The Geography of Belonging: Language, Memory and Otherness

A Life Beyond B (The Geograph Boedi Widjaja Bounpaul Phothyzan Citra Sasmita Estate of Montien Bo Haffendi Anuar Hà Ninh Pham Irwan Ahmett & Tita Sal Ly Hoàng Ly Mark Salvatus Norberto Roldan Pathompon Tesprateep Soe Yu Nwe Vuth Lyno Wantanee Siripattananun Loredana Paz JW A Life Beyond Boundaries (The Geography of Belonging) Boedi Widjaja Bounpaul Phothyzan Citra Sasmita Estate of Montien Boonma Haffendi Anuar Hà Ninh Pham Irwan Ahmett & Tita Salina Ly Hoàng Ly Mark Salvatus Norberto Roldan Pathompon Tesprateep Soe Yu Nwe Vuth Lyno Wantanee Siripattananuntakul Curated by Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani 01.06.2021—30.09.2021 JWD ART SPACE, Bangkok Content Mark Salvatus Weakest Links 36 Norberto Roldan Incantations in the land of virgins, monsters, sorcerers and angry gods 38 18 40 Bounpaul Phothyzan Lie of the Land 20 Pathompon Tesprateep Part I: Pleng-Krom-Dek (Lullaby) Part II: Fatimah and Kulit Citra Sasmita Timur Merah Project VI 22 42 Estate of Montien Boonma La Métamorphose Archive from the period 1989-1991: from the series Stories from the Farm and Thai Thai 24 Soe Yu Nwe Pink Serpent Budding Serpent Gold Serpent Kyal Sin: A Pure Fallen Star April Salute Our Struggle for Freedom: March 27 Haffendi Anuar Site I, Site II, Site III 26 Vuth Lyno Sala Samnak 46 Hà Ninh Pham F8.1 [East Wing] F8.2 [West Wing] 28 Wantanee Siripattananuntakul L.I.N.E. 48 30 Curator’s Bio Acknowledgement 50 Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina When You Arrive You’ll Regret 32 About JWD Our Team 51 Ly Hoàng Ly Perpetual Ephemeral: A study of Phở Boredom-worthy Life Footnotes for the lyrics Ash#1, #2, #3 The Geography of Belonging: Language, Memory and Otherness By Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani Boedi Widjaja A cry a voice and a word that shall echo Forevermore 7 6 The Geography of Belonging: Language, Memory and Otherness by Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani Defined as ‘the official right to belong to a particular country’, how is nationality ascribed? Is nationality a tangible concept and, if so, how can it be represented? How does a flag, a map or an icon of political hegemony symbolise one’s own nationality? Or are heirlooms, traditions and cultural identity similarly significant expressions of the nation? to Singapore, he considers it more productive to locate his practice in the hybridity that resides in the interspace between cultures. Engaging with artist Norberto Roldan, another aspect of national belonging emerges, that of community-based belonging and traditions, in particular, of the indigenous people of the Visayas region, who despite having received “various forms of foreign aggression”, capitulated to the centralised state narratives of power, which had feared their revolutionary action against the nation. Also on the role of traditions, Oxford-based Malaysian artist Haffendi Anuar discussed with me his gesture of assembling, almost architecturally, traditional clothing, specifically the kain pelikat, and textiles that are associated with Malaysian male identity, as a way to reconstruct new meanings of belonging. Then, there were my conversations with Vietnamese artist Hà Ninh Pham, who forgoes the question of national belonging altogether, instead developing through his drawings and practice the representation of an imaginary land, beyond geography. For Lao artist Bounpaul Phothyzan, the perception of identity, on the other hand, is clearly a very much nation-specific affair, overlapping with the memory of a war still too current to be forgotten. In the year-long preparation for A Life Beyond Boundaries (The Geography of Belonging), the featured artists and I engaged in ongoing conversations, sharing ideas, interrogating possibilities, and complicating the already challenging question of national identity in relation to each subjective experience living and/or belonging to Southeast Asia. Those conversations became the cornerstone in the making and framing of this exhibition. Through a Zoom meeting with artist Citra Sasmita, for instance, the question emerges of how cultural identity may not necessarily be associated with national belonging. Balinese by birth, her works highlight the points of contact and divergence of Hindu and Muslim cultures and how being Balinese provides a fertile ground in evaluating how religion may be incorporated in one’s understanding of nationhood. Similarly, conversing with artist Pathompon Tesprateep, and his focus on subnational religious conflicts in Thailand’s Deep South, brings to the fore the importance of cultural reflexivity in terms of one’s own identity in the face of national struggles. Geographical concerns in defining national belonging (or international hybridity) were highlighted in my conversations with artist Boedi Widjaja who describes questions of belonging as “elusive”.1 Born in Indonesia, a recurrent geopolitical referent in his practice, and migrated at a young age In merely the briefest mentions of some of our enriching encounters, what clearly surfaced at the time of developing this project was that one way to productively discuss national belonging in the context of Southeast Asia was to consider the conceptions of identity and belonging beyond straightforward geographical perspectives, but from the artists’ subjectivities, premised in their personal observations on the meaning of nationality—as an individual or as a community. As the title implies, the exhibition is inspired by leading Southeast Asianist Benedict Anderson’s 1 — Boedi Widjaja, video interview as part of the documentation produced for the exhibition, https://www.jwd-artspace.com/en/. 7 book A Life Beyond Boundaries in which he reflects on nationalism departing from his own cosmopolitan and comparative outlook of life.2 In the book he discusses how he came to theorise the nation as an “imagined community”, incidental to symbols and cultural conceptions such as language, memory and otherness that foreground the very production of national imagining, or nationhood.3 Departing from this understanding of nationhood based on cultural specifications, the exhibition examines the way in which the artists question, or negotiate, their own national identity by incorporating, dismantling or rejecting its symbols and connotations. To do so A Life Beyond Boundaries (The Geography of Belonging) embraces a comparative approach to Southeast Asia, fostered by Anderson in his life and field work—“Everything I noticed in Siam led me to ask new questions about Indonesia… How to compare them, and within what frameworks?”4—in which diverse practices and concerns are examined in parallel within each country. In this way, the works in the exhibition, existing and newly commissioned, come to conjure a non-cartographic geography of belonging, which eschews singular national trajectories, instead fostering regionality. While some stem from familiar icons or materials, such as traditional textiles, symbols and techniques, other works draw inspiration from personal or communal concerns of national belonging—a concept that, at present, is further challenged by the pandemic-induced policing of national borders and by military repressions that, at specific locations in Southeast Asia, are gravely mining democracy. Anderson—such as language, memory and otherness—that have brought us to define nationhood. It is only due to space constraint that not all the works are reflected below, while acknowledging the unique and essential component that each artwork brings to the narrative of the exhibition. Mapping language Upon entering the gallery, a large mixed-media installation by Boedi Widjaja occupies the space. Titled A cry a voice and a word that shall echo, the work is composed of ten textiles. The way they hang from the ceiling is evocative of flags but, in fact, there are no obvious national colours, or words to speak of. Nonetheless, their presence is astounding, their texture is intriguing—but what are they? Questioning the notion of the flag as a recognisable national language, Widjaja dismantles its structure by peeling off visible referential layers while adding on deconstructed text that belies national implications. Firmly grounded in history, the installation re-examines the seminal 1955 Bandung Conference. Endorsed by 29 countries from Asia and Africa, the objective of the conference was to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism. Fostering ‘internationalism’5 among developing countries, the conference proposed ten principles