Longform explorations of recent art in Asia, archives, art histories, urgent preoccupations, and other areas of interest
Essays
On Stalling and Turning: A Wayward Genealogy for a Binary-Abolitionist Public Toilet Project
Susan Stryker considers concepts of transness in relation to spatial configurations, and imagines other arrangements of space, time, and social interaction
Essays
Perforated Islands: A Proposition in Co-Sensing with the More-Than-Human
Joella Q. Kiu writes about artistic collaborations, spirit histories, and urban redevelopment
Essays
once more with feeling
Karen Cheung and Paul C. Fermin write about outsiders, love letters, abjection, reality TV, temporal vibes, art theory babes, etc.
Essays
Afro-Asian Feminist Art: Futurist Genealogies
Tao Leigh Goffe and Andrea Chung consider art’s ability to critique traditional histories and envision otherwise futures
Essays
Acts of Viewing and Performativity in (Un)Periodicals
Noopur Desai examines the ephemerality and performativity of the little magazine movement in India
Essays
Coincidence and Re-collection; Lateness and Insight
Lee Weng Choy writes about memory; exhibitions histories; and the forms, practices, and practicalities of the biennale
Essays
The Wall of Blankness
Koel Chu examines how woodcut printmaking holds space for catharsis and nuanced narratives in uncertain times
Essays
for those of us who cannot leave or stay—
Eunsong Kim interrogates the labour and material processes of aesthetics, and asks whether art and writing are even necessary
Essays
On Art Education through the Story of Six Artists from China
Anthony Yung and Ozge Ersoy ask whether artistic attitude can be taught or passed down from one generation to another
Essays
Past and Present Alternatives: Artist-Run Spaces in the Philippines
Ringo Bunoan reflects on the development of artist-run spaces in the Philippines, from the 1990s and beyond
Essays
Public Appearance as Art as Protest as Event: Yoko Ono’s Events with John Lennon
SooJin Lee uses a Fluxus lens to consider Ono and Lennon's playful use of the public gaze
Essays
You Are Here
Jennifer Deger on the limits of modernist cartographies, and how art and anthropology might speak to the environmental crises of our time
Essays
The Thoughtful Dissemination and Archiving of Japanese Moving Image Works
Ann Adachi-Tasch reflects on her engagement with Japanese experimental moving image works of the 1950s to 1980s
Essays
Hong Kong: A Curatorial Journey for an Identity
Oscar Ho narrates his shift from seeking a distinctive cultural identity for Hong Kong, to working to dismantle this very concept
Essays
The International Student as a Term of Art
David Xu Borgonjon discusses the racial politics of art school recruitment, and its structural effects on contemporary art
Essays
The Aesthetic Project of Remaking “Yellow” Identity
Mimi Wong explores the slippery notion of an "Asian aesthetic," and the many ways it can manifest in East Asian and diasporic art
Essays
From Within the Fog
Trisha Low’s lyric ruminations on art writing, gestures of refusal, and the unresolvable desire for shared utopia amidst crisis and collapse
Essays
Yellow Skin, White Gold
Anne Anlin Cheng reconsiders Asiatic femininity, racialised embodiment, and the confusion between persons and things
Essays
Is It Socially Engaged Art?: The Debate over “Art Projects” in Japan
Yeung Tin Shui traces alternatives to Eurocentric conceptions of art projects in Japan
Essays
Women, Handicrafts, and Entrepreneurship in the Postcolonial World
Annemari de Silva addresses the gendered and postcolonial valuations of "art" and "craft" in Sri Lanka
Essays
Setting the Stage: Korean Women Artists on Performance and Beauty
So-Rim Lee examines how two emerging feminist artists stage and politicise a hair salon and a cosmetics store
Essays
Line Form Colour Action
Chuong-Dai Vo uses Lee Wen’s notebooks to explore his work as performance and process
Essays
Tomorrow Girls Troop: A Fourth-Wave Feminist Art Collective
Reflections on activism, gender equality, and visual representation in Japan from an emerging feminist art collective
Essays
Ren Hang in the Global City
Nicholas Gamso considers Ren Hang’s engagement with urban space and queer body politics
Essays
Motherhood, Motherland: Photography, Representation, and Agency of the Filipina Overseas Worker
Alice Sarmiento asks whether exhibitions and artist-led initiatives can change how we connect space, citizenship, and acts of caregiving
Essays
Gendering Her Art: The Category of “Woman” in the Art History of Hong Kong
Christina Yuen Zi Chung looks at gender-themed art exhibitions and their relation to feminist discourse in Hong Kong
Essays
On Ha Bik Chuen: Collection and Collage
Leo Li Chen explores how Ha Bik Chuen’s collection opens up new ways to understand Hong Kong art history
Essays
Practicing Friendship: Respecting Time as a Curator
Zoe Butt considers the significance of friendships for artistic languages and forms
Essays
Notes on the "Vernacular" Milieus of Art Writing
Sneha Ragavan questions the dominance of English in India’s art historiography and criticism
Essays
17 Lost Art Exhibitions
Jack Persekian documents a global pattern of loss for Palestinian art
Essays
44 Tonnes
Clare Butcher on reconstructing the histories of the dehistoricised
Essays
Elision, Excess, Parody, Disavowal: Justine Frank in the Museum
Roee Rosen discusses the challenge of allowing fiction to overwhelm through its excess
Essays
In Defence of the Art Mall
Seth Denizen explores the art in art malls and competing claims to public spaces
Essays
Notes from the Field: Navigating the Afterlife of The Other Story
Rasheed Araeen's critical challenge to art historical narratives through art curation
Essays
Publics, Histories, Value: The Changing Stakes of Exhibitions
Note from the Editors
Essays
Sites of Construction and Political Dissent: Central Asia Pavilions in Venice 2005–2013
Georgy Mamedov provides a critical overview of the politico-economical context of Central Asian art history
Essays
The Problems of Digital Utopia: Young Hae-Chang Heavy Industries on the Web
Ahyoung Yoo discusses the playful masking and unmasking of potential digital utopias
Essays
The Unsettled Pleasures of Viewing: Exhibition as a Meeting Point Between Our Bodies and Artwork
Biljana Ciric discusses images as intimate, fragmented readings of exhibition experiences
Essays
Art Writing and Its Circulation: Three Moments in Hong Kong
Michelle Wong looks at three instances of art writing and their relationship with Hong Kong
Essays
A Short Story of Bagyi Aung Soe in Five Images
Yin Ker discusses the transformation of desire through meditation on desire
Essays
Atlas of Asia Art Archive
Map Office explores how Asia is a point of arrival and departure