To give voice and a platform to projects and ideas that demand to be heard, AAA initiated 'Open Platform' with a call to cultural priducers and organisers to sumbit proposals for 28-mintue presentations to be held during ART HK11. A panel of judnges, including Negar Azimi (editor of Bidoun), Michelle Kuo (editor of ArtForum), Andrew Maerkle (editor of ARTit), Elaine Ng (editor of ArtAsiaPacific), and Mark Rappolt (editor of Art Review) selected four presentations for 'Open Platform', based on diversity of content, originality, format, and relevance to today's world.
At a tent theatre near you: the traveling cinemas of India
Amit Madheshiya & Shirley Abraham
Mumbai
The project involves traveling with licensed tent cinema companies which visit villages in Maharashtra (western India) that are still located far from fixed-site theatres. It explores an antiquated system of film exhibition and reception, attempting to 'historicise' the unknown 60-year old history of these cinemas, as well as to 'provincialise' it, through focusing on modalitites which deliver the experience of cinena away from the mainstream production industry, Bollywood, and sophisticated urban theatres,. It also focuses on how an ingenious community is trying to sustain, revive, and reinvent their cinemas in the face of challenges from slick, all pervaisve digiatal media.
Learning from History: The Discourse of (L)imitation in 1960s Japan
Reiko Tomii
New York
This short lecture explores the critical implicaton of 'international contemporaneity' by examining two instances of hole-diggings by Claes Oldenburg (1967) and Sekine Nobuo (1968). The 'imitation discourse' surrounding them in 1960s Japan illuminates the significance of how we 'perceive'- rather than 'objectify' and 'theorise' - our place in a globalising contemporary world.
Vanishing Point: How to disappear in China without a trace
Susanne Burner
London
Rather than being subjected to someone else's making you disappear, the manual Vanishing Point: How to disappear in China withour a trace proposes vanishing form society on your own terms. Compiled from different sources, the text gives very practical advice on how to take on a new identity, at the same time illustrating the imaginative journey of someone on the run.
"We wanna make a change": Art and social action by the post-80s generation in Hong Kong
Lee Chun-Fung
Hong Kong
The discourse around the socio-political actions of the Post-80s generation in Hong Kong is in itself exemplary of the gap between them and older generations of activists. Meanwhile, younger generations can learn from the contextualised history of older generations of artistsic activists that might lead to new possibilities for public discussion. Th e variety of artistisc activism in Hong Kong today is a reflection of current social conditions as well as the role of art in social movements. This presentation will introduce some important art/social actions organised by the post-80s genreation, including projects related to the 'June Fourth Incident', that were recently curated by the speaker.
