Symposium – When South is North: contemporary art and culture in South Asia and Australia

SYDNEY. 16 AUG 2017.

4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, in association with the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University, presents:

When South is North:  contemporary art and culture in South Asia and Australia

Wednesday 16^th August, 2017

1 PSQ (1 Parramatta Square), Western Sydney University
169 Macquarie Street,
Parramatta City

Free, registrations required.

 

4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art and the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University invite you to join us for 4A’s 2017 symposium, When South is North: contemporary art and culture in South Asia and Australia.

With local and international speakers drawn from all over South Asia, this symposium is led by artists, cultural commentators, scholars and grass-roots workers who understand the real issues which affect art and culture from the region.  With keynote presentations from artists Adeela Suleman (Pakistan) and Reena Kallat (India) and curator and Director Vidya Shivadas (India)– plus a wide range of Australian-based artists, academics, politicians, community workers and more – When South is North aims to build dialogue around South Asia and Australia in a contemporary arts context.

The focus of the day will be on question-making, debate and discussion – focusing on the hows and whys within the region’s contemporary art and cultural landscapes.

A day-long symposium, this event is free to attend, but RSVPs are required as catering will be included for all registered attendees.

 

When South is North – Symposium Schedule:

---

9.00 – 10.00    Registration 

---

10.00 – 10.15  Welcome

| Prof. Paul JAMES, Western Sydney University, Director, Institute of Society and Culture

| Dr. Mikala TAI, Director of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art

---

10.00 – 10.30  Opening Presentation

 | Speaker: Associate Professor Devleena GHOSH

| Associate Professor Devleena Ghosh of the University of Technology, Sydney, sets the tone for the day, discussing her fields of research in colonial, postcolonial, environmental and global studies, specifically in the Indian Ocean region.

---

10.30AM – 11.30AM Focus Presentation

 | Speaker: Reena KALLAT (India)

Session supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

| Reena Kallat’s practice spans drawing, photography, sculpture and video and engages diverse materials, imbued with conceptual underpinnings. She has widely exhibited at institutions across the world such as Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Vancouver Art Gallery; Saatchi Gallery, London;  Helsinki City Art Museum, Finland; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Casa Asia, Madrid and Barcelona; Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney;  Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai;  amongst many others.  Here, Kallat discusses her practice and experiences of working across cultural boundaries.

---

11.30AM – 1.00PM Panel 1 – Art in, of, from, South Asia? Artists working across cultures and geographies.

 | Moderator: Pedro DE ALMEIDA

| Speakers: Reena KALLAT (India), Ramesh Mario NITHIYENDRAN, Nusra Latif QURESHI, Adeela SULEMAN (Pakistan) and Abdullah M.I SYED

Session supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

| The politics and geography of South Asia are neither neutral or exact. Artists from this region continue to undergo post-colonial cultural and political processes of national building, whereby issues of freedom of speech, national identity-making and economic forces continue to revise and re-invent art making practices and art historical study. Drawing together artists from across Australia and South Asia, this panel discusses artists’ experiences working within and outside South Asian contexts in contemporary art.

---

1.00PM – 2.30PM Lunch Break/Networking/Parramatta Artist Studios Visit

Thanks to the generous support of the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney, lunch will be provided for all registered attendees from 1PM. From 1.30PM, attendees are invited to attend our optional Parramatta Artists Studios tour:

1.30 – 2.30pm: Parramatta Artists Studios: Open Studios
2 Minute Walk from PS1
Level 1 & 2, 68 Macquarie St, Parramatta
Tour and artist talks with Marikit Santiago and Kalanjay Dhir begins at 1.45pm
Meet Parramatta Artists Studios artists and see works in progress from artists working across artistic disciplines. 2017 artists include Khadim Ali, Kate Beckingham, Penelope Cain, Emma Fielden, Annie McKinnon, Salote Tawale, Hannah Toohey, Cigdem Aydemir, Harriet Body, Kalanjay Dhir, Caroline Garcia, Anna McMahon, Marikit Santiago, Shireen Taweel and Garry Trinh.

---

2.30PM – 3.30PM Focus Presentation

 | Speaker: Vidya SHIVADAS (India)

|  Vidya Shivadas is the Director of the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, and a curator based in New Delhi. After her Bachelors in Sociology from Delhi University and a Masters in Art Criticism from Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University of Baroda, she joined Vadehra Art Gallery in 2002. She has curated exhibitions at the Gallery which include Something I’ve been meaning to tell you (with Sunil Gupta), April 2011; Faiza Butt, Ruby Chishti, Masooma Syed (three Pakistani women artists), April 2009; Fluid Structures: Gender and Abstraction in India, April 2008; among others. In 2009, she was a guest curator at Devi Art Foundation and worked on the solo exhibition of Bangladeshi artist Mahbubur Rahman. In 2007, she was invited to participate in the educational programming for Documenta 12 from May to September 2007 in Kassel, Germany.

