Beyond Representation

What is a good strategy against marginalization? Can the association as a group of artists empower and help to become more visible? How do individual aesthetic positions strengthen each other in the collective? The London-based cross-disciplinary network of artists Asia Art Activism develops its own historiography through intergenerational exchange and research. Can this approach be transferred to Berlin?
 

With: Asia Art Activism (Cuong Pham, Sung Tieu) and Ferdiansyah Thajib.
Moderation: Trang Tran Thu
 

Asia Art Activism is a cross-disciplinary and intergenerational network of artists, curators and academics investigating ‘Asia’, ‘art’ and ‘activism’ in the UK through research, dialogue, practice and collective work. Asia Arts Activism seeks to open up a conversation around ‘Asia’ as a contested paradigm, including its diasporas, migrant and resident communities, to attend to lesser known narratives of Asian artists and activists in the UK, especially that of Southeast Asian communities.

Ferdiansyah Thajib is a member of KUNCI Cultural Studies Center (Indonesia). KUNCI is a research collective which focuses on critical knowledge production and sharing through cross-disciplinary encounter, action-research and vernacular education with and across community spaces. Ferdiansyah Thajib is a Phd Candidate at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2019 he also joins the directorship collective of District* School Without Center, Berlin. His lifeworks are situated in the intersections of theory and praxis, with specific research interests on queer modes of endurance and forms of affective entanglement in everyday life.

Tran Thi Thu Trang studierte Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie an der Freien Universität Berlin und arbeitet derzeit als Projektassistenz am Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. Seit 2013 ist sie Teil des Berlin Asian Film Network, einer Plattform für asiatisch diasporische (und beyond) Film- und Kunstschaffende.  Seit 2017 ist Tran ehrenamtliches Vorstandsmitglied im Migrationsrat Berlin e.V.  

The artist talk is part of the performance festival After Europe. After Europe is a festival by Sophiensaele: In lectures, performances and installations, it brings together international artists and thinkers who disrupt the colonial framework of art and science.