Art spaces in Southeast Asia: FAAM Archive Selection

Fukuoka Asian Art Museum has collected archival materials of modern and contemporary art in Asia, including exhibition catalogues, pamphlets, and video documentations. In relation to the FAAM collection exhibition, “Fellow Artists! Art Groups in Southeast Asia” (6 October – 25 December, at Asia Gallery on the 7th floor), this exhibition introduces art books and pamphlets on art spaces in Southeast Asia from the FAAM archive.

The artist-run spaces have played an important role in leading the local art scene in Southeast Asia. While public support is limited, these art spaces have conducted the exhibitions, provided information, and created a critical environment independent of the art institutions and commercial galleries. In these spaces, artists have not only created and exhibited their works, but also created an organic community and network of people through which they exchange/share the information, and achieved various collaborations.

This exhibition seeks to introduce art spaces we can visit today through the archival materials of the spaces and artists involved.

　Taring Padi　

Yogjakarta, Indonesia
Established year: 1998
Member: Muhammad Yusuf, and others
Address：Dusun Sembungan, Rt.02, Desa Bangunjiwo Kec. Kasihan,
Kab.Bantul, Yogyakarta
Opening Time: irregular date

Overview
Taring Padi was founded by university art students who participated in the anti-authoritarian and democratization movements against the Suharto regime in 1998. “Taring Padi” means the tip of grain. They occupied part of a former art school and started production of woodcut block prints and posters. Under the slogan, “Art, activism and rock ‘n’ roll,” their works express political themes (government corruption, poverty, and environmental damage from development by large corporations) with a style of art activism that takes in traditional Javanese art, DIY*, and the anti-globalization movement. Muhammad Yusuf, one of the founding members of Taring Padi, recently organized a workshop to help younger generations express their voices on social issues through woodcut block printing.

* “Do It Yourself” is a movement that pursues an alternative lifestyle without relying on mass consumption of mass produced products.

Artist

Muhammad Yusuf（Borne in 1975, Lives in Yogyakarta）

Yusuf is a painter and printmaker, born in Indonesia. He graduated from the Indonesia Institute of the Arts, Yogyakarta. Among the original members of Taring Padi, founded in 1998, he is the only artist still active. He has participated in exhibitions and residence programs in Indonesia, Australia, and The Netherlands, and exhibited at the Jogja Biennale in 2009. He deals with the lives of farmers and laborers from a political perspective, and has recently been creating new art works with a traditional Java culture motif. His work is collected in FAAM.

  ruangrupa  

Jakarta, Indonesia
Established year: 2000
Members: Ade Darmawan, and others
Address：Jl.Pancoran Timur II No. 4 Jakarta Selatan 12780 ,Indonesia
Opening time: Monday-Saturday, 11:00-21:00

Overview
A non-profit contemporary art organization, ruangrupa was established in 2000 by artists resident in Jakarta. “Rung” means a space or a room, and “rupa” a form. Based on the horizontal, and organic network among plural artist groups, the space was opened as a place for experimental art practices. Ruangrupa’s activities include internet radio broadcasting, exhibitions, festivals, and research programs on the urban environment. Under the slogan “Creative intervention for the city environment through art,” they have been developing critical and creative approaches to art projects that cultivate the potential of the city and community, such as collective knowledge production, community involvement and collective work.

Project

The Vertical Village Project

Ruangrupa held an exhibition with architect Keg de Souza of Australia at Sydney’s “4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art” in 2013. Through fieldwork and investigation of the two cities, Sydney and Jakarta, they focused on specific communities (foreign student, middle class) in each city and did a comparative mapping project about their experiences and involvement. In the exhibition space, they brought back an Indonesian foreign student’s dormitory room and then facilitated interactions between the different communities which are not usually visualized and communicated so as to share and exchange the experiences of everyday life.

  Green Papaya Art Project  

Manila, Philippines
Established year: 2000
Member: Norberto Roldan, Lian Ladia
Address: 41B T. Gener St, Quezon City, 1103 Metro Manila, Philippines
Opening Time: Depending on programs/events

Overview
Green Papaya Art Project is an independent initiative that supports and organizes actions and propositions that explore alternative approaches to the production, dissemination and representation of art in various disciplines. It endeavors to provide a platform for intellectual exchange, sharing of information, critical dialogue and creative-practical collaboration among the arts community. Founded in 2000, It is the longest independently run creative multidisciplinary platform in the Philippines.

Artist

Norberto Roldan (Born in 1953, Lives in Manila)

A multi-media artist and curator, and currently the artistic director of Green Papaya Art Projects, a multi-disciplinary platform founded in 2000. He has worked at the forefront of cultural artistic practice in the Philippines, having co-founded the seminal artist group Black Artists in Asia in 1986 (a Philippines-based group focused on socially and politically progressive practice). Norberto Roldan’s work offers commentary on the social, political, and cultural conditions of the Philippines. The artist works with found objects, such as old photos and magazine clippings. His materials are drawn from everyday life, and deal with contemporary issues informed by history and collective memory.