to counterbalance the crisis of the Cold War and to reassert national allegiances. The 1955 Bandung Conference preceded the founding of the forum of 120 nations known as the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961 in Belgrade. What follows is a close inspection of how the artists in their practices challenge or respond to some of the cultural conceptions discussed earlier in relation to 2 — Benedict Anderson, A Life Beyond Boundaries (London: Verso Publishing, 2016). Written in 2009 after publishing his works on geopolitics and nationalism, in this book Anderson shares his life. His story is interspersed with insight into global historical development that had provided vantage points in his career as a historian and political theorist, from his fieldwork in Indonesia as a student to his founding of the department of Southeast Asian Studies at Cornell University. The installation A cry a voice and a word that shall echo takes as its point of departure precisely the colours of the flags of these 120 countries, combined and reconfigured as a stream in an imaginary geography of belonging. In doing so, the artist encodes the artwork title, a line from President Soekarno’s opening speech at the Bandung Conference, and the 3 — For further reading on nationalism, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso Publishing, first edition 1983, latest edition 2006). 5 — Joan Kee, “Field and Stream: The Terrain of Contemporary Asian Art,” The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (Brisbane: Queensland Art Gallery, 2012), 66. 4 — Anderson, A Life Beyond Boundaries, 95–96. 8 Conference’s ten principles into the flag graphics “by transposing the Morse Code sounds to colours of differing wavelengths that were sampled from the 120 national flags”.6 Geographically, the flags do not speak specifically of any of the 120 countries, yet they speak of all of them—at once and in unison. imagination of belonging, the map underscores its role as institution of power that conjures the representation and memory of the homeland.10 But, of course, it is not surprising to see language and geography running alongside. As Anderson reminds us, language was instrumental to the earliest formations of nationalism as it was to the definition of newly conquered geographies. Evoking her homeland Vietnam, thousands of kilometres away, the work 035A.DC by multidisciplinary artist Ly Hoàng Ly ventures into identity and belonging through memory. Initiated while the artist was residing in Chicago in 2011, this ongoing and composite body of works stems from the artist’s urge to anchor the concept of identity, elusive in itself, into something tangible. Building memory The floor installation Weakest Link by Mark Salvatus, installed near Widjaja’s piece, engages with language and geography to construct or deconstruct one’s own identity, thus in Weakest Link geographical formation leads to fluidity against the confinement within boundaries—“a game we always play”.7 The work is made of fine chains linked together by keyrings, “something portable”8 that we all at some point carry along, to vaguely delineate the perimeter of an imagined geographical map. Further to that the public is invited to tug and pull the chains and by so doing alter the morphology of the map which, for its pliable nature, easily arranges into new configurations. Playing with the idea of nationality, and at the same time flirting with the notion of belonging, Weakest Link speaks of the movement of people and the migration of culture and language. In this sense the floor installation converses on cue with Widjaja’s piece. Both works mutually dismantle the very symbol they refer to, the flag and the map respectively, proposing instead to rearrange by hand, literally in Salvatus’ work, “the grammar”9 of colonial power. In fact, as Anderson suggests, by feeding the community The work title refers to one of the first refugee boats that left Vietnam. Accidentally coming across its image online, the artist decided to retain the hardly visible number engraved on the boat, embodying a loss of identity, as the title of her ongoing series. 035A.DC has occupied Ly’s art practice through various stages of her life, birthing a large number of works. In particular, the works selected for A Life Beyond Boundaries (The Geography of Belonging) are the video Perpetual Ephemeral: A study of pho and the photography works Ash. In Perpetual Ephemeral, the artist performs the domestic routine of cutting and simmering beef bones to prepare phở, the Vietnamese national dish. Similar to Marcel Proust’s evocative ‘episode of the madeleine’ in À la recherche du temps perdu,11 Ly’s endeavouring to re-create and savour the phở broth is significant, I would argue, in unlocking past recollections of belonging. In Proust’s book and in Ly’s work the main theme is identity through memory. But if for Proust 10 — Ibid. For Anderson, the census, map and museum are “three institutions of power which, although invented before the mid nineteenth century, changed their form and function as the colonized zones entered the age of mechanical reproduction”. 6 — Boedi Widjaja, artist’s statement, A Life Beyond Boundary (The Geography of Belonging) (Bangkok: JWD Art Space, 2021). 7 — Mark Salvatus, video interview as part of the documentation produced for the exhibition, https://www.jwd-artspace.com/en/. 11 — Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), published in France from 1913 to 1927, is told as the author’s life story and revolves around the theme of involuntary memory. It is his most prominent work and a great influence on twentieth-century literature. 8 — Ibid. 9 — Benedict Anderson, “Census, Map, Museum,” in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), 167–190. 9 that memory, triggered by a bite of the soft madeleine, was unexpected, in Ly’s work memory is sought after as a way to unleash the emotions that emerge from the search for identity—hers and of her own country. The same journey is taken across the photographs in the exhibition, which reproduce the bronze sculptures that were cast from the bones used in the simmering broth—a study and a journey into the meaning of phở. Vuth Lyno’s mixed-media installation Sala Samnak, similarly, evaluates nationhood through memories of local traditions to discuss community belonging in relation and in opposition to state narratives. Sala Samnak or ‘rest house’ (សាលាសំណាក់ in Khmer, literally, ‘house with fire’) is an old-style house seen throughout Cambodia. It was very popular in the pre-Angkorian period, especially during the reign of Jayavarman VII (1122–1218). Rest houses were built along main roads and nearby villages and were conceived as communal spaces in which to rest and gather, to share conversations with people in the community or passersby. As such they are still used to some extent in Cambodia today. of life. Furthermore, the artist adopts the traditional Kamasan painting technique, typical of Bali and historically executed by men, to create large installations and works that reframe the patriarchal Balinese culture by adding ubiquitous and inspiring female figures representing life and nature. In the installation, Vuth adopts the outline of Sala Samnak creating a geometrical form that resembles a shelter or hut. The outline, however, is not made of solid matter but light in the form of blue neon tubes that, attached together, constitute the skeleton of this otherwise sturdy architectural structure. ‘Light’ in terms of luminescence and weight, the work is suspended from the ceiling, evoking an otherworldly dimension of the Sala as a vision that emerges from past traditions in which cultural belonging is rooted. In departing from and abstracting traditional forms of domestic and communal use, the notion of belonging gravitates on the conception of home as movable yet irreplaceable, a locale from which we come from and yearn to return. However, there is a “useful feeling of being marginal” as Anderson reminds us. “One can read it negatively as indicating a life without root, without identity. But one can also read it positively,”12 he continues, discussing his experience of marginality across multiple cultures from Ireland to England, from the United States to Southeast Asia. Specifically for the exhibition, the artist focuses on the representations of the under-, middle- and upperworlds in Balinese beliefs. To do so she incorporates narratives of the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata by taking inspiration from the famous Kamasan frescos in the Kerta