London, GB
ASEM II
Touring the Arts of East and Southeast Asia in Europe:
The IIAS, in conjunction with the Asia-Europe Foundation (Singapore) and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), was a partner with the British arts agency Visiting Arts in convening a recent major conference on the theme of 'Touring the Arts of East and South East Asia in Europe: Exploring Co-operation'.By Terry Sandell
The conference, which took place from 1-4 April in the context of the Asia-Europe Summit (ASEM 2) in London, brought together 142 people from 21 of the 25 ASEM countries. Held appropriately and symbolically at the ICA (the Institute of Contemporary Arts), London's major centrally-located, cutting-edge arts venue, the aim of the conference was practical, and in particular, to provide a starting point for looking at the main issues related to the effective touring of the arts of East and Southeast Asia and what should be done to address themRunning parallel with the ASEM political, economic, and trade meetings, the conference's timing was to ensure that the cultural dimension was not neglected at the Summit and indeed both Derek Fatchett, the British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs responsible for ASEM matters, and Robin Cook, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, both participated in the conference proceedings with very supportive speeches. Robin Cook, who made an impromptu and witty speech on the importance of cultural matters and launched a cyberlink with a Manila club at one of the conference's lively parties, brought along some of his fellow foreign ministers who mingled with participants with enjoyment before moving on late to their next engagement at Buckingham Palace!
It will be recalled that the first Asia-Europe Meeting, known as ASEM 1, had been held in Bangkok in 1996 where, for the first time, the leaders of the European Union countries met collectively with their colleagues from the ten Asian countries -- Brunei Darussalam, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- to lay the foundation for a new partnership based not only on regular biennial summits but also on a process. It was intended that this process should involve not only state leaders and politicians but also a cultural dimension including intellectual contacts and people-to-people exchanges aimed at bringing the people of the two regions closer together.
If the cultural aspirations and interests of the ASEM process were to be developed, it was obviously important this was reflected in London. Visiting Arts had therefore developed and stimulated a lively cultural and arts programme running from March to June with two broad themes: the highlighting and showcasing of aspects of the arts and cultures of the ASEM Asian countries and a series of multilateral conferences and seminars involving participants from both the EU and the ASEM Asian countries.
The Touring Asian Arts in Europe conference was part of the latter and generated a lot of interest, ideas and networking within its formal sessions but even more in the margins where the heterogeneity and complexity of the terms Europe and Asia produced a dynamic in which the Europeans also explored co-operation with Europeans as well as with Asian colleagues. Most of the links and partnerships the conference generated were being formed quite naturally according to the artistic, aesthetic, and intellectual territory individual participants occupied rather than related to region or country of origin.
A lot of ideas, proposals, and initiatives, not to mention relationships are emerging from the conference and the focus is on the future, circulating information and widening the participation. It is worth noting some of the key elements to emerge so far.
One of the constant themes was that, notwithstanding the fact that a lot of information and contacts do exist, even the key and most involved players in Asia-Europe cultural dialogue and arts exchange feel there is not enough. It was generally felt that there was a need to make existing information better known and make a proactive attempt to fill gaps. Similarly, there appeared to be a strong belief that networks between Asia and Europe do not exist and that even within Asia itself, where some fledgling networks are starting to appear, much needs to be done.
Various practical proposals are being explored. The first and most immediate is that Visiting Arts will use its existing website, which already has a lot of ASEM-related information on it, to track and give wider distribution to ideas and developments flowing from the conference. The Visiting Arts website can be found at http://www.britcoun.org/visitingarts/asem2
Indeed another theme was that of using new technology and new forms of communication, such as the web, more extensively and effectively. Several examples and proposals were suggested. The three-volume Visiting Arts Asia-Pacific Arts Directory, a major listing of arts organizations in the region, will be updated and put on the Visiting Arts website. There will also be an exploration of more linking of websites and existing information, in particular of European organizations interested in receiving Asian cultural and artistic product or collaborating with Asian partners and of what is on offer from Asia. There was also a recurrent request for case study information both in terms of successful and unsuccessful examples of touring and of collaborations.
Related to the information issue was the feeling that while one of the strengths of the conference was that it covered a wide spectrum of art and cultural forms, the next stage should be meetings of smaller, more narrowly-focused groups. It is clear that in certain cases such groups, even when they have very evident shared interests, are not in contact with each other. This seemed to be true, for example, of the museum people attending the conference who seemed to find common goals and the energies to pursue them in London. Of the several ideas which this group discussed, one included sharing experience and practice on using relevant performing arts groups from Asia in museum exhibitions to help contextualize them better.
