Organised as part of AAA’s twentieth anniversary, Life Lessons is a series that examines models of education led by artists. We ask: What was the most influential lesson they learned in school? And how have they, in turn, passed on what they learned about forms of knowledge and care to their students or communities of learners?
Scheduled for spring 2020 to spring 2021, Life Lessons presents online and offline conversations and workshops with artists and art collectives who teach at universities, build educational programmes at arts organisations, and run their own schools. Each session addresses their unique teaching methods.
The eighth session of Life Lessons brings together artists Ringo Bunoan and BV Suresh to discuss the most influential teachers for their artistic practice. Organised in conjunction with Learning What Can’t Be Taught, the current exhibition at AAA Library, this programme extends the premise of the exhibition to propose artistic lineages through pedagogical backgrounds.
Ringo Bunoan studied with Roberto Chabet (1937–2013), a renowned conceptual artist, teacher, and curator, at the University of The Philippines, College of Fine Arts in the 1990s. Following her graduation, she has spearheaded several artist-run spaces, with a focus on exhibition-making, documentation, and artistic dialogue. Her work on artist-run spaces resonates with Chabet, who taught his students how to experiment as artists and create spaces for themselves.
BV Suresh studied painting at Ken School of Art in Bangalore and completed his diploma and post-diploma at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, in 1985. He worked closely with esteemed artist-teachers such as Nasreen Mohamedi, Nilima Sheikh, and Gulammohammed Sheikh from the Baroda Group. He later went on to pursue an MA in painting at the Royal College of Art, London, on an Inlaks Scholarship where he studied under Peter De Francia, Yehuda Safran, and Ken Kiff. He has taught art for over twenty-five years, and continues to develop teaching models in art education today.
Life Lessons is part of AAA’s ongoing research about the role of academic and alternative pedagogy in the development of modern and contemporary art in Asia and beyond.
Ringo Bunoan is an artist, curator, and researcher based in Manila. She was the co-founder of Big Sky Mind, an alternative space active from 1999 to 2004. In 2010, she co-founded King Kong Art Projects Unlimited. She was one of the lead curators of Chabet: 50 Years, a series of exhibitions in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Manila from 2011 to 2012. In 2008–14, Bunoan worked as Researcher for Asia Art Archive focusing on the Philippines, and initiated research projects on Chabet as well as artist-run spaces. In 2014, she co-founded artbooks.ph, an independent bookstore focusing on Philippine art and culture.
BV Suresh is an artist and educator based in Hyderabad. His artistic practice extends beyond studio practice into teaching, theatre design, and children’s book illustration. During the 1990s, Suresh moved from the traditional painting format to more diverse mixed media formats, including videos, installations, and digital prints. In his recent works, he explores the growing culture of communalism and violence, historiography, and circulation of images through mass media. He is currently Head of Department of Fine Arts at the University of Hyderabad.
This event is part of the AAA Learning and Participation Programme, supported by the S. H. Ho Foundation Limited and C. K. and Kay Ho Foundation.