Gosa Palace in Bali, which tell the story of Bima in Heaven and Hell. Built in the 17th century, the palace was the residence of the high king of Bali. Part of the palace was a court of justice, in which the citizens were judged and sentenced. In the works, Sasmita adapts the geometrical forms and shapes of the murals, replacing the characters of the paintings with female figures as symbols of nature and human anatomy, to address cultural identity from the perspective of social marginalisation. Third-generation Chinese immigrant to Myanmar, artist Soe Yu Nwe in her practice addresses her own condition of marginality and the challenges to conform to preconceived cultural categories. In her work she takes inspirations from ethnic Chinese and local Burmese cultural beliefs such as animism and folklores along with Buddhist mythologies as a way to reflect, similarly to Sasmita, on the restrictive patriarchal Burmese society. Her multicultural upbringing in Yangon and the United States, and her family heritage have informed her practice in the way she delves into the notion of identity as fluid and problematic. In her drawings and ceramic works, she deconstructs the image of the self into various symbols, for instance, Otherness In the ongoing Timur Merah (East is Red) project, artist Citra Sasmita traces Balinese historical narratives, traditionally male-centred heroism and bravery, through literary sources and images of mythology to reconstruct marginalised, female-focused journeys 12 — Anderson, A Life Beyond Boundaries, 25. 10 inclinations of “transnational disquiet”14 and the rapid industrialisation of the late 1980s, Ajarn Montien’s practice emerged during those years in response to his compulsion to talk about the people of Thailand and their lives often through unorthodox mediums and materials, such as soil, herbs and readymade farming tools. In A Life Beyond Boundaries (The Geography of Belonging), alongside selected archival material on his trailblazing exhibitions Stories from the Farm (1989) and Thai Thai (1991), we are honoured to feature the mixed-media work La Métamorphose (1989). Breaking the ground on concepts of national representation, in this work and series the artist seems to place the question—who is the nation?—in the hands (quite literally) of the farmers. Their voices, their lives, and their tools might give us the answer. her recurrent representation of the snake, or Naga, in Buddhist mythology to reference her sense of repression and alienation. These concerns of belonging and unbelonging to the nation are, of course, heightened in current times. Since the military coup on 1 February 2021, she has through her works been responding to the national violence that is mining democracy and opening the very possibility of cultural redefinition. I have been involved in many conversations with Soe Yu Nwe to devise the best way to collaborate under such challenging circumstances. With reference to the ongoing protests, she created the drawings featured in the exhibition that challenge suppression and freedom of speech. Through the works she relates to familiar symbols such as the three-finger salute, commonly identified with youth demonstration for democracy and justice, and also to Burmese national icons: the flower Paduak and the peacock. The Paduak blooms in April during Thingyan (the Burmese New Year), which was not celebrated this year under severe military control. The peacock (dương in Burmese) is one of the national animals of Burma, strongly associated with anti-colonial nationalist movements. I am very grateful to Soe Yu Nwe and to all that enabled her works to be featured in the exhibition, and thus for her voice to be heard across nations, at this time when nationhood is increasingly at peril. Bangkok, May 2021 As I conclude this essay, with the understanding that official national representation is nothing more than a construct, or a “birdcage”, as artists Tita Salina and Irwan Ahmett expound in their video interview for this exhibition, that is effective in organising many different identities and social representations to a de-facto “colonialist mentality with a different packaging”,13 the fundamental question arises: who is the nation? Researching and discussing with the son of late Thai artist Montien Boonma, it emerges how subtle and reflexive the gesture of challenging national narratives of belonging can be. Concerned with 14 — Kong Rithdee, “Montien Boonma, gone but never forgotten,” Bangkok Post, December 23, 2020, https://www.bangkokpost.com/life/arts-and-entertainment/2039811/ montien-boonma-gone-but-never-forgotten. 13 — Tita Salina and Irwan Ahmett, video interview as part of the documentation produced for the exhibition, https://www.jwdartspace.com/en/. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Boedi Widjaja Boedi Widjaja (b. 1975, Indonesia/Singapore) articulates subtle reflections on migration, memory, spatial relations and cross-culturalhybridities driven by first-hand experiences of migration and diaspora. This is expressed through a broad range of media, from drawing and new media to architectural installations and live art, with an emphasis on process and bodily engagement. Singapore Biennale (2019). Recent solo exhibitions include: Declaration Of (2019), Helwaser Gallery, New York City; Rivers and Lakes Tanah dan Air (2018), ShanghART Singapore; Black—Hut, Singapore Biennale Affiliate Project, ICA, Singapore (2016). His works have been included in international group exhibition such as MAP1: Waterways (2017), Diaspora Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale; Jerusalem Biennale (2017); Yinchuan Biennale (2016); From East to the Barbican (2015), Barbican, London; Infinity in Flux (2015), ArtJog, Indonesia; and Bains Numériques #7 (2012), Enghien-les-Bains, France, amongst others. Widjaja was the recipient of the Singapore Art Museum’s and QAGOMA’s co-commission for his project Black—Hut, shown at the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, Australia (2018) and the 6th 18 A cry a voice and a word that shall echo, 2021 Dye-sublimation print on fabric 90 x 120 cm (each) drawn from Indonesian President Sukarno’s opening address at the Bandung Conference, where he quoted Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poetic ode to a patriot who tipped the victory in the American Independence War through his midnight ride to warn of approaching enemy troops (A cry of defiance and not of fear / A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door / And a word that shall echo forevermore). Working with the notion of flags as coded dreams and declarations, the artist encoded the artwork title, and the Bandung Conference’s ten principles, into the flag graphics by transposing the Morse Code sounds to colours of differing wavelengths that were sampled from the 120 national flags of the Non-Aligned Movement; formulating an encoding system and a visual language that recurs in his practice. Supported by NAC Singapore and with partial support by NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, a national research centre of the Nanyang Technological University. The work considers the contemporary legacy of the 1955 Bandung Conference, at a time of geopolitical tension between two major powers and a pandemic induced questioning of synchronised, global cooperation. The Conference’s final communique culminated in a ten-point “Declaration on promotion of world peace and cooperation”. Adopted by all 29 delegates— majority newly-formed nations in Asia and Africa—the ten principles were hopeful assertions for a world in crisis during the Cold War. The title of the work is Forevermore, 2021 Single channel 4K music video, video clips, sound files, algorithm Duration: Infinite Supported by NAC Singapore and with partial support by NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, a national research centre of the Nanyang Technological University. resonate in the present, a hopeful collective cry from the past. Through analogue techniques that include lens inversion, Widjaja reframes and refocuses the press photographs of Bandung Conference into moving images. Embedded in the video is sonification of the words “a cry / a voice / and a word / that shall echo” that were drawn from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that Sukarno also quoted in his address. The artist worked with digitally manipulated gamelan (a traditional metallophone musical instrument in Indonesia) sounds and a custom algorithm to create the soundtrack. The video is generative in the tradition of Eno’s ambient