What inspired three MA Asian Art Histories graduates to establish an independent art space, and how do they see their space contributing to the local art scene? Did their experience at LASALLE College of the Arts shape their plans? In this podcast, current Asian Art Histories student, Ely Nayir, sat down with the three founders of newly-formed SEED The Art Space Ltd (SEED) to find out what they each bring to the table.

This interview was undertaken with the artist Phaptawan Suwannakudt, in her Sydney studio prior to her exhibition Retold-Untold Stories, held at Sydney College of the Arts in March 2016. Retold-Untold Stories was produced as part of an Asialink Arts Residency programme funded by Arts NSW, that Phaptawan undertook from October–December 2014, at Ne’-Na Contemporary Art Space, Chiang Mai. The works were first exhibited at Chiang Mai University Arts Centre during three weeks in December 2014, before they were restructured and reexhibited in Sydney, eighteen months later.

On 18 March 2020, Taiwan made the announcement that all foreign nationals will be barred from entering the country. This is the new reality we are living in the thick of the global coronavirus pandemic. It is hard to believe now that just about four months ago, at the end of November, the Asian Art Histories students were in Taiwan and experiencing one of the most exhilarating milestones in our learning journey.

Globalisation has affected the perceptions and presentations of contemporary art, exposing new grounds within the art world. If any characteristic of contemporary art directly entwines with the geopolitical transformations of the past three decades, it is the biennale phenomenon. Reflecting the politics of a global world in constant development, biennales have come to play an increasingly significant role in responding to the immediacy and flexibility of contemporary art’s development.

Prevailing art historical discourse often briefly references the audience as being participants in an artwork, but seldom goes deeper into the individual viewer’s experience. This study proposes a new method of analysis through the use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). A qualitative method of data collection, IPA allows the reader to understand a chosen individual subject’s reception of a particular event, or ‘phenomena’, from their perspective and specific context(s).

Introduction

Three Seasons, by Vietnamese-American film director Tony Bui, was released in the United States in 1999. Bui left Vietnam with his family at the age of two, following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, and spent his formative years in the United States. Belonging to the significant ‘1.5 generation’, Bui was exposed, along with his contemporaries, to the way the United States viewed and represented the war in mainstream culture. That is, the war became, in its immediate aftermath, “a resource for the American culture industry”.