I & R16 Myths & Facts13 (story) Loading...12 Fayen d'Evie12 Video12 Crisis10 Text10 Reproductions9 Improvements8 Listening8 Sound8 Poetry7 Memory7 Photography7 Favourable Conditions7 Performing the Archive6 Sculpture6 Points of Connection6 Environment6 a border can have no boundaries6 Fandom5 Sincerely Yours5 Casual-Paradise5 Painting5 to listen, not to preserve5 Installation5 writing4 Language4 Archives4 The Anti-Shock Doctrine4 interview4 Labour3 House of Mother Tongue, House of Other Tongue3 Artist Walks3 Record3 Performance3 Augury – The diary of birds3 Pandemic3 Precarity2 Textile2 read2 music2 Paradise2 Gentrification2 Community2 Essay2 fiction2 WS × Social Studio2 listen2 Productivity1 Description1 Angna Mein1 watch1 Anna Dunnill | Processing Plant1 vampires1 Translation1 augury1 The Region1 choreography1 TERRA: Memory & Soil1 Improvisation1 talking1 Surprised face; Heart eyes1 movement1 documentation1 dust1 Sex1 interpretation1 scores1 exhibition1 Politics1 spoken word1
I & R16 Myths & Facts13 (story) Loading...12 Fayen d'Evie12 Video12 Crisis10 Text10 Reproductions9 Improvements8 Listening8 Sound8 Poetry7 Memory7 Photography7 Favourable Conditions7 Performing the Archive6 Sculpture6 Points of Connection6 Environment6 a border can have no boundaries6 Fandom5 Sincerely Yours5 Casual-Paradise5 Painting5 to listen, not to preserve5 Installation5 writing4 Language4 Archives4 The Anti-Shock Doctrine4 interview4 Labour3 House of Mother Tongue, House of Other Tongue3 Artist Walks3 Record3 Performance3 Augury – The diary of birds3 Pandemic3 Precarity2 Textile2 read2 music2 Paradise2 Gentrification2 Community2 Essay2 fiction2 WS × Social Studio2 listen2 Productivity1 Description1 Angna Mein1 watch1 Anna Dunnill | Processing Plant1 vampires1 Translation1 augury1 The Region1 choreography1 TERRA: Memory & Soil1 Improvisation1 talking1 Surprised face; Heart eyes1 movement1 documentation1 dust1 Sex1 interpretation1 scores1 exhibition1 Politics1 spoken word1
“The Region: Dialogues on the power and precarity of artist self-organisation in the Asia-Pacific”

The Region: dialogues on the power and precarity of artist self-organisation in the Asia-Pacific is an international symposium, co-created by West Space (Naarm / Melbourne), Para Site (Hong Kong), Enjoy Contemporary Art Space (Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington) and Western Front (Vancouver), and co-facilitated by CAST research group, School of Art, RMIT University (Naarm / Melbourne).

Co-created and presented by four of the longest-standing arts organisations in the Asia-Pacific region, The Region is a digital symposium that examines pressing questions of power and precarity, with a focus on artist self- organisation. The symposium will consider the objectives, freedoms and responsibilities of small institutions as they exist across contemporary contexts of urban gentrification and Western hegemony, whose shared futures are informed by local and specific histories, and which are expressed today through new forms of curating and collectivity.

In 2001 West Space, with 17 international peer organisations, convened Space Traffic, a global conference that aimed to “bring together alternative art spaces from around the world to discuss, tackle, and explore issues surrounding non-mainstream art and culture with a focus on the Asia-Pacific”. On the 20th anniversary of the original symposium, West Space, in partnership with two of the original participants, Western Front and Para Site , and a new partner, Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, will revisit this agenda from our current context.

Download the full program

Enjoy is a leading non-profit arts organisation based in Aotearoa New Zealand, dedicated to developing contemporary art practice, and the audience and discussions around contemporary art. We achieve this through our exhibition programme, events, publishing, artist residencies and other activities.

Established in 2000, Enjoy is located in central Pōneke Wellington, with a rich history as an artist-run space.

Enjoy creates opportunities for learning and exchange around contemporary art in Aotearoa, and to advocate for its role in our society. Our artistic programme prioritises artists, writers and curators who are early-career or interested in growing experimental practices in a supportive and challenging environment.

Governed by a board of trustees, our organisation strives to honor Te Tiriti o Waitangi through its strategic leadership and approach to arts participation. We deliver our Mission and Vision with the investment of our primary funders Creative New Zealand Arts Council Toi Aotearoa, with additional support from Wellington City Council, community funding and fundraising initiatives.

Para Site is Hong Kong’s leading contemporary art centre and one of the oldest and most active independent art institutions in Asia. It produces exhibitions, publications, and discursive and educational projects aimed at forging a critical understanding of local and international phenomena in art and society. Founded in early 1996 as an artist-run space, Para Site was Hong Kong’s first exhibition-making institution of contemporary art and a crucial self-organised structure within the city’s civil society. Throughout the years, Para Site has grown into a contemporary art centre, engaged in a wide array of activities and collaborations with other art institutions, museums, and academic structures in both Hong Kong and the international landscape. In early 2015, Para Site moved to greatly increased premises in Quarry Bay, Hong Kong. Para Site celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2021.

Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre located in Vancouver, Canada on the unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ílwətaʔɬ(Tsleil-Waututh), and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) nations. We support a multidisciplinary program that provides opportunities to artists working across music, media art, visual art, performance, and literature to create and present work. Through commissions, exhibitions, performances, concerts, publishing, residencies, and workshops, Western Front promotes public exchange at a local, national, and international level. We also preserve and provide access to an ever-growing audio-visual archive that documents the organization’s history of artistic programming and production.

CAST Contemporary Art and Social Transformation is a research group based in the School of Art at RMIT University. CAST produces art research that critically engages with environmental, social and public spheres with a particular interest in how artistic practices intersect with issues of equity, access and democracy. CAST is a hub for critical thinking, collaboration and the exchange of ideas, knowledge dissemination, practice-led artistic research and socially-engaged art practice. CAST engages on local and international levels by collaborating with practitioners, communities, industry, and government partners

West Space works locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally, across artforms and sites, to expand the possibilities of exhibition-making. Over our three-decade history, we have evolved as a distinct organisation that combines an artist-centric ethos with the supportive infrastructure of a contemporary art institution.

 

The Region is made possible with support from the City of Melbourne, and RMIT University, Australia

 

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