The Asia Forum for Contemporary Art launches in Venice during the opening week of the 59th Venice Biennale on April 23, 2022 and the inaugural one-day programme at the historic Fondazione Querini Stampalia. Proudly supported by the Bagri Foundation, the Forum is envisioned as a new itinerant platform for experimental art practices and research generative of new worlds beyond the North Atlantic.
Through a series of incisive and engaging discussions, artists’ presentations, interactive sessions and screenings, the Asia Forum departs from the central exhibition, national pavilions, and collateral events that present the arts of “Asias.” Artists, curators, and thinkers will be invited to respond to pressing current events and engage in discussions addressing questions such as:
What is the role of art in reshaping public cultures, when both problems and solutions have become globally entangled?
How do adopting “Asias-centered” perspectives help re-imagine futures beyond current thought paradigms? How do artistic practices reshape our understanding of the collective building and sharing of knowledge?
Asia Forum will provide the public with a richer and deeper engagement with these and other questions, while amplifying narratives of transformation, knowledge building, and transnational solidarity. The one-day event seeks to provide a gathering place for like-minded local, national, and international people to foster connections.
Conceived by Annie Jael Kwan, the Asia Forum works with a council of international curators and researchers, Hammad Nasar, John Tain, and Ming Tiampo, in a sustained dialogue with contributors to navigate the key themes that have arisen in relation to contemporary artistic practices of Global Asias.
Simultaneously, the Forum will be live-streamed digitally via ArtReview.
Asia Forum is made possible with thanks to the additional support of Something Human and is presented in partnership with ArtReview, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, IED – Istituto Europeo di Design, Ca’ Foscari Alumni, GAD – Giudecca Art District, School for Curatorial Studies Venice. With the patronage of the DVRI – Distretto Veneziano della Richerca e dell’Innovazione.
Full programme of the day
9:30am Registration
10am Welcome
10:15am “Tracing Asia Art Histories: Modernism as Crime Scene”: a roundtable with Hoor Al Qasimi, Patrick Flores, Annie Jael Kwan, Hammad Nasar, John Tain, Ming Tiampo
11:30am Presentation by Ho Rui An
12:30pm Lunchtime screening programme
2pm Abbas Zahedi X Querini Stampalia—presentation by Abbas Zahedi
3pm Paradise Camp presentation by Yuki Kihara (New Zealand Pavilion 2022)
4pm Carrier Bag Meditations presentation by Sin Wai Kin
4:30pm Curatorial Directions with Sheelasha Rajbhandari and Hit Man Gunung (“Tales of Muted Spirits—Dispersed Threads—Twisted Shangri-La” Nepal Pavilion 2022)
5:30pm Collective Futures—Reza Afisina (ruangrupa) & Saodat Ismailova
6:30pm END
Additional speakers will be announced soon.