The symposium began with a keynote address by the acclaimed artist Nalini Malani, in conversation with Iwona Blazwick. Malani discussed a selection of her transnational exhibition histories, including Century City, Tate Modern (2001) and Documenta 13, Kassel (2012), exploring what has been overlooked by officially documented histories.
On the second day, thematic papers on exhibition histories and multiple modernities were presented in two panels, ‘Transnationalism in Practice’ and ‘New Methodologies’. Key themes addressed in these panels included the notion of ‘cultural double bind’, changing the representation of women artists in India and Pakistan, the multiplicity of identity in Taiwanese performance art and questions on materiality and embodied femininity in object making associated with craft.
This event aimed to foreground the scholarship Tate Research Centre: Asia developed since its establishment in 2012 by reuniting researchers and curators associated with the Centre.
Speakers included: Nalini Malani, Gayatri Sinha, Mariah Lookman, Rattanamol Singh Johal, Michio Hayashi, Anais Da Fonseca and Yu-Chieh Li.
Audio recordings of this event are available upon request. Please click to email for further details.
Programme
6 December
18.30 – 20.00
Welcome (Achim Borchardt-Hume)
Keynote lecture by Nalini Malani
Discussion moderated by Iwona Blazwick and audience Q&A
7 December
10.00 – 10.30 Registration
10.30 – 11.00 Welcome and Introduction (Sook-Kyung Lee)
11.00 – 12.00 PANEL ONE
Transnationalism in Practice: Networks and Exhibitions
Fabular Journeys: Embedding the Transnational in Feminist Practices
Gayatri Sinha
Lala Rukh “Love Letters”, Abstraction, Subversion and the Beginnings of the Autonomous Women’s Groups in Sri Lanka and Pakistan
Mariah Lookman
City as Subject/Urban Space as Laboratory: Bombay as Century City
Rattanamol Singh Johal
12.00 – 13.00 Panel discussion with Nada Raza and audience Q&A
13.00 – 15.00 Lunch
15.00 – 16.00 PANEL TWO
New Methodologies: Performance, Painting and Craft
Cultural Double Bind across the Holes: Fontana and Shimamoto et al.
Michio Hayashi
Crafting Modernity and Femininity in the Works of Mrinalini Mukherjee and Sheela Gowda
Anais Da Fonseca
The Art of Provincialism in Taiwan: Stoppages, the Marginalized Body, and Ruins, 1983–1993
Yu-Chieh Li
16.00 – 17.00 Panel discussion with Ming Tiampo and audience Q&A
17.00 – 18.30 Reception
Tate Research Centre: Asia has been generously supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation