A WORLD OF MANY WORLDS: Asia Forum & Asymmetry at the 60th Venice Biennale

Asia Forum and Asymmetry Art Foundation

Asia Forum and Asymmetry will gather for a One-Day assembly on Global Asias at Fondazione Querini Stampalia on 20 April 2024

Fondazione Querini Stampalia

Kindly note that the venue has limited capacity and seats will be assigned on a first-come first-served basis. There will be some walk-in slots available at the door. To respect our performers and speakers, please arrive on time for each session. Many words are walked in the world. Many worlds are made. Many worlds make us. […] In the world of the powerful there is room only for the big and their helpers. In the world we want, everybody fits. The world we want is a world in which many worlds fit.— ‘Fourth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle’Quoted by Marisol de la Cadena and Mario Blaser, A World of Many Worlds, 2018 <a href="https://asia-forum.international/" title="https://asia-forum.international/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Asia Forum</a> and <a href="https://www.asymmetryart.org/" title="https://www.asymmetryart.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Asymmetry Art Foundation</a> are excited to co-present ‘A World of Many Worlds’, a One-Day Assembly on Global Asias, as part of the official Collateral Events of the 60th edition of <a href="https://www.labiennale.org/en" title="https://www.labiennale.org/en" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">La Biennale di Venezia</a>. The one-day assembly will take place on Saturday, 20 April 2024 on the first public day during opening week at the historic cultural institution <a href="https://www.querinistampalia.org/en/" title="https://www.querinistampalia.org/en/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Fondazione Querini Stampalia</a>. ‘A World of Many Worlds’ is realised with the support of Asymmetry Art Foundation and <a href="https://bagrifoundation.org/" title="https://bagrifoundation.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Bagri Foundation</a>.‘A World of Many Worlds’ responds to the Biennale’s theme Foreigners Everywhere, to consider what it means to acknowledge the existence of multiple worlds rather than just multiple subjects, and what it might mean to put them in relation. The conversation asks us to imagine a multiplicity of social geographies, political positions, cosmologies, aesthetic perspectives, and temporal locations, while seeing them not as incommensurable, not as universal, but as pluriversal. By doing so, we reject false notions of universalism that centre the West and merely include other narratives, politics, and modes of expression. The flowing streams of our voices are instead multiple, connecting geographies and articulating new intra-related modes of being and knowing.These flows issue from and through Asias. Not an Asia spectacularised for global consumption, but an introspective constellation of Global Asias that looks deeply at its difficult histories of colonisation, genocide, environmental devastation, displacement, diaspora, dispossession, and war, and seeks to imagine new worlds into being through a multiplicity of positions, connections, diasporas, and solidarities. ‘A World of Many Worlds’ offers a portal into different temporalities, allowing a glimpse into hopeful transformation, surprise, and joyful encounters.Please be reminded to arrive on time as the venue has limited capacity.

‘A World of Many Worlds’ is co-organised by Annie Jael Kwan, Michèle Ruo Yi Landolt, Hammad Nasar, John Tain, Ming Tiampo, and Nick Yu.<a href="https://asia-forum.international/" title="https://asia-forum.international/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">The Asia Forum for the Contemporary Art of Global Asias</a> is a platform envisioned for discourse that brings awareness to and contextualises the fast-developing artistic practices and contemporary geo-politics of Asia/s. Its interdisciplinary approach and reflexive work will reveal and explore deep histories of exchange and flows, and overlapping concerns and heritages, to engage a ‘public’ eager for discourse on urgent issues of climate, democracy, anti-racism, and creative agency for addressing global anxieties through the lens and engine of “Asia/s’.<a href="https://www.asymmetryart.org/" title="https://www.asymmetryart.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Asymmetry Art Foundation</a> is a London-based independent, non-profit foundation dedicated to nurturing curatorial practice and disseminating knowledge about Chinese and Sinophone contemporary art. Asymmetry works regionally and internationally, promoting meaningful exchange between creative practitioners, institutions, and audiences to enable pioneering research, collaboration, production, and participation.The <a href="https://bagrifoundation.org/" title="https://bagrifoundation.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Bagri Foundation</a> is a UK registered charity, inspired by unique and unexpected ideas that weave the traditional and the contemporary of Asian culture. The Foundation, with its roots in education, is driven by curiosity and a desire to learn, and aims for each project to challenge, engage and inspire. Through a diverse programme of film, visual arts, music, dance, literature and talks, the Bagri Foundation gives artists and experts from across Asia and the diaspora wider visibility on the global stage.

Agenda

Registration

Welcome

‘Blowing a feather’ performance by Yao Qingmei

Opening invocation

Isaac Chong Wai, Rachel Dedman, Sandra Gamarra Heshiki, Yasufumi Nakamori, Hammad Nasar, Vidha Saumya

Conversation 1: Histories, mobilities and intimacies in diaspora 

Lap-See Lam & Wingyee Wu, 'Mother’s Tongue' (2018, 17’42”)
Subash Thebe Limbu, 'Ladhamba Tayem; Future Continuous' (2023, 14’50”)
Kang Seung Lee, 'The Heart of a Hand' (2023, 13’13”)

Screening programme

Irwan Ahmett & Tita Salina, Yuko Mohri, Amol K. Patil, Sakiya, Mark Salvatus, Trevor Yeung

Conversation 2: Eco-cosmologies and climate/social/racial justice

'PEARLS' by Joshua Serafin, excerpt performed by Lukresia Quismundo

Garden performance followed by aperitivo 

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A WORLD OF MANY WORLDS: Asia Forum & Asymmetry at the 60th Venice Biennale

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