging Scholars Workshop on May 25 will offer early-career academics a platform to explore the symposium’s themes in depth, present their research, and engage in collaborative discussions.