music. An algorithmic composition that plays different every time, and (almost) infinitely. “To speak is easy. To act is hard. To understand is hardest. Once one understands, action is easy” In his opening address at the 1955 Bandung Conference, Indonesian President Sukarno quoted from “one of Asia’s greatest sons” - likely to be founding father of modern China Sun Yat-sen who, in turn appeared to have adapted a Goethean quote. The transcontinental echo across epochs led the artist to ponder upon the time-space of history; to urgently 19 Bounpaul Phothyzan Bounpaul Phothyzan (b. 1979, Laos) is an emerging contemporary artist whose practice centers on land art, installation art and video art. He graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts (previously known as Faculty of Fine Art) in 2007, and was awarded a scholarship to undertake a Master’s degree in Visual Art at Mahasarakham University in Thailand. His solo exhibitions include Champa Muang Lao (2004), Turning Point at Mask Gallery (2015), and River Flows Through My Soul (2019) in Vientiane, Laos. He has also participated in various international group exhibitions including, Singapore Biennale (2013), Singapore Arts Stage (2014), The 5th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Japan (2015), Remembrance Reimagining ASEAN + KOREA, Indonesia (2016), Gwangju International Art Festival, South Korea (2017), Imaginarium: To the Ends of the Earth at the Singapore Art Museum (2018), the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, Australia (2018), the Busan Biennale, South Korea (2019). 20 Lie of the Land, 2017 Metal bombshell, local plants and soil 400 x 70 x 70 cm Lie of the Land was created to reflect human’s tenacity in the face of conflict. In this work the artist meaningfully repurposes a bombshell into a large pot for plants, in a way to generate new life and hope from the destruction of war. through the many wars that have plagued Laos. Hatred and revenge are not the best solutions for humans to live happy lives. We cannot change the past, but we can choose to look forward to see the opportunities before us. Weapons of war leave people in sorrow but at the same time, through resourcefulness, can be turned into useful tools. The bombs buried across Laos, for example, are made from good quality aluminium that we have been using to create household utensils such as pots, forks, spoons, and building materials such as construction parts etc.” “For the project Lie of the Land, I was drawn back to the outlying areas of Laos near the shores of Thambak Village in Bolikhamxay Province. Bordering Vietnam to the east, conversations with the residents in the area provided me with invaluable lessons in history and social politics to understand their experiences of living 21 Citra Sasmita the scenes are equally part of a contemporary process of imagining a secular and empowered mythology for post-patriarchal future. Sasmita’s recent solo show is Ode To The Sun at Yeo Workshop, Gillman Barrack, Singapore (2020). She has won the Gold Award Winner UOB Painting of The Year (2017) and some of her group exhibitions include the Biennale Jogjakarta, Indonesia (2019), Garden Of Six Seasons (2020), Para Site, Hong Kong (2020) and the Kathmandu Triennale (2021). Citra Sasmita (b. 1990, Indonesia) is a contemporary artist from Bali whose work focuses on unravelling the myths and misconceptions of Balinese art and culture. She is also deeply invested in questioning the woman’s place in social hierarchy and seeks to upend normative constructs of gender. One of her long term project, Timur Merah Project, on Kamasan canvas, represents a geography of female figures, fires, and various natural elements, composed whimsically in an unfolding of pansexual energy. While rooted in mythological thinking with Hindu and Balinese specific references, 22 Timur Merah Project VI, 2021 Acrylic on Kamasan traditional canvas 155 x 145 cm so she incorporates narratives of the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata by taking inspiration from the famous Kamasan frescos in the Kerta Gosa Palace in Bali, which tell the story of Bima in Heaven and Hell. Built in the 17th century, the palace was the residence of the high king of Bali. Part of the palace was a court of justice, in which the citizens were judged and sentenced. In the works, Sasmita adapts the geometrical forms and shapes of the murals, replacing the characters of the paintings with female figures as symbols of nature and human anatomy, to address cultural identity from the perspective of social marginalisation. In the ongoing Timur Merah (East is Red) project, artist Citra Sasmita traces Balinese historical narratives through literary sources and images of mythology to reconstruct marginalised, female-focused journeys of life. Furthermore, the artist adopts the traditional Kamasan painting technique, typical of Bali and historically executed by men, to create large installations and works that reframe the patriarchal Balinese culture by adding ubiquitous female figures representing life and nature. In the works featured in the exhibition, the artist focuses on the representations of the undermiddle- and upperworlds in Balinese beliefs. To do 23 Estate of Montien Boonma coated in earthy tints, resonate to the local culture and people. As a devout Buddhist, his work engaged profoundly with meditation on the relationship between the material and non-material aspects of life. Boonma’s art has been featured across the most prestigious art platforms nationally and internationally. He participated in the 8th Sydney Biennale (1990); TRADITIONS/TENSIONS, Contemporary Art In Asia, The Asia Society, New York, U.S.A. (1996); Johannesburg Biennale (1997) among many more landmark exhibitions. Rising to international acclaim in the 1990s, Boonma (1953-2000, Thailand) was one of the most prominent artist of the time to introduce a conceptual approach to his practice. He incorporated Western ideas into his Thai vocabulary of art, exploring many subjects, including national belonging and traditions, environment and religion. Through his sculptures and installations, Boonma looked to internal, local and philosophical sources as a mean of exploring the significance of the transcendental. His mixed media installations and works adopt local materials such as burlap bags, water buffalo horns, birdcages and other items, which, “I want to create works from local materials. Either I have no money or only ten baths, I can produce artworks. We make use of what we have…I see lots of artworks in foreign countries and realise that art comes from the way of living…it sparks me that we should use local materials that reflect ourselves.” — Montien Boonma from Stories from the Farm. 24 La Métamorphose, 1988 Photograph, sickle, rice sack, water buffalo’s horn 170 x 140 x 60 cm Archive from the period 1989-1991: from the series Stories from the Farm and Thai Thai, 1989-1991 Sketch books, drawings, prints After returning from France and his experience teaching in Chiang Mai, Boonma’s ideas and works changed significantly. He started to use local material such as soil, herbs and readymade farming tools to create sculpture and installations. In A Life Beyond Boundaries (The Geography of Belonging), alongside selected archival material on his trailblazing exhibitions Stories from the Farm (1989) and Thai Thai (1991), we are honored to feature the mixed media work La Métamorphose (1989). Breaking the ground on concepts of national representation this work emerged in response to his compulsion to talk about the people of Thailand and their lives often through unorthodox mediums and materials. In La Métamorphose, the artist seems to place the question of “who is the nation” in the hands of the farmers. Their voices, their lives, and their tools might give us the answer. We are grateful for the kind support and precious collaboration received by the Estate of Montien Boonma and Jumpong Boonma on the occasion of this exhibition. 