Art Writing and Publishing in Southeast Asia: Sustainable Ecosystems and Infrastructures

Our 2021 workshop ‘Terms and Conditions of Writing and Publishing Art in Southeast Asia’ aimed to facilitate peer learning and experiment with diverse or new forms of art writing and publishing among researchers, artists and writers across the region.

Our 2024–5 workshop ‘Art Writing and Publishing in Southeast Asia: Sustainable Ecosystems and Infrastructures’ re-engages with the participants of the 2021 programme to develop new convivialities, research ecosystems and infrastructures for sustainable art and research cultures.

The 18 participants include lara acuin, Dini Adanurani, Vincent Ardidon, Van Do, Hung Duong, Roma Estrada, Lyra Garcellano, Prapan Jangkitchai, Danielle Khleang, Sheau Yun Lim, Moeng Meta, Tam Nguyen, Nuttamon Pramsumran, Akmalia Rizqita ‘Chita’, Ibrahim Soetomo, Ariane Sutthavong, Phoo Myat Thwe, Dominic Zinampan.

This project is supported by a British Academy Writing Workshop Alumni Grant. We are hosting the programme with our friends Thanavi Chotpradit, Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez, Tram Luong, Brigitta Isabella and Lyno Vuth.

lara acuin is a writer and cultural worker based in Metro Manila. She has written for publications on art and the practices of artists. Her exhibition and curatorial work have contributed to various projects locally and overseas. She is interested in initiatives that centre on learning, research, and writing and how these interface with the public. She is a consultant for an art collection and an arts management teacher.

Dini Adanurani is a film and art researcher based in Jakarta, with interests in film history, archives, media and everyday narratives. She was a member of the Kultursinema research group, which focuses on Indonesian film history, and served as a selector for the ARKIPEL Film Festival 2023. In 2022, she participated in the Locarno Critics Academy. Alongside two other writers, she is developing Aspek Rasio, a platform for screen culture critique.

Vincent Ardidon is a writer from Manila.

Van Do is a curator and occasional writer based in Hanoi, whose practice concerns artistic interventions and negotiation of existing sites and seeks to create critically engaged spaces. She’s currently Artistic Director of Á Space, an artist-initiated space in Hanoi for experimental art.

Hung Duong is an independent writer and translator whose criticism of Southeast Asian contemporary art delivers questions and responses about art and society. Their writing has appeared in Artforum, ArtAsiaPacific, and Mekong Review. Hung’s website sea-through.net is an eclectic platform featuring artists and events across Southeast Asia.

Roma Estrada teaches languages, the humanities and civic consciousness in Manila. Exercising critical pedagogy, she contextualises instruction around pressing issues in and beyond the Philippines. Outside the school gates, Roma curates, delivers, and/or facilitates discussions and workshops on critical and creative writing, independent publishing, citizen journalism, human rights and collective memory.

Lyra Garcellano’s research centres on the exploration of art ecosystems and historical narratives, and her output is often presented as installations, paintings, moving images, comics and writing. She is particularly interested in how prevailing models in the art world impact artistic practice. Her book Elsewhere: Writings on Art and published by Grana Books was released early 2024.

Prapan Jangkitchai graduated with a Master’s degree in Asian Art Histories from Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore. He was a recipient of LASALLE’s SEAsia Scholars Award. His areas of interest include the relationship between art and politics, power, identity and memory in modern Thai art.

Danielle Khleang is an arts administrator, writer and educator who enjoys researching and writing about Cambodian contemporary art. Her articles have featured in Art & Market, Plural Art Mag and the International Examiner, among other publications. Currently, she serves as the Programs Manager at the Henry Art Gallery, the contemporary art museum at the University of Washington.

Sheau Yun Lim is a curator, writer, and designer based between Kuala Lumpur (MY) and Cambridge, MA (USA). She is a team member of Malaysia Design Archive and co-founder of cloud projects, an independent publishing house. She is currently pursuing her MArch at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Meta Moeng is an independent curator working on contemporary art in Cambodia. She is interested in exploring questions of urban form and urban development and observations of cities where development changes the landscape. She lives and works between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.

Tam Nguyen works extensively as a curator, writer and researcher. Tam’s practice examines the complex academic and sociopolitical conventions perpetuating masterful discourses in the arts. In their recent projects, Tam focuses on unpacking the global infrastructures that either constitute or hinder artistic and cultural mobilities among communities of young creatives.

Nuttamon Pramsumran, a Thai artist and author, holds a B.A. in Dramatic Arts from Chulalongkorn University and an M.F.A. in Art Theory from Silpakorn University. She co-founded Circle Theatre Bangkok in 2018 and collaborated in community projects like Loei Art Fes (2021) and Parallel Normalities (2021-2023) between Thailand and Japan. She is currently based in Tokyo.

Akmalia Rizqita, or better known as ‘Chita’, channels her interests in art organisation through working in art spaces and organising various art programmes. She worked as a gallery manager at RUBANAH Underground Hub, Jakarta from 2018 to 2023, and was a member of the curatorial team of Jakarta Biennale 2021: ESOK. Currently, she explores her curiosity about various visual forms with the research group Hyphen—.

Ibrahim Soetomo is a writer, researcher and arts program manager. His current research focuses on the lives of artists and critics in the first decade of Indonesian art centre Taman Ismail Marzuki. Blending criticism tradition with literary and ecology writing, Ibrahim seeks ways in which art can be written and explored.

Ariane Sutthavong is involved in curating, writing and translation projects at the intersection of art and politics. She co-founded the inappropriate BOOK CLUB, an initiative centred around the collective reading and writing of texts supporting a third view of contemporary art in Thailand, beyond both the confines of the state and the interests of capitalism.

Phoo Myat Thwe is a curator and art researcher from Myanmar with interests in new media theory and digital humanities. Her curatorial works create immersive experiences for (re)constructions of meanings and new world(s)-building. Her works have been featured in Art&Market and ArtAsiaPacific.

Dominic Zinampan is a Manila-based cultural worker who mainly works with text and sound. In 2016, he received a Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for Art Criticism. He is currently a member of Tambisan sa Sining, a cultural national democratic mass organisation focusing on labour issues.