---

3.30PM – 5.00PM Panel 2 – Situating South Asian arts and culture in Australia

 | Moderator: Dr Mehreen FARUQI

| Speakers: Sunil BADAMI, Melanie EASTBURN, Amrit GILL, Gary PARAMANATHAN, S. SHAKTHIDHARAN

Through census data, in 2011, close to 1 million Australians identified as of South Asian background. This panel will explore the work of prominent organisations and institutions who have made significant impacts on South Asian art and culture in Australia. Our panelists, with backgrounds encompassing policy-making, community arts, literature and media, will unpack what guides cultural decision making and how these decisions impact history, artistic output and authenticity.

---

5.00PM – 6.00PM Networking drinks

Thanks to the generous support of the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney, drinks will be provided for all registered attendees.

---

6.00PM – 6.45PM Keynote Presentation

 | Speaker: Adeela SULEMAN (Pakistan)

With an introduction from Phillip KEIR. The Keir Foundation has co-commissioned Adeela’s work as part of 4A’s associated exhibition, I don’t want to be there when it happens.

| Internationally regarded artist, coordinator of Vasl Artists’ Collective in Karachi, and Associate Professor and Head of the Fine Art Department at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Adeela Suleman is a force to be reckoned with. In this keynote presentation, Suleman will discuss her experience as an artist, educator in Karachi, Pakistan and the violence and censorship she has encountered in her work.

---

 

6.45PM – 7.00PM Questions from the audience and concluding remarks

 | Speakers: Distinguished Professor Ien ANG, Western Sydney University, with Adeela SULEMAN (Pakistan)

| Questions from the audience to Adeela Suleman will be moderated by and followed with concluding remarks and thank you from Distinguished Professor Ien Ang, Western Sydney University

 

---

SPEAKER LIST 

| Professor Ien Ang

| Distinguished Professor Ien Ang is a Professor of Cultural Studies and was the founding Director of the Institute for Culture and Society. She is one of the leaders in cultural studies worldwide, with interdisciplinary work spanning many areas of the humanities and social sciences. Her books, including Watching Dallas, Desperately seeking the audience and On not speaking Chinese, are recognised as classics in the field and her work has been translated into many languages. Her current ARC research project is entitled Sydney’s Chinatown in the Asian Century: from Ethnic Enclave to Global Hub (with Donald McNeill and Kay Anderson in collaboration with the City of Sydney). She currently chairs an Expert Working Group on Asia Literacy: Language and Beyond, for the Australian Council of Learned Academies’ Securing Australia’s Future program. She complted her PhD, 1990, Social and Cultural Sciences, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, a Doctorandus/Mphil, 1982, Mass Communication, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Kandidaats/BA, 1977, Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

| Sunil Badami

| Sunil Badami is a bon vivant, raconteur and flâneur. He’s also a writer, performer, academic and broadcaster. He’s written for publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend, The Australian, The Monthly, The New Daily, The Australian Literary Review, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Art and Australia, Seizure, Southerly, Westerly, Island and Meanjin, and his work has been published in anthologies in Australia and overseas, including in Best Australian Stories and Best Australian Essays.  In addition to regularly chairing and hosting launches, events and festivals, he’s appeared on stage at the Sydney and Melbourne Writers’ Festivals and the Belvoir Street and Griffin Theatres. He presented the national ABC Local Radio show Sunday Takeaway, and continues to appear regularly on ABC TV, ABC Local Radio, Double J and Radio National, where his documentary Riddle. Mystery. Enigma was nominated for the prestigious Prix Marulić. He was also the final Grand Champion of the long-running TV quiz show Sale of the Century. He’s currently editing his novel for publication.

| Pedro de Almeida

| Pedro de Almeida has been program manager at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art since 2012. Pedro’s critical writing on art is published regularly, appearing in ArtAsiaPacific, Art Monthly Australasia, Broadsheet Journal, LEAP, Photofile and un Magazine among others. He is editor of 4A Papers, a newly established online platform for writing on contemporary art and culture in the Asia Pacific region, and is a member of Broadsheet Journal’s international editorial advisory board. Pedro recently participated in the Experimenter Curators’ Hub 2017, Kolkata, an annual platform for developing and sustaining discourse on curatorial practice and exhibition making through critical discussion and debate.

