Deconstructing Diaspora: Institute of Asian Art Inaugural Symposium, from May 18 to 19, 2017

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Deconstructing Diaspora

The Institute of Asian Art Inaugural Symposium will consider how contemporary art and its institutions participate in the construction and experience of Asian diasporas in Vancouver and elsewhere, beginning with a keynote address by world leading arts and culture scholar Dr. Vishakha Desai. Former advisor to President Barack Obama, Dr. Desai is the Senior Advisor for Global Affairs Programs to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and Professor and Senior Research Scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. She is a frequent speaker at international forums and is recognized for her leadership in presenting contemporary Asian art and fostering cross-cultural understanding.

As a platform for exchange from many national perspectives, local and visiting speakers will reflect on art and museums as a space where people come together at the intersections of the local, the national and the global. The symposium connects the Asian Art Council with recognized members of the local art community and audiences for a generative exchange of ideas.

Visiting Asian Art Council members include David Chau, collector, Shanghai; Dr. Vishakha Desai, scholar, New York; and Roobina Karode, Director/Chief Curator of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi. This council was established in 2015 to advise and guide the activities of the Institute of Asian Art—the Gallery’s comprehensive initiative to advance scholarship and public appreciation of art from Asia through exhibitions, public programs and collection acquisition.

DAY 1 – Keynote Address: Dr. Vishakha N. Desai

Global Culture in Contested Terrains: The Role of Artists and Institutions

When: Thursday, May 18 at 6:00 p.m.Where: UBC Robson Square, Theatre C300

In the early 1990s, it was finally being understood that artists from the non-western world had a special place in the east-west exchange of ideas and values, because of the unique capacity of art to be both a place and to be timeless. Now, more than twenty-five years later, a sense of retrenchment—the building of walls and barriers, physically and virtually—is pervasive on many shores. In these contested times, how can artists (and art institutions) continue to push boundaries and flourish in societies that may want to push them aside? Using images of artworks by Asian and Asian-American contemporary artists over the last twenty-five years, Dr. Vishakha Desai will examine the role of artists and arts institutions in today’s constraining environment.

DAY 2 – Speaker Presentations

When: Friday, May 19, 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.Where: Vancouver Art Gallery, Room 4East

Curator Tarah Hogue begins the day with an exploration of movement and migration as an additional (rather than alternative) frame for thinking through Indigenous experience. Her talk will consider how diaspora can be considered as a state of being and orientation toward the future.

Artist Jin-me Yoon speculates on significant shifts in her art practice within the context of nationalism and transnationlism, the local and the global, and the self and the other, in order to ask how we can generate spaces for exchange.

In the afternoon, Council members give short presentations that speak to their experiences and observations of Asian diasporas in cities such as Shanghai, New Delhi and New York, as well as the significance of art institutions in providing cross-cultural encounters that recognize and reflect their diasporic communities.

To conclude, final insights and reflections will be offered by local artist Josh Hon and writer Sirish Rao, with closing remarks by Gallery Trustee Hank Bull.

PRESENTING ASIAN ART COUNCIL MEMBERS:

David Chau, collector, Shanghai; Roobina Karode, Director/Chief Curator, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi: Dr. Vishakha Desai, scholar, New York

LOCAL SPEAKERS:

Tarah Hogue, curator and writer, grunt gallery; Josh Hon, artist; Sirish Rao, writer, co-founder of the Indian Summer Festival; Jin-me Yoon, artist and Professor, School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University

Source: Vancouver Art Gallery