In an effort to understand the collective drastic change hidden behind "new daily life" brought by the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan contemporary art space VT Artsalon organized an online forum "What Art can do in the post-pandemic era?," to explore how artists are responding to the uncertainties of the future.
This is a second discussion held as part of the series titled "Island Hopping Discussion: East Asia Connection Forum." Taiwanese artist Wu Dar-kuen (吳達坤) served as a host at the online event, and the invited panelists include Taiwanese visual artist Su Hui-yu (蘇匯宇), Indonesian artist Ade Darmawan, Singaporean independent curator Louis Ho (何偉明), associate professor at University of the Philippines Diliman Tessa Maria Guazon.
Through the forum, the opinion leaders discussed how the East Asian art field rethinks the risks associated with globalization, and shared their reflections based on the topics.
Themed around "Remote Performance, Future Cinema, Expanded Body or Something Else? – A 'Plan B' for the Pandemic," Su shared his experience of participating in the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) in 2020, and elaborated on the possibility of developing a new model of watching performances through mobile device and online shows.
Guazon put forward a topic on the modes of thinking and imagination of the future that people can engage in. Ho shared his experiences of curating an exhibition amid the lockdown period in Singapore, while Darmawan provided an overview of how the Indonesian art field, especially from the small-medium art and cultural initiatives, responded to the pandemic crisis to curb the losses experienced in the arts.
Since 2017, VT initiated the "Island Hopping" project which uses art to redraw the political and geopolitical outlines of East Asian countries. It invites important contemporary art institutions, art groups, curators, and artists from the Pacific Island chain for transactional exchanges on the topics of "post-pandemic" and "post-colonial." This event provides art enthusiasts with international perspectives, and also provides more opportunities for Taiwan's art field to accumulate international interactions.
(Photo courtesy of VT Artsalon)