Asia Forum Launch

About

Book free place now: bit.ly/AsiaForum2022 

We are pleased to announce the launch of the Asia Forum for the Contemporary Art at the 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?

Join us at Asia Forum for a one-day programme that will provide 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.

Presented as digital gatherings in 2021, the inaugural one-day programme at the historic Fondazione Querini Stampalia will take place on 23 April 2022 during the opening week of the 59th Venice Biennale.

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.

PROGRAMME

09:30 AM Registration

10:00 Welcome

10:15 Roundtable: Tracing Asia Art Histories: Modernism as Crime Scene: with Hoor Al Qasimi, Patrick Flores, Annie Jael Kwan, Hammad Nasar, John Tain, Ming Tiampo

11:30 Presentation by Ho Rui An

12:30 Lunchtime Screening Programme

13:30 PM Registration

14:00 Welcome

14:05 Abbas Zahedi X Querini Stampalia

In treating artist talks as subjective experiences - Zahedi intends to ask questions of how the constant physical and digital crises have impacted our ability to comprehend and work with the themes of time, care and connectivity (relationships). As in, is it still even possible to prepare a pertinent subject for a talk that is more than six weeks away, with any clear certainty?

15:00 Paradise Camp by Yuki Kihara

Samoa-based artist, Yuki Kihara, will expand on their multidisciplinary practice that will be presented as part of the New Zealand Pavilion, 2022.

16:00 Carrier Bag Meditations by Sin Wai Kin

Sin Wai Kin will present a carrier bag of stories and thoughts as a guided meditation on themes of stillness and transformation as a body moving in relationship to the world.

16:30 Curatorial Directions with Sheelasha Rajbhandari, Hit Man Gunung and Tsherin Sherpa, (Tales of Muted Spirits - Dispersed Threads - Twisted Shangri-La, Nepal Pavilion 2022)

17:30 Collective Futures - with Reza Afisina (ruangrupa) & Saodat Ismailova

18:30 END

Asia Forum is conceived by Annie Jael Kwan and curated alongside international curators and researchers, Hammad Nasar, John Tain  and Ming Tiampo.

Asia Forum is made possible with thanks to the additional support of Something Human.The Asia Forum 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.