25 Haffendi Anuar formal structure. From the materials gathered, he would reimagine the fabric as construction material for hammocks, cradles and nets, working in a process that incorporates collage, painting and sewing.Recent solo exhibitions include Midday Stanza, Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapore (2019), Elephant Utopia, Art Taipei (2015) and several group exhibitions such as The Foot Beneath the Flower, Nanyang Tech University ADM Gallery, Singapore (2020), For the Few and the Many, Beers London, London (2019) and Head, Heap, Heat, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore (2018). Haffendi Anuar’s (b. 1985, Malaysia) current work looks at the kain pelikat, a type of colourful plaid tubular transnational ‘male-skirt’ usually worn domestically and sometimes as an informallabour uniform in parts of the Southeast Asia. Oriented by his childhood memories of encountering and even being enveloped in the fabric, his research and exploration into the iconography of the garment encompasses personal family photos, archival photographs, images from social media and the internet and looks into the fabric’s origin, social utilization, visual patterns and 26 Site I, Site II, Site III, 2021 Kain pelikat, canvas, fabric dye, acrylic, oil, thread, hemming tape, gutter tube,wood 191 x 76.4 x 16 cm In these series of works Haffendi Anuar uses traditional clothing - the kain pelikat, and other textiles that are associated with Malaysian and broarder Southeast Asian cultures , as a way to dismantle and reconstruct new meanings of belonging. slit into them, make holes, and let them drape from a ceiling structure, working with the materials’ weight, density and gravity. Sewing also has become a method of connecting as well as drawing. I think of them as pieces of architecture, like building a house. I have always been captivated by wooden homes in urban centres in Southeast Asia, in most cities you would be able to find them, at times sandwiched in between glitzy skyscrapers. They are to me urgently economical and appear handmade and haphazard, but there is always a kind of logic to their structure and how pieces seem to fit to one another harmoniously.” “For the Site series I have been using textile (kain pelikat, felt, canvas, rice sacks and denim) and was fascinated by the versatility of the material and its potential to activate space. I have been painting and dyeing the pieces and connecting them via sewing techniques and would think of them as both paintings and sculptures. Process-wise, I would layer the fabrics, 27 Hà Ninh Pham Hà Ninh Pham (b. 1991, Vietnam) is a fine art practitioner and art educator from Hanoi, Vietnam. He graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2018, and the Vietnam University of Fine Arts in 2014. His work explores the way in which we construct our understanding of territories from afar. His practice has been the focus of several recent articles that have appeared on Hyperallergic (2019), New American Paintings (2019) and Art and Market (2021) . Hà Ninh has been in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture(2018), Wassaic Project (2018), the Corporation of Yaddo (2019), the Marble House Project (2019) in the United States, and PLOP in the United Kingdom (2020). His work has been shown in New York, London, Philadelphia, KualaLumpur, Singapore, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Hà Ninh Pham is represented by the gallery A+ Works of Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is currently Assistant Professor of Painting at the Vietnam University of Fine Arts, and Associate Lecturer at RMIT University, Hanoi, Vietnam. 28 F8.1 [East Wing], 2021 graphite, acrylic, ink on paper 90x180 cm F8.2 [West Wing], 2021 graphite, acrylic, ink on paper 90x180 cm Vietnamese artist Hà Ninh Pham, forgoes the question of national belonging altogether, instead developing through his drawings and practice the representation of an imaginary land, beyond geography. personal experience of any viewer is stripped away. He or she must completely abandon his or her own invalid cultural legacy in order to navigate the environment. My Land is designed to have four different “entrances”four starting points to experience the territory. The most common “entrance” is to begin with the keymap [mothermap], which represents the whole territory with the universe around it. According to the map, the territory is stuck between day and night, outside of our perception of time. The map is divided by an 8x8 grid, thus having 64 space units. Each unit then leads to a separate map, which has its own space units, and so on. The project continues to develop according to this procedure. As the project grows, [mothermap] is remade accordingly. I construct the framework of all entrances in this way, making the whole project under infinite revisions and expansion.” “My work explores how we construct an understanding of a territory from afar. Since 2017, I have been working on a long-term project titled My Land, in which I grant myself an absolute power to create a world according to my rules. This project contains drawings, sculptures and writings that represent maps, artifacts and tales of an imagined territory. This territory does not correspond to any known culture in human history. It has its own systems of logic, language, and metrology that are functional only within themselves. I consider the project as a thought experiment of a phenomenal environment in which the 29 Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina the Ring of Fire - Pacific Rim, the region most prone to natural disasters as well as traumatic consequences as caused by persistent ideological violence. They have participated in many exhibitions worldwide such as at the Mori Art Museum Screen in Japan (2016), the 5th Asian Art Biennale and Jakarta Biennale (2015), the 4th Singapore Biennale (2013). They received grants and awards from many institutes; the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation in China (2020), the Jakarta Goethe Institut grants in Germany (2018), the Ford Foundation travel grants for exhibition in Sunderland, UK (2013). Irwan Ahmett ( b. 1975 , Indonesia ) and Tita Salina (b.1973, Indonesia) are a self-taught artist duo currently based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Their earlier works developed from the idea of placing ‘imagination’ through performative intervention amid chaotic public spaces in the megalopolis Jakarta, which faces the dilemma of uncontrolled urbanization and pollution. The development of networks in art and activist circles has encouraged their artistic practice to progress towards more profound circumstances. They are currently working on a long-term project related to geopolitical turmoil in 30 When You Arrive You’ll Regret, 2020 Single channel video 43 minutes nationhood. This video is part of the final presentation for the Nusantara Archive workshop. Part of the project was to involve other artists from southeast Asia by conducting artistic workshops in Batam. However, due to the pandemic the workshops could not be conducted. The video combines footage taken during their research while the artists plan to develop further the project next year by visiting Batam with the support raised from various grants. Batam/Kepulauan Riau project, which encompasses the video When You Arrive You’ll Regret, is part of the longterm research part of the Ring of Fire. Labor migration and border crossing issues in Indonesia, especially in the face of Covid 19, are central to When You Arrive You’ll Regret. Here the artists’ focus on the disputed island of Batam, part of the free trade zone between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore but depending on Indonesian manpower, is one way to challenge the notion of 31 Ly Hoàng Ly London, UK, (2017), ‘Zonas Grises – Grey Zones’, Museo de Antioquia, Colombia, (2016-2017). In 2016, Ly Hoàng Ly participated in two of the most distinguished exhibitions of the year in Vietnam: ‘Open door – Art Through the 30 Years of Renovation (1986-2016)’ and ‘Vietnam Eye’ (Hanoi, Vietnam). 2017 sees Ly Hoàng Ly open her first and largest solo exhibition in Vietnam at The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre (Ho Chi Minh City).Ly writes poems since she was 8 years old and got national prestigious awards for her poetry in her twenties. She is the first women visual artist in Vietnam doing performance art and poetry performance. Ly Hoàng Ly (b. 1975, Vietnam) is a visual artist, poet, and editor. Ly graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts in 1999, received a Fulbright Scholarship in 2011 and earned her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), majoring in Sculpture in 2013. Ly practices in a multidisciplinary manner, spanning across poetry, painting, video, performance art, installation, and public art. Her art raises questions about the general human conditions, the critical states of society, and our shared issues of migration and immigration. Ly Hoàng Ly has exhibited widely in and outside of Vietnam such as ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears’ – START 2017, Saatchi Gallery, 32 Perpetual Ephemeral: A study of Phở, 2013 Single channel video 7:51 minutes Boredom-worthy Life, 2021 giclée print technique applied on Xuan paper (giấy xuyến), hanging scroll with the Lãnh Mỹ A, traditional Tân Châu silk of Vietnam, pencil, water color 64 X 170 cm Footnotes for the lyrics, 2021 Print on Ilford Washi Torinoko paper 29.7x42 cm In collaboration with Danh Trần for the Typography and Nguyễn H.Quyên for the English translation In the video Perpetual Ephemeral, the artist performs the domestic routine of cutting and simmering beef bones to prepare Phở, the Vietnamese national dish. The cow bones which were used to cook, cast, and then burn into ashes were purchased at Tài Nam Market Center an Asian supermarket in Chicago, USA. Perpetual Ephemeral: A study of Phở is a video work the artist developed as part of her encompassing and multidisciplinary project 0395A.