| Melanie Eastburn

| Melanie Eastburn is Senior Curator of Asian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. From 2004 until 2016 she was Curator of Asian art at the National Gallery of Australia. Melanie has also worked at the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, 2003-2004, and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney 2001-2003. She was closely involved in negotiating the long-term loans to the NGA from the National Museum of Cambodia and has curated a number of exhibitions including: Glorious: earthly pleasures and heavenly realms, AGNSW, from May 2017; Time, light, Japan, AGNSW, December 2016 – May 2017; The story of Rama: Indian miniatures from the National Museum, New Delhi (coordinating curator; curator: Dr Vijay Mathur), NGA, 2015; Divine worlds: Indian painting, NGA, 2012; Black robe, white mist: art of the Japanese Buddhist nun Rengetsu, NGA, 2007; Fruits: Tokyo street style, Powerhouse Museum, 2002

| Dr Mehreen Faruqi

| Dr Mehreen Faruqi joined the NSW Legislative Council in June 2013 and is the first Muslim woman elected to any Parliament in Australia. Prior to this she was the Director of the Institute of Environmental Studies at University of NSW and an Associate Professor in Business and Sustainability. She is a civil and environmental engineer with a PHD in Environmental Engineering. Since migrating from Pakistan to Australia in 1992, with her young family, Mehreen’s work has focused on developing real solutions to social and environmental challenges.

| Amrit Gill

| Amrit Gill is Senior Manager, International Projects at the Australia Council for the Arts. Amrit has over 10 years’ experience in the Australian arts sector in community arts and cultural development, social enterprise, and international cultural relations. At the Australia Council she has managed the review of international residencies programs as well as the implementation of the Council’s first international arts strategy. Prior to joining the Australia Council, Amrit worked at Milk Crate Theatre, the British Council, and Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE). She holds a Bachelor of Art Theory/Arts from the University of New South Wales.

| Devleena Ghosh

| Devleena Ghosh teaches in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney. She has researched and published widely on the cultural and political relationships between the British colonies of India and Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as well as on coal and climate change in India and Australia. She is the recipient of the WangGung Wu Award for best article (“Burma-Bengal Crossings: Intercolonial Relationships in Pre-Independence India”) in the Asian Studies Review in 2016.

| Professor Paul James

| Professor Paul James is a professor of Globalisation and Cultural Diversity at Western Sydney University, and has been the Director of the Institute for Culture and Society since 2014. He is a social theorist and writes on topics related to globalisation, sustainability, social change and the human condition. Paul James has been an editor and author of roughly thirty books, most importantly he brought out a 16 volume series called ‘Central Currents in Globalization’, which maps all the older disciplnes in the social sciences and humanities. He is the Research Director for the international organisation Global Reconcilliation. He is on the Council of the Institute of Postcolonial Studies, Honary Professor at King’s College London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (London). He is editor of Arena Journal, as well as an editor/board-member of nine other international journals, including Globalizations and Global Governance. He completed his PhD, 1991, Ashworth Social Theory Centre, Department of History and Philosophy Science, University of Melbourne, and his BA (Hons), 1981, Department of Political Science, University of Melbourne.

| Reena Saini Kallat

| Reena Saini Kallat’s (b. 1973, Delhi, India) practice spans drawing, photography, sculpture and video engages diverse materials, imbued with conceptual underpinnings. She has widely exhibited at institutions across the world such as Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Kennedy Centre, Washington; Vancouver Art Gallery; Saatchi Gallery, London; SESC Pompeia and SESC Belenzino, Sao Paulo; Helsinki City Art Museum, Finland; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Casa Asia, Madrid and Barcelona; ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany; Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney; Hangar Bicocca, Milan; Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai; Chicago Cultural Centre amongst many others.  Her works are part of several public and private collections including the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada; Initial Access (Frank Cohen Collection), UK; Fondazione Golinelli, Italy; Bhaudaji Lad Museum, Mumbai; National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; Ermenegildo Zegna Group, Italy and Burger Collection, Hong Kong amongst others.

| Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran

| Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran (b. 1988 Colombo Sri-Lanka, Australia from 1989) Sri Lankan-born, Sydney-based artist Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran creates rough-edged, vibrant, new-age idols that are at once enticing and disquieting. He experiments with form and scale in the context of figurative sculpture to explore politics of sex, the monument, gender and religion. Formally trained in painting and drawing his practice has a sculptural emphasis which champions the physicality of art making. He has exhibited at various spaces and contexts including the Art Gallery of South Australia’s flagship exhibition, the 2016 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art and The National: New Australian Art 2017. He has presented solo exhibitions at the National Gallery of Australia, The Ian Potter Museum of Art and the Shepparton Art Museum. In 2014, Nithiyendran was awarded the 2014 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (emerging) administered through Artspace. In 2015, he was the winner of the 2015 Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award, Australia’s richest and premier award for artists working in the medium of ceramics. Forthcoming exhibitions include a solo presentation at the 2018 Dhaka Art Summit. His work is held in various collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, Artbank, The Ian Potter Museum of Art and the Shepparton Art Museum.

