Res Artis Meeting of Southeast Asian Arts Residencies 2016

The Res Artis Meeting of Southeast Asian Arts Residencies 2016 was a 4-day regional meeting of arts residency representatives held on July 20 – 23 2016 at Rimbun Dahan outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The participants consisted of 20 representatives from 19 residencies and organizations from 7 Southeast Asian countries, as well as outside SEA, from Australia and China. The meeting was facilitated by Jean-Baptiste Joly, founding and artistic director of Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany, and Res Artis board member.

The meeting was a joint project by Rimbun Dahan, a private arts residency centre in Malaysia, and Res Artis, the largest global membership based residency network headquartered in the Netherlands, and was supported by Goethe-Institut Malaysia as the main sponsor.

The idea for the meeting arose from a feeling of disconnectedness as an operating arts residency within the Southeast Asian region, and was envisioned to foster stronger ties with arts residencies in neighbouring countries and in the general region, which would in turn strengthen ‘residency culture’ and its sustainability in Southeast Asia. Participants presented different models of running residencies, shared their different cultural contexts and traded ideas to troubleshoot issues and concerns. We hope the connections and networks developed during the meeting feed back into the development of programs that cultivate artistic talent and practice in the region, stronger and more productive external and internal exchange programs , and into building ongoing resources for the development of more residencies in the region.

The meeting was produced and project managed by Syar S. Alia, Arts Residency Manager at Rimbun Dahan, with an organizing team consisting of Bilqis Hijjas, Dance Program Director at Rimbun Dahan, Eliza Emily Roberts, Vice President of Res Artis and Arts Residencies Manager for Asialink, Mark Venegoor, Director of Res Artis, and Birte Gehm, Communication Manager/Web Editor for Res Artis. Documentation during the meeting was carried out by ARTERI and Malaysian Art Archive.

A short write-up on the meeting was also published on the Res Artis website, and can be read here.

Program

Three of the meeting days were dedicated to roundtable discussions and panels, with the third day set aside for an excursion to three different residency spaces in and around Kuala Lumpur: Lostgens Contemporary Art Space, Shalini Ganendra Fine Art, and Toccata Studio.

Day 1 Sessions

Community engagement and the social responsibility of artist residencies
Residencies rooted in ‘place’
Thinking outside the field: Alternative approaches & residency spaces
Institutional programming: The role of artist residencies in the broader arts eco-system

Day 2 Sessions

Artist-Residency Relationships & Alumni
Residency Resources
Glocal Networks

Day 3 Excursions

Day 4 Sessions

Interdisciplinary Residencies; Keynote by Jean-Baptiste Joly (followed by a meet and greet for guests from the public to speak to meeting participants and ask about their residency programs)
Participant-Led Open Sessions
- Facilities vs Programming
- Feedback and Evaluation for Residencies
- Virtual Residencies
- Residencies as Soft Power

Participating residencies/organizations

Participants were invited from a compiled list of Southeast Asian residencies, with Res Artis members being given priority. The organizing team also prioritized getting representation from as many countries in the region as possible before opening up the meeting to Res Artis members from other countries that had an investment or interest in the Southeast Asian region. As Rimbun Dahan could only provide accommodation for a certain number of people, spots were limited. We hope that more residencies and countries can be represented in any future iterations of the meeting.