ĐC. Initiated while the artist was residing in Chicago in 2011, this ongoing and composite body of works stems from the artist’s urge to anchor the concept of identity, elusive in itself, into something tangible. Boredom-worthy Life giclée print layered on silk accompanies the video installation. The silk scroll features the lyrics/poem in Vietnamese and in English of the song played in the video - an old poetic melody on the meaning of life. The poem is placed in the scroll over the character “Thọ” which means longevity in Vietnamese. This character, often used by the artist, was designed by the artist’s great-grandfather, Hoàng Thuỵ Chi who as the governor of Bắc Giang province, served 4 Kings consecutively: King Thành Thái, King Duy Tân, King Khải Định, and King Bảo Đại. The title 0395A.ĐC to one of the first refugee boats that left Vietnam. Accidentally coming across its image online, the artist decided to retain the hardly visible number engraved on the boat, embodying a loss of identity, as the title of her ongoing series. 0395A.ĐC has occupied Ly’s art practice through various stages of her life, birthing a large number of works. 33 Ash#1, Ash#2, Ash#3, 2017—2021 Fine-Art Archival pigment print on ILFORD GALERIE Gold Fibre Pearl paper 120 x 80 cm (each) Evoking her homeland Vietnam, thousands of kilometres away, the work 0395A.ĐC, which encompasses the photography series Ashes, was created by multidisciplinary artist Ly Hoàng Ly while residing in 2011 in Chicago for her residency. In this project the artist ventures into identity and belonging through memory as a way to unleash the emotions that emerge from the search for identity—hers and of her own country. As we see in the video Perpetual Ephemeral: A study of Phở, the cow bones were stewed for 12 hours to make the broth for Phở. After that they were washed and treated carefully with bleach. After the bones dried, Ly Hoàng Ly worked with them through the process of casting. They then were dipped in the colloidal slurry with many steps to build a hard layer around the bones. They were burned in a ceramic shell kiln at approximately 980 Celsius degree for one day, including the cooling process. After that, hot bronze was poured into the ceramic shells and together with the ash remnants of the bones and ceramic shells, these sculptures were formed as hybrid substances. This process was conducted at SAIC World Famous Foundry in Chicago, USA, in 2013 through the metal casting and foundry process. The photographs represent captures of the sculptures “Ash”. Each photograph opens a unique universe where concepts such as portrait and image and that of space, time and the energy appear vividly. The sculptures’ expansion, transformation, entanglement occur in small objects that fit the palms of a human hand thus exposing notions of fragility, solidarity, and harmony. “I define the whole process of selecting and buying the bones at the market, making the broth of Phở and finally casting the residual bones as my durational performance piece.” 34 Here is the simmering love for my country #1, 2013, Sculpture - Bronze cast of cow bone, 2.1 Kg 35 Mark Salvatus contemporary art by organizing and co-organizing a wide range of programs.His works have been presented in different exhibitions and venues including Kyoto Art Center (2020), Sharjah Biennale (2019), Gwangju Biennale (2018), MMCA Seoul (2018), Osage Art Foundation in Hong Kong (2018), Mori Art Museum in Tokyo (2017), Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin (2016-2017), Venice Architecture Biennale (2016), SONSBEEK International in Netherlands (2016), Survival Kit Festival, Umea, Sweden (2014) and many others. Mark Salvatus ( b.1980, Philippines) is an intermedia artist at the forefront of critical discourse on the subject of urbanization and the socio-economic underpinnings that are made manifest in densely-populated areas. The urban landscape serves as both repository and stage for Salvatus’ works that deal with familiar objects, chance encounters, and everyday politics.Since 2006, he has produced his artistic project ‘Salvage Projects’ and developed his work across various disciplines and media. He is also one of the founders in Load na Dito Projects in 2016, an artistic and research initiative that explores various modes of producing and presenting 36 Weakest Links, 2011 Metal key chains Size variable The floor installation Weakest Links by Mark Salvatus, installed near Widjaja’s piece, engages with language and geography to construct or deconstruct one’s own identity, thus in Weakest Links geographical formation leads to fluidity against the confinement within boundaries. The work is made of fine chains linked together by keyrings, “something portable” that we all at some point carry along, to vaguely delineate the perimeter of an imagined geographical map. Further to that, the public is invited to tug and pull the chains and by so doing alter the morphology of the map which, for its pliable nature, easily arranges into new configurations. Playing with the idea of nationality, and at the same time flirting with the notion of belonging, Weakest Links speaks of the movement of people and the migration of culture and language. In this sense the floor installation converses on cue with Widjaja’s piece. Both works mutually dismantle the very symbol they refer to, the flag and the map respectively, proposing instead to rearrange by hand, literally in Salvatus’ work, “the grammar” of colonial power. In fact, as Anderson suggests, by feeding the community imagination of belonging, the map underscores its role as institution of power that conjures the representation and memory of the homeland. 37 Norberto Roldan biennale in the Philippines, and also co-founded Green Papaya Art Projects in 2000 which remains to be the longest-running independent and multi-disciplinary platform in the country. He is represented in several landmarks such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, USA (2013), the National Gallery of Singapore (2015), the National Art Centre, Tokyo, Japan (2017), the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2017) and many countries around the world. Norberto Roldan’s (b. 1953, Philippines) practice is rooted in social and political issues. His installations, assemblages and paintings of found objects, text fragments and found images address issues surrounding everyday life, history and collective memory. Roldan’s artistic process engages with ways in which material objects are re-appropriated in another context. He founded Black Artists in Asia in 1986, a group with a socially and politically progressive practice. In 1990 he initiated VIVA EXCON (Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference), the longest-running 38 Incantations in the land of virgins, monsters, sorcerers and angry gods, 2018 Un-used patadyong wraparound skirt, fabric lining, embroidery, flattened soft drink crowns and wooden poles 158 x 86 cm (each) Roldan is native of Capiz, a province on the island of Panay in central Philippines. Hailing from a relatively remote Visayan region, Roldan has been receptive to the influences of local cultures, arts and crafts, as well as developing a keen fascination with hybrid and syncretic belief systems amid religious, animist and superstitious practices.The ‘Patadyong’ series, which, as the title implies, involves the use of the patadyong, a wrap-around skirt of the Western Visayas, was firstly exhibited in the exhibition New Art from Southeast Asia at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in 1992. The adoption of local fabric in the 1992 show clearly predates the artist’s interest in found objects and indigenous materials. The works that are part of the exhibition A Life Beyond Boundaries (The Geography of Belonging), are the series’ second edition. All together this work highlights the aspect of national belonging that relates to community-based belonging and traditions and, in particular, that of the indigenous people of the Visayas region, who capitulated to the centralised state narratives of power. These people have for centuries resisted various forms of foreign aggression, retreating to the land’s interior and more remote areas which were protected by mountain ranges which discouraged Spanish and American colonizers. However, where foreign aggressors have failed, government’s military units have succeeded, not in colonizing the mountain people but in killing indigenous and tribal leaders suspected of sympathizing with the underground revolutionary movement. This aggression continues till present time: in December 30, 2020 several indigenous leaders were killed while other arrested over the Jalaur project dispute - the first large-scale dam to be constructed in southern Visayas and Mindanao region - causing condemnation from environmental, human rights and political groups. 