| Gary Paramanathan

| Gary Paramanathan works at the intersection of arts, culture and community. Currently working at AFTRS, he has previously worked at Fairfield City Council, Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE) and collaborated with a number of arts and cultural organisations. Gary Paramanathan was born in Sri Lanka. His foray into arts comes after completing a Bachelor of Commerce at The University of Sydney, and finding nothing amusing about a nine to five job. Gary is the founder and director of Colourfest Film Festival (2010-2017). He holds a Masters of International Communication from Macquarie University and also writes for the South Asian Australian blog southerncrossings.com.au. He hopes to please his brown parents someday by making lots of money and procuring a Dr. in front of his name.

| Nusra Latif Qureshi

| Nusra Latif Qureshi – 1973; arrived Melbourne 2001; lives and works Melbourne. Nusra Latif Qureshi trained in Lahore in the Mughal miniature painting tradition and has developed an extraordinary contemporary painting practice that engages with the rich, visual histories of South Asia. Qureshi is recognized as an important member of a generation of Pakistani artists who have revived and innovated the traditional art of Mughal miniature painting. Qureshi lectured at the National School of Art in Lahore from 1995 to 1999, and immigrated to Australia in 2001 to take up postgraduate study. She has shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions across Asia, the United States, Europe and Australia.

| S. Shakthidharan

| Shakthi is the founder and artistic director of Western Sydney arts company CuriousWorks. His current projects are in partnership with, or have appeared at, Sydney Film Festival, Belvoir Theatre and Streaming Museum (New York). Shakthi was Associate Artist at Carriageworks from 2013-2015. In 2015 he was awarded the Phillip Parson’s Playwright Award from Belvoir Theatre and in 2011 the Kirk Robson by Australia Council for the Arts, given to an artist for their work in relation to social justice and community cultural leadership.

| Vidya Shivadas

| Vidya Shivadas is the Director of the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, and a curator based in New Delhi. After her Bachelors in Sociology from Delhi University and a Masters in Art Criticism from Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University of Baroda, she joined Vadehra Art Gallery in 2002. She has curated exhibitions at the Gallery which include Something I’ve been meaning to tell you (with Sunil Gupta), April 2011; Faiza Butt, Ruby Chishti, Masooma Syed (three Pakistani women artists), April 2009; Fluid Structures: Gender and Abstraction in India, April 2008; among others. In 2009, she was a guest curator at Devi Art Foundation and worked on the solo exhibition of Bangladeshi artist Mahbubur Rahman. In 2007, she was invited to participate in the educational programming for Documenta 12 from May to September 2007 in Kassel, Germany.

| Adeela Suleman

| Adeela Suleman – Born 1970 in Karachi, Pakistan. Suleman studied Sculpture at the Indus Valley School of Art and completed a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Karachi. She is currently the Coordinator of Vasl Artists’ Collective in Karachi, in addition to being Associate Professor and Head of the Fine Art Department at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. Suleman has participated extensively with group and solo exhibitions worldwide, including Phantoms of Asia at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, the 2013 Asian Art Biennial at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Hanging Fire – Contemporary Art from Pakistan at The Asia Society, New York; Gallery Rohtas 2, Lahore; Canvas Gallery, Karachi; Aicon Gallery, New York; and, the International Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Bologna, Italy (2008). Reviews and features of work appear in Artforum and the New York Times, among other publications. The artist lives and works in Karachi, Pakistan.

| Dr. Abdullah M.I. Syed

| Dr. Abdullah M.I. Syed – (b. 1974, Karachi Pakistan) is a contemporary artist and designer working between Sydney, Karachi and New York. Trained in diverse disciplines, his art practice weaves religious, cultural and socio-political narratives of east and west, seamlessly knitting together art historical references and concerns from each. Syed holds a PhD in Art, Media and Design (2016) and a Master of Fine Arts (2009) from University of New South Wales, Sydney. Syed’s works have been featured in nine solo exhibitions and several national and international curated group exhibitions.

| Dr. Mikala Tai

| Mikala Tai is a curator, researcher and academic specialising in contemporary Asian art and Australian design, who over the past decade has collaborated with local, national and international organisations to strengthen ties between Australia and Asia. Mikala currently sits on the board of BUS Projects, Melbourne. She is on the Chinese New Year Festival Advisory Panel, and is an Editorial Advisor for UnMagazine as well as a seasonal lecturer and tutor at The University of Melbourne. In 2006 Mikala completed her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) at the University of Melbourne and in early 2015 submitted her PhD at UNSW Art & Design examining the influence of the Global City on China’s local art infrastructure.

When South Is North would not be possible without the support of our project partners (see below).

Symposium Documentation (see below)
All images: 4A’s Kai Wasikowski