History and Memory in Thai Contemporary Art

Category - essays and articles
by Iola Lenzi In his latest novel Map of the invisible World, Malaysian author Tash Aw discusses selective amnesia in the context of Indonesian history. One of his protagonists notes that Europeans remember bad things, while Asians forget them-as a way of erasing pain-, concluding that “…to be ignorant of one’s true history is to live in a void…where you do not really exist…”. Thai art Read more....

Exploring Urbanisation in China Through New Media Art

Category - essays and articles
by Sally Clarke Abstract The histories of Asian art are full of controversies and China is no exception. Under Mao Zedong, the communist party effectively imposed its view of culture on the populous and employed thousands of artists to communicate the political legitimacy of the party through their works, therein creating an extensive iconography. The stifling of the arts by Mao was particularly Read more....

Field Trip to S. Sudjojono: Lives in Pictures exhibition, 15 February 2014, ADM Gallery

Category - local study trips
Sudjojono was one of Indonesia’s leading artists of the post-war period. A nationalist at heart, he helped the nationalist forces under Sukarno stir anti-Dutch sentiments by propagating images and producing artworks that advanced the revolutionary cause. An expressionist and realist, he rejected the idealised Mooi Indie (Beautiful Indies) landscapes that were painted by his fellow Indonesian artists Read more....

Mekong Spring: Cambodian Photography in the Last Decade

Category - essays and articles
by Zhuang Wubin The years leading to the 1970 coup by Lon Nol that deposed Norodom Sihanouk, the American bombing from 1964 to 1975, the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge (KR) from 1975 to 1979, and the subsequent Vietnamese rule until its military withdrawal in 1989 brought about massive upheavals in the lives of Cambodians. Ironically, the dislocation also offers a convenient starting point Read more....