Transpacific Dialogues: Asian/American Art of Collaboration.
Symposium.
Metcalf Auditorium, The Chace Center, Rhode Island School of Design.

The two-day public symposium, Transpacific Dialogues: Asian/American Art of Collaboration, will explore the transformative potential of aesthetic inquiry on how we make collaborative art. It will feature invited artists, scholars, and curators actively involved in creating, researching, and curating collaborative projects across Asia and the United States. Participants are dedicated to transcending national and identity-based boundaries that often constrain collective action in socially engaged art. Additionally, the symposium will address museum practices, with curators from regional institutions discussing their collaborative approaches to curating and collecting Asian/American art amidst diverse interests and perspectives.

Through this multidisciplinary gathering of artists, scholars, and curators, the symposium reimagines collaborative art making as a form of reparative worldmaking. Participants and audiences will explore how transpacific collaboration embodies the praxis of repair. Conceived during the Covid-19 outbreak and resonating profoundly in the face of escalating anti-Asian racism since the pandemic’s onset, the symposium examines how Asian and Asian American artists, navigating between Asia and North America, have organized and cultivated artistic spaces. These spaces foster new kinships and strengthen alliances, often independent of institutional support, aiming to mend racialized disconnections within and between North America and Asia.

Day 1
Thursday, October 24
10:45am-12:00pm RISD Museum Study Room
RISD Museum collection viewing with invited speakers and Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, Conor Moynihan

Metcalf Auditorium
2:00-2:15 Welcome remarks and Introduction
Patricia Barbeito, Dean of Liberal Arts
Jung Joon Lee, Associate Professor, Theory and History of Art and Design

2:15-3:15 Session 1 Community and Care
Yeong Ran Kim, Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultures, Emory University
“Thinking with the Pinks: Collaborative Aesthetics in the Creation of Queer Worlds”

Sky Cubacub, Artist, Rebirth Garments, Chicago

Moderated by Sunhay You, Assistant Professor, Literary Arts and Studies, RISD

3:30-5:00 Keynote Presentation
siren eun young jung, Artist, Seoul
“The Impossible Collaborator: Collaboration as Commitment to Queer Community”

Moderated by RISD Graduate Students, Mitchell Poon and Daniela Ruiz Perez

Day 2
Friday, October 25
Metcalf Auditorium, 1:00-5:00pm

1:00-1:10 Welcome remarks

1:10-2:10 Session 2 Curators on Collaboration
Jheanelle Brown, Faculty, CalArts / Curator, Film at REDCAT
“Writing, Curating, and Teaching Along the Transpacific, with the Transatlantic”

Haely Chang, Jane and Raphael Bernstein Associate Curator of East Asian Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College
“From Expertise to Inclusion: Collaborative Acquisition of Asian American Art at the Hood Museum of Art”

Moderated by Wai Yee Chiong, Curator of Asian Art, RISD Museum

2:15-3:15 Session 3 Performance and Embodied Memories
Jarod Lew, Artist, New Haven

Hieyoon Kim, Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies, Brown University
“A Leaf in the Forest: Embodying Aliveness of the Gwangju Uprising”

Moderated by Jung Joon Lee, Associate Professor, THAD, RISD

A full program can be found at: https://risdmuseum.org/exhibitions-events/events/transpacific-dialogues-asian-american-art-collaboration

This event is sponsored by the Robert Turner Theatrical and Performance Design Fund, the Mr. and Mrs. Cho Fund, and Humanities Fund.