The Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

LEUNG CHI WO Storical Affairs 2006 2-channel video installation / Image courtesy: The artist / © The artist Installation view, ‘Discordant Harmony’, Art Sonje Center, Seoul, 2015 Photograph: Sang-tae Kim / Image courtesy: The artist and Art Sonje Center / © The artist What do you think is the relevance of looking regionally rather than locally, nationally or globally? SK As a curator, I am against national presentations. I like to avoid the frame of nationality and instead look through a different or specific perspective. With ‘Discordant Harmony’, I was interested to see how people of a similar background or, to be more specific, a common language (Chinese) perceive a certain subject and how the concept of Asia has changed within current social and political transformations. It was not the ‘region as a place’ that I wanted to look into. The Cold War divided Asia, which has since been left disunited. This was a chance for me to take a closer look into how far apart it has drifted within itself. LR I love the opportunity to see how aesthetics, politics, gender and age influence the artwork. Art is knowledge and I learn something new every time I view a work. Maybe it’s about material culture, history or whatever — every person has a different context — and this is how I get to know about it. And there is an old adage about knowing your neighbours, and this is one way of achieving that. There is a lot of unrest around the world; perhaps artists can help bridge some of those conversations. BC These categories are problematic in contemporary art but they do frame how institutions operate and collect and research contemporary art practice: South-East Asia, Eastern Europe, Western art etc. They keep knowledge of art practice rather fragmented instead of dealing with the individual artist and their body of work. Regionally focused museums, such as the Singapore Art Museum, with their extensive collection of art from the region, create unique and substantial knowledge related to contemporary art from South-East Asia. I am interested in how this knowledge is communicated beyond the region, contributing to global knowledge and the understanding of the development of local modernities. 224—225 APT8 ROUND TABLE