39 Pathompon Tesprateep focuses on the subnational conflict in the Deep South, Thailand. Pathompon Tesprateep’s (b.1978, Thailand) works and practice embrace cinema and poetry to discuss memory and political subjectivity within current social issues. His practice, spanning filmic materials - from celluloid to digital - and photography, conjure an immersive experience for the viewers that are enveloped in the trance-like mood created by his works. In 2019 he developed Pleng-Krom-Dek (Lullaby) and Fatimah & Kulit which are part of an on-going film project (2019-present). The main concern of this project His works have been widely shown at film festivals and exhibitions, including Locarno Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, BFI London Film Festival, Curtas Vila do Conde, Media City Film Festival, Biennale Jogja XV, “Migration-Speaking Nearby” at ACC, Gwangju, and many more. 40 Part I: Pleng-Krom-Dek (Lullaby), 2019 16mm film transferred to hd 8.24 minutes Siriporn Thongchinda as herself Pleng-Krom-Dek (Lullaby) consists of four new renditions of traditional Chehe dialectlullaby tunes. Mostly written by the locals, the traditional lyrics often reflect their waysof life, doctrines, and unique mixture of languages. In Pleng-Krom-Dek, Tesprateep collaborates with a Thai Buddhist and a retired teacher Siriporn Thongchinda, who alsoworks as a youth-rehabilitation social worker and a conservator of Chehe dialect, inrewriting the lyrics focusing on her attitude towards the current religious and culturaldisharmony. Pleng-Krom-Dek is an attempt to blur the border between local lullabiesand its implicit disguise as ideological hypnotism. Produced by Nuttaphan Yamkhaekhai Cinematographer: Chukiat Wongsuwan Camera Assistant: Jumphol Siriin Editing & Sound: Pathompon Mont Tesprateep English Subtitles: Kissada Kamyoung Film Processing: Rolling Wild Film Transfer: G2D Film Service Part II: Fatimah and Kulit, 2019 16mm film transferred to hd 11 minutes Fatimah - Farida Jiraphan Kulit - Gandhi Wasuvitchayagit Fatimah and Kulit is based on a poet, writer and activist Assanee Pollajan* (Nai-Phee)’s short stories in his Nitankanmeung (Political Short Story collection, 1946-1960). In most stories, Pollajan conceptually names his main protagonists Fatimah and Kulit without specifying that they are the same person. The focused stories in this part are set in the political turmoil of the Deep South of the times. For Fatimah and Kulit, the original dialogue is rewritten with the artist’s interpretation towards the characters’ state of flux—to question the link between the past and the present, the link between amnesia and history. Produced by Nuttaphan Yamkhaekhai Assistant Director: Suphisara Kittikunarak Cinematographer: Chukiat Wongsuwan Camera Assistant: Jumphol Siriin Still Photographer: Danaya Chulphuthiphong Editing & Sound: Pathompon Mont Tesprateep English Subtitles: Palin Ansusinha Film Processing: Rolling Wild Film Transfer: G2D Film Service With thanks to Penwadee Nopaket Manont, Prach Pimarnman, and De’ Lapae Art Space Narathiwat 41 Soe Yu Nwe complexities of individual identity in globalized society. Soe Yu Nwe’s ( b. 1989, Myanmar) artistic practice explores notions of the self in relation to nature and culture. Reflecting on her own multicultural identity as being fluid, fragile and fragmented, she creates hybridized bodies by referencing the viscera and the botanical in nature’s various states of growth, decay and death. Soe Yu Nwe has participated in numerous international exhibitions at galleries and museums, as well as receiving awards and honored recognitions. Her work has been shown in the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial (2018), Dhaka Art Summit (2018), Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Italy (2020), Ayala Museum in Philippines (2016), National Gallery of Indonesia (2016) and The New Taipei City Yingge Ceramic Museum in Taiwan (2018). Soe was named in the USA Forbes 30 Under 30: Art and Style List in 2019. Her experience of living cross-culturally has inspired her to reflect upon identity through making. Through transfiguration of her emotional landscape by poetically depicting nature and body in parts, she ponders the 42 Pink Serpent, 2018 Glazed ceramics, underglazes, oxides, gold and mother of pearl luster 180x105x15 cm Budding Serpent, 2018 Glazed ceramics, underglazes, oxides, gold and mother of pearl luster 175x63x15 cm Gold Serpent, 2021 Glazed ceramics, PVD silver, paint and gold leaf 160x73x7.5 cm Third-generation Chinese immigrant to Myanmar, artist Soe Yu Nwe addresses in her practice her own condition of marginality and the challenges arising from conforming to preconceived cultural categories. In her drawings and ceramic works, she deconstructs the image of the self into various symbols, for instance, her recurrent representation of the snake, or Naga, in Buddhist mythology to reference her sense of repression and alienation. Playing on the idea of the body being the house that shelter the spirit, I create work that issymbolic of the self. I instill the metaphorical sculptural self with a sense of organicity by gesturing bodily reference - the viscera and skeletal- morphing into the botanical to express the vitality, delicacy, and injury of the spirit inhabiting and animating the forms. Local animistic beliefs, folklores and mythologies inspire the imagery in my work. I am particularly interested in the female fgures in Buddhist mythologies. In my sculptural works, I often explore the possibility of creating hybrid bodies using imagery of the Naga Maedaw, a dragon queen in Buddha’s birth stories, Jataka Tales.” “ In my work, I explore different ways of expressing my experience of alienation, confusion and pain as a cultural outsider by creating narrative spaces that explore the lines between insides and outsides. 43 Kyal Sin: A Pure Fallen Star, 2021 Mixed -media on Arches paper 56 x 76 cm April Salute, 2021 Paper Mixed -media on Arches paper 30.5 x 40.6 cm Our Struggle for Freedom: March 27, 2021 Mixed -media on Arches paper 56 x 76 cm three-finger salute, commonly identified with youth demonstration for democracy and justice, and also to Burmese national icons: the flower Paduak and the peacock. The Paduak blooms in April during Thingyan (the Burmese New Year), which was not celebrated this year under severe military control. The peacock (dương in Burmese) is one of the national animals of Burma, strongly associated with anti-colonial nationalist movements. These concerns of belonging and unbelonging to the nation are of course heightened in current times: since the military coup on 1 February 2021, her works have been responding to the national violence that is mining democracy and opening the very possibility of cultural redefinition. With reference to the ongoing protests, she created the drawings featured in the exhibition that challenge suppression and freedom of speech. Through these works she relates to familiar symbols such as the 44 45 Vuth Lyno development of contemporary visual arts landscape in Cambodia. His artworks have been presented at major exhibitions in Cambodian and international venues such as the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, the Biennale of Sydney, the Singapore International Festival of Arts, and the Gwangju Biennale. Moreover, his artworks have appeared