  98B COLLABoratory  

Manila, Philippines
Established year: 2012
Member: Mark Salvatus, Hirano Mayumi, and others
Address：Mezzanine flr, First United Building, Escolta St,
Binondo, Manila, The Philippines.
Opening Hours: By appointment (hello@98-b.org）

Overview
98B COLLABoratory is an alternative art space including a reading room, kitchen, and shared space in the local community of Manila. In 2012, Mark Salvatus turned his house and studio into an art space. It has now moved to a new place in Escolta in an old town of Manila. 98B is a platform for people concerned not only with culture and art, but also with education and social movement. They organize experimental exhibitions, lecture series and community projects. The archives room is open to the public. It is a multi-complex art center for other socio-cultural disciplines, as well. In addition, they hold a monthly market, called “Future Market,” dealing with art books, art work, crafts, and recycling products in the underground parking lot of their space.

Artist

Mark Salvatus (Borne in 1980, Lives in Manila)

Salvatus consistently tackles issues of urbanism and everyday politics through works of diverse media, ranging from drawing, photography, video and installations to interactive projects. In 2006, he joined in an ephemeral street art group, ““Pilipinas Street Plan.” In Japan, he participated to “Koganecho Bazaar 2011” in Yokohama. Both as a co-founder of 98B and an independent artist, Salvatus is deeply involved in creating avenues for grassroots art movements to flourish.

  Lost Generation Space  

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Established year：2004
Member：Yeoh Lian Heng, Lam Tsuji, the others
Address：8c, Jalan Panggung, 50000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Opening time：Tuesday to Sunday, 13:00 -18:00

Overview
Lost Generation Space (Lostgens) is an art space in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown that was established in 2004. It organizes various art projects related to community, civic participation, memory, and history of the city. It also launches regular workshops, documentary screenings and discussions on urban redevelopment. Yeoh Lian Heng, director of Lostgens, carries out the long-term project of collecting the oral memories of the shopkeepers in Chinatown and continues research tracing the memories of the community of Chinese Malaysians and its life space.

Projects
Lostgens carries out projects that overlap the realms of art and social movement, such as free meal distribution for the homeless people, “Food Not Bombs” and participation for the collective action against eviction from the old city due to the construction of monorail in the area. Yeoh says that “Instead of confining art to a white cube, we, Lostgens, are a laboratory investigating a way of contributing art into the community and society we live in”.

  NHA SAN COLLECTIVE  

Hanoi, Vietnam
Established year: 2013
Member: Nguyen Phuong Lin, and the others
Address：15th floor, HNCC building, No1 Luong Yen Street, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Opening time: Wednesday to Sunday, 14:00~19:00

Overview
The Nha San Collective was established by young artists who formerly gathered at Vietnam’s first experimental modern art space, Nhà Sàn Studio (NSS), after it closed in 2010. They held guerrilla-like exhibitions and mobile events in the city, and since moving into the Hanoi Creative City (HNCC) building, they have been running a space through joint administration with other members. With few Vietnamese expert curators in Hanoi, the artists organize exhibition programs and do the curatorial work themselves. They are forming a mutual aid network for artists and are trying to expand the domain of art and culture into the social sphere.

Artist

Nguyen Phuong Lin (Born in 1985, Lives in Hanoi)

Nguyen is an artist and original member of NHA SAN COLLECTIVE. Her father, Nguyen Manh Duc, is the founder of NSS. Her work involves installations and performance using salt, and she is active in the domestic and international art scene. She stayed in Fukuoka in 2011 with the artist-in-residence program of this museum, and in her resulting exhibition, she displayed her installation work, “Stonescape,” which used stone powder she personally gathered from the Asakura-shi salt mines of Fukuoka.

  Hanoi Doc Lab  

Hanoi, Vietnam
Established year: 2009
Member: Nguyen Trinh Thi, and the others.
Address：56-58 Nguyen Thai Hoc, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Opening time: Monday to Friday, 14:00~18:00

Overview
Established in 2009, Hanoi Doc Lab is a center or a laboratory for documentary film making and video art. Its activities include basic and advanced film production and editing workshops, weekly public screenings and discussion. They also host visiting filmmakers and video artists, and maintain an editing lab and video library accessible to the public.

Artist

Nguyen Trinh Thi (Born in 1973, Lives in Hanoi)

Nguyenstarted working as a documentary filmmaker in Hanoi in 2007, and has participated in “Women in Between: Asian Women Artists 1984-2012” (FAAM, 2012), and the 5th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (FAAM, 2014). She has received a Bachelor of Arts in Russian and English from Hanoi Foreign Studies College in 1994,　a Master’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Iowa in 1999, and another Master in International Relations and Pacific Studies from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) in 2005.