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.
- 98-B Collaboratory (Philippines)
- Asialink (Australia)
- Bundanon Trust (Australia)
- East Coast Artist-in-Residency (ECAiR) (Malaysia)
- Green Papaya Art Projects (Philippines)
- Grey Projects (Singapore)
- HOF + Surface Arts (Thailand)
- HOM Art Trans (Malaysia)
- JavaArts (Cambodia)
- Komunitas Salihara (Indonesia)
- Lostgens Contemporary Art Space (Malaysia)
- Muong Air (Vietnam)
- Red Gate Gallery & Residency (China)
- Rimbun Dahan (Malaysia)
- Sa Sa Art Projects (Cambodia)
- Sasikirana Dance Camp (Indonesia)
- sembilan residency (Malaysia)
- Shalini Ganendra Fine Arts (Malaysia)
- Toccata Studio (Malaysia)
- WOLO Residency (Malaysia)
Photos
More photos can be found on our Facebook page.
- Angela Hijjas speaking to meeting participants in our dance studio
- Meeting participants visiting Rimbun Dahan’s artist studios
- Meeting facilitator Jean-Baptiste Joly
- Angela Hijjas of Rimbun Dahan welcoming participants
- John Baylis of Bundanon Trust talking about their residency programs
- Bayu Utomo Radjikin of HOM Art Trans speaking during a session
- Eliza Emily Roberts talking about Asialink and Res Artis during the Glocal Networks session
- Merv Espina of Green Papaya Projects speaking during a session
- Xin Yi of sembilan residency adding to a list of questions
- Yeoh Lian Heng speaking to participants on excursion day at Lostgens Art Space
- Meeting participants check out Lostgens’ rooftop garden
- Shalini Ganendra of Shalini Ganendra Fine Art speaks to participants in the SGFA gallery residence
- Participants speak in and under the bamboo pavillion in SGFA
- Tan E-Jan speaking to participants gathered at Toccata Studio, the last stop of the excursion day
- On the last day, we held a keynote presentation on interdisciplinarity by Jean-Baptiste Joly, open to the public
- Jean-Baptiste Joly addressing the meeting participants and guests from the public
- Meeting participants vote on the open topics they’d most like to address before the end of the meeting
- List of open topics suggested and voted on by participants