at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, the National Gallery of Indonesia, the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, the Guangdong Times Museum in Guangzhou and the Chiang Mai City Arts & Cultural Centre. Vuth Lyno (b. 1982, Cambodia) is an artist, curator, and educator interested in space, cultural history, and knowledge production. His artworks often engage with micro and overlooked histories, notions of community, place-making, and production of social relations. He works across various media, including photography, video, sculpture, light, and sound, and often constructs architectural bodies as situations for interaction. Lyno has a passion for introducing human stories and knowledge within these installations by drawing on a wide range of materials such as original interviews, artifacts, and newly made objects. Lyno is also a member of Stiev Selapak collective which founded and co-runs Sa Sa Art Projects, a long-term initiative committed to the 46 Sala Samnak, 2020 Neon light installation 300 x 200 x 225 cm social relations and chances of an encounter are made possible under sala samnak, which is usually generously built by the villagers. Dating back to at least before the Angkorian period, the early name of sala samnak is សាលាសំណាក់ in Khmer, literally, ‘house of fire’ likely referring to rituals to the divine which took place in it. I create an architectural installation of a sala samnak made of blue neon light. It appears suspended in midair and illuminates the whole space. The mesmerising and radiating quality of the light structure produces an otherworldly experience, suggesting as if its visibility occurs in our dream. The semi-immateriality and fragility of the neon light hint at the precarious conditions and uneven relevance of sala samnak today.” Vuth Lyno’s mixed-media installation Sala Samnak evaluates nationhood through memories of local traditions to discuss community belonging in relation and in opposition to state narratives. Sala Samnak or ‘rest house’ is an old-style house seen throughout Cambodia. It was very popular in the pre-Angkorian period, especially during the reign of Jayavarman VII (1122–1218). “I’m interested in the cultural and social functions of sala samnak. On the one hand, villagers interact and create communal relations through rituals. On the other hand, visitors and strangers may meet and converse as they commute along their respective journeys. These 47 Wantanee Siripattananuntakul online art project on Instagram, Facebook and Spotify (2021).Her recent group exhibitions include Displace, Embody curated by Dr. Patrick Flores, UP Vargas Museum, Manila, Philippines (2020), National Gallery Singapore (2020), Galería Presença, Portugal (2020), Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto, Japan (2020). Her recent solo exhibition was “A Broken Ladder” at Gallery Ver, Bangkok, Thailand (2018). Wantanee Siripattananuntakul’s (b. 1974, Thailand) works are grounded on social, political, economic and cultural issues as critical views that raise questions about the meaning of life and our existence. She is a multidisciplinary artist, whose practice engages with video, sculpture and mixed -media installations. She is the co-founder, with Nipan Oranniwesna and Chitti Kasemkitvatana, of encrypted/decrypted, an 48 L.I.N.E., 2021 23.16 K gold 256.5 cm Siripattananuntakul’s practice, varying from video, sculpture and installation, is grounded on cultural and social issues predominantly related to Thailand, her homeland. In particular in the work L.I.N.E., featured in the exhibition as a thin line of gold suspended in the gallery space to emphasize its precarity, the artist underlines class disparity in Thai society and the struggle to identify with the nation, which has historically been associated with the ruling power and elite. To do so the work departs from her own experience in dealing with pawn shops to trade in her family belongings. Like the artist, many Thais are lining up to sell their gold, but also other domestic items like kitchen utensils and so on, to bring in some cash. This situation is especially exasperated by the COVID 19 emergency, which has caused a growing number of people in Thailand losing their jobs or facing pay cuts. The ongoing economic instability has touched mostly the poorest segment of society. As reported by current statistics the pandemic has also see a growing number of suicides as a reflection of their desperate financial conditions as they are left with no other resources and support. “I am interested in the social, economic and political tensions in Thailand, which have developed within the framework of a constitutional monarchy. The vast majority of people in Thai society has access to fewer resources than the ruling class. These discrepancies have created irreparable tensions over time: tensions between the superrich and the extremely poor, between love and hate, between giving up or moving on, etc. For me these tensions can be visualised as a “thin line” floating in the space. Even we try so hard, we cannot cross that line.” 49 Curator’s Bio Acknowledgments Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani is an independent scholar and curator of Southeast Asian contemporary art. Her research and curatorial practice revolve around critical socio-political issues in Southeast Asia, advocating a counter-hegemonic and non-Western-centric discourse. She curated Diaspora: Exit, Exile, Exodus of Southeast Asia (2018-19) at MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai, Thailand; and Architectural Landscapes: SEA in the Forefront (2015) at Queens Museum, New York, along with several exhibitions for commercial galleries in the US, UK, and Southeast Asia. Her articles have appeared in several academic journals such as Photographies, Routledge and University of Westminster, UK; Frames Cinema Journal, University of St Andrews, UK; Convocarte: Revista de Ciências da Arte, Lisbon University, Portugal; and M.A.tter Unbound, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, among others. Loredana is a member of the Association for Southeast Asian Studies in the UK, and Research Network for Transcultural Practices in the Arts and Humanities, Berlin University. Together with Patrick D. Flores, she co-edited the anthology Interlaced Journeys: Diaspora and the Contemporary in Southeast Asian Art, published in 2020 by Osage Art Foundation, Hong Kong. Our heartfelt gratitude goes to all the featured artists for embarking on this ambitious project; your insights and enriching conversations are the cornerstones of this exhibition. We extend our appreciation to the following galleries and institutions for their support and collaboration: A+ Works of Art, Estate of Montien Boonma, Richard Koh Fine Art, Sa Sa Art Projects, Silverlens Galleries, as well as NAC Singapore and NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. My profound thanks go to Charvanin Bunditkitsada and Punnapa Parimethachai for believing in this project and JWD Art Space for their expertise and dedication in shipping, installation and publishing. As curator of this exhibition I express my utmost gratitude for Benedict Anderson’s legacy and enduring guidance. I am humbled by this endeavor to follow his thoughts and theories on national identity, and I am thankful to him for all I have learned in this journey. 50 About JWD Art Space Our Team JWD Art Space is a newly established gallery located in the heart of Bangkok, Thailand. Missioned to become one of the key contributors to the growth of Thai contemporary art, JWD Art Space focuses on connecting and strengthening the local community with the international art scene. At JWD Art Space we work towards creating opportunities for artists through curated exhibitions and quality projects, as well as advocating accessibility and engagement with contemporary art across the region. Since its opening in November 2019 JWD Art Space has developed significant solo and group exhibitions focused in facilitating dialogues on arts and culture while reaching out to local and international art practitioners. Director Punnapa Parimethachai Exhibition coordinator Time Chotivilaivanit Jutamard Butprasert Business Development Manager Ruengwit Chamnankitsupat Senior Content Marketing Ormkaew Kallayanapong Sales Operation Thanainun Chattachairoj Sales Executive Supap Thongchaibun Installation Specialist Ratanasin Diswat Storage Operation Songgot Kondee Isoon Yangsuay Management Trainee Mary Le Graphic Designer Napisa Leelasuphapong Rawiruj Suradin Photographer Atelier 247 Aroon Permpoonsophon 51