A one-day event at Fondazione Querini Stampalia shed light on both the distinctions and the solidarities within the ecosystems of Asia’s artscenes
This year the London-based Asymmetry Art Foundation, an organisation committed to fostering curatorial and scholarly initiatives with a focus on Chinese and Sinophone contemporary art, partnered with Asia Forum (a mobile platform that supports experimental arts and research in Global Asias) and the Bagri Foundation to cohost a day-long assembly that took place concurrently as one of the official collateral events during the opening of the 60th Venice Biennale. In response to the biennale’s theme Foreigners Everywhere, curator, researcher and council member of Asia Forum Annie Jael Kwan asked in her opening statement: “What does it mean to place ourselves within the conversation and respond to the theme of the biennial, and how can we contribute towards a global knowledge network?”
The event, titled A World of Many Worlds (inspired by the critical volume edited by Mario Blaser and Marisol de la Cadena, and taking place at Fondazione Querini Stampalia), brought together leading curators, scholars and artists to explore the multiplicity of perspectives within the biennial’s theme. Co-organised by Kwan, Michèle Ruo Yi Landolt, Hammad Nasar, John Tain, Ming Tiampo and Nick Yu, A World of Many Worlds featured two talks sessions, performances and screenings that aimed to move current conversations beyond the traditional view of multiple subjects and instead embrace the concept of multiple worlds. It’s a concept that challenges a readily accepted ‘universalism’ that centres the West, and instead fosters a ‘pluriversal’ understanding that acknowledges the interconnectedness of ‘diverse geographies, political positions, cosmologies and aesthetic perspectives’. The assembly encouraged participants to consider a ‘constellation of Global Asias’, not as a spectacle for global consumption or a territory to be mined for its cultural resources, but as a connected space that is collectively grappling with global issues such as colonisation, genocide, environmental devastation, displacement, diaspora, dispossession and war. By embracing this intersectional multiplicity, A World of Many Worlds aimed to imagine new worlds through diverse positions and solidarities.
An opening ‘invocation’ was delivered by performance artist Yao Qingmei, who presented Blowing A Feather. In the auditorium at the Fondazione, Yao and her performers experimented with sound, textual fragments, rhythms of breathing and body movements while each trying and eventually failing to keep a tiny white feather afloat. The performers, forced to weave in and out of the audience, dart across the aisles and occasionally sprawl across the floor, finally cooperating in order to keep the feather in the air; this shared experience brought a sense of vulnerability and levity to the start of the day’s events.
The first conversation of the day, titled ‘Histories, mobilities, and intimacies in diaspora’, took place in two stages, with the first part chaired by Ming Tiampo, that saw curators Rachel Dedman, Yasufumi Nakamori and Hammad Nasar in dialogue; Nakamori shared new directions for Asia Society where he was newly appointed as Director, while Dedman and Nasar discussed at length the in-depth research that culminated, respectively, in their exhibition projects of Palestinian textile histories, and the diaspora artists who expanded British art discourse. The second part was moderated by Landolt and Yu, with artists Isaac Chong Wai (whose installation In Falling Reversely, 2021-24, was included in Foreigners Everywhere), Sandra Gamarra Heshiki (the first artist not born in Spain to present the Spanish pavilion; there, her paintings put ‘certain modes of representation under scrutiny and expose colonial narratives attached to the conception of museums’), and Vidha Saumya (who corepresented Finland). Their discussions considered the many ways in which difficult histories have resulted in an entanglement of ‘worlds’ across Asia, and highlighted how curatorial and artistic practices can ‘create sites of repair, resilience, and renewal’. This conversation underscored the importance of intentional acts – such as stitching, falling, dancing, loving, and curating – in the attempt to remake worlds.
A screening program followed the first talks session and included works by Lap-See Lam & Wingyee Wu (Mother’s Tongue, 2018), Subash Thebe Limbu (Ladhamba Tayem; Future Continuous, 2023) and Kang Seung Lee (The Heart of a Hand, 2023). These films provided further perspectives on the panel discussions by exploring themes of language, the sharing of Indigenous knowledge and the interconnectedness of human experiences.
The second conversation, ‘Eco-cosmologies and climate/social/racial justice’ brought together artists Irwan Ahmett, Tita Salina, Yuko Mohri, Amol K. Patil, Sakiya (Sahar Qawasmi and Nida Sinnokrot), Mark Salvatus and Trevor Yeung in conversation with Kwan and Tain, to address the escalating ecological crisis. These artists, ‘known for their commitment to nature, land and the environment’, discussed the intersections of their practices with broader eco-critical movements. Through methodologies such as foraging, farming, walking and assembling, and formats including installation, poetry and music, they explored the potential for reimagining ways in which the human and more-than-human worlds could be brought into balance.
The event concluded with an excerpt of PEARLS by Joshua Serafin, performed by Lukresia Quismundo. This contemporary ‘ritual of healing’ drew inspiration from the nonnormative genders and folklore celebrated in the pre-colonial Philippine archipelago. The performance, with its title referencing the Spanish moniker for the islands, ‘Perla de Oriente,’ critiqued the exploitative practices of colonial powers via the metaphor of industrial pearl farming practices. In a particularly evocative part of the performance, Quismundo, who wore an oyster-grey leotard, hissed: ‘Here we are, pussies colonised by strangers who come to our island, who want to experience something indescribable in our eyes – the promise of eternal love that lasts a fucking second. How dare they take these gifts of the sea and use them as an accessory? They come and they take, and take, and take…’ In light of the assembly’s discussions, Serafin’s PEARLS puts a new perspective on the tired adage ‘the world is your oyster’.
A World of Many Worlds was presented as a one-day event, but the conversations, which shed light on both the distinctions as much as the solidarities within the ecosystems of Asia’s artscenes – scenes that are often homogenised and stereotyped, with the nuances of its many cultural and political differences blurred – will continue to catalyse new perspectives and modes of working, both across the continent and for those who observe its art.
