Beyond the Future: Papers from the Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Who makes what decisions, and why, on a reg ional focus for the visual arts today, especially in the face of the increasing pressures for g lobal/trans-national fiestas? And what of other, non-geographic 'regions' - the political, social, ethnic or gender-based - are they equal ly viable? In order to comment on this, I would like to introduce the case of the 1 998 Taipei Biennale 'Site of Desire' that I worked on with Fumio Nanjo, as an example. This was an exhibition held at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum , grouping artworks by artists from Taiwan, China, Korea , and Japan - generally called the East Asia region. So, it deals with a smaller geographical area wh ich has more common elements in terms of history, ethnicity or rel igion . This grouping was decided on initially by its organiser, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. I can introduce a couple of general reasons for th is decision from my understanding of what occurred . Firstly, the Museum intends to make this biennial project an international event in the future in contrast to those in the past which were limited only to the participation of Taiwanese artists. As the first step to expanding the project, the Museum considered it more natural to start working with neighbouring reg ions. Secondly, of course, the need to establish networks and ties with in neighbouring regions was also taken into account. In addition , I believe there was an intention to differentiate this event from others . At present, when over twenty large scale international exh ibitions are held all over the world, a new project has to have its own characteristics . I think the focus on East Asia gave the project a d ifferent profile. As a way of applying this regional framework to one exh ibition , this time I personally was more interested in a trans-national approach by spotlighting common features or relating the h istories, experiences, beliefs or approaches of these works . So, we tried to keep classifications by countries/regions/areas to a minimum. But at the same time, by eliminating national/regional categories within this area and making the works confront and inter-relate to one another on the same stage, we tried to see the differences among different areas in the region in a deeper fashion. I sometimes felt national/regional borders can be a kind of obstacle to understanding the trans-national expansion of cultu re based on ethn icity, religions, languages, etc. Of course, this approach is not always possible or useful, especially when dealing with a very large area, or depending on the themes of the exhibitions. But I felt, in focusing on contemporary art in East Asia, this approach was more suitable in order to introduce a more real istic sense of the present scene. Here, what I am trying to emphasise is that there are different levels or degrees of 'regionalism'. It may be true that similar approaches tended to be repeated among many exhibitions in the past. Together with the big regional focus on, say, Asia or Asia-Pacific or one particular country, a smaller reg ional focus on non-geographic 'regions' through ethnicities or religions can be considered as useful frameworks to g ive d ifferent aspects or visions. Also, regional and global/trans-national approaches are not always opposed . We have recently heard some negative opin ions about projects focusing on the regions, pointing out the excessive number and their meanings; too d iplomatic, weak concept, etc. and questioning the further continuation of this direction . But I have the impression that we are only at the starting point. One may describe these past ten years as the first phase of activities focusing on Asia or Asia-Pacific regions . Or maybe we just planted saplings. There are so many th ings to do, particularly academic research, etc., in order that it grows to have many branches and leaves, and hopefully bears fruit. 1 1 3