Although the focus of the conference was practical, major relevant intellectual questions also arose. Two in particular were always not far from the surface. The first was the fact that most, if not all, concepts of contemporary arts come from Western thinking and it was pointed out by one Asian delegate that even the concept of cultural exchange is a predominantly Western concept. The second was the question of the traditional and contemporary categorization in the arts and especially the nature of 'traditional' arts in Asia, their context there and the problems of transposing them to Europe and to Western presentational contexts. One area of concern was the need to respect the Asian traditional concepts of arts, aesthetics, and thinking and also the living artistic traditions.
There was a significant representation of practising artists at the conference and they, as well as others, focused on the question of collaborations and relationships. There was discussion on the need for attention to be given to longer-term relationships and collaborations, with artistic process being as important as product. The need for such collaborations to be given time and space, to be artist-led, and to be supported by more imaginative and simpler funding mechanisms were other points made.
The diversity, of Europe was matched by the even greater heterogeneity of the Asian participants and this led to interesting differences of opinion including views on the role of government and official bodies. The tendency of many European arts practitioners automatically to play down, avoid or at least be sceptical of an active official role by government was not shared by many Asians, even those who understood the position of their European colleagues.
Looking at the obstacles to a greater flow of Asian arts and touring into Europe, several interesting observations were made, not least lack of knowledge of each other. The language barrier was an obvious example, even at the conference where English was used and with the Asians with an English-language background at an advantage over their Asian colleagues for whom English was very much a foreign language. Asian colleagues quite rightly drew attention to the limited study of Asian history and languages in the European education system, while on the European side there were often comments that in Asia, insufficient research or interest is taken in the latest elements of European culture and arts.
This lack of knowledge about each other also arose in relation to contemporary issues such as the relationship between 'culture' and mass-mediated entertainment and how Asian/European perspectives differ, through to the perennial question of whether European promoters and presenters should be dealing with westernized contemporary art or 'real' Asian art.
One session of the conference itself, in which Paul van der Velde of the HAS appropriately took a major lead, was devoted to the way arts practitioners and academics who are Asian specialists could work more effectively together. It was a useful session and revealed that it is a wide area for discussion and one which could usefully be pursued in the context of other conferences as there is a potential synergy which is not being exploited. There are also some fundamental questions which might usefully be addressed. Two of them are worth mentioning. The first was an observation that one reason for there being less collaboration than there should be was that arts practitioners often work with modern or contemporary arts while university syllabuses and academic interests often end at the beginning of the twentieth century. Similarly arts practitioners can sometimes be out of their depth when presenting Asian work (e.g. religion-based performance), inappropriately placing it in contexts and venues to which it is not suited.
Although questions of funding arose, both in discussion of the recent economic turmoil in Asia and more generally, it did not predominate suggesting that while very important, there are several other issues, such as information and networking, which represent obstacles. The need to lobby to ensure that the cultural dimension of co-operation between Europe and Asia is seen as essential as the political and economic ties was underlined, and a challenging point was made by one Asian speaker that a small percentage of any European funding going in to shore up corrupt, failed Asian financial institutions might be more usefully invested in cultural links and activity.
The wide diversity of participation kept the focus broad and it was useful for some participants, for example, to be reminded that cultural linkages between Europe and Asia exist not only in high art but also at popular levels (music, dance culture, comics, film/video etc.). The problem of Asian arts being perceived or marketed as exotic or even presented ideologically (e.g. an apparent Western fascination with dissident art) was also raised clearly.
Another strong thread concerned the impact of the big cites not only as a theme in a lot of contemporary Asian art but also the concept of city to city cultural contact as opposed to nation to nation cultural exchange. This also linked indirectly with the whole question of hybridization in cities like London and elsewhere in Europe where resident Asian immigrant communities are now both influencing mainstream culture and contributing to new art forms and new cultures.
The lack of convenient showcasing opportunities for European promoters wanting to see Asian work was one identified gap, while on the Asian side, the lack of opportunity to obtain a more sophisticated understanding of how the European 'market' operates, including festivals and programmes, was noted.
A short report on the conference, including information on participants, can be obtained from Visiting Arts or found on the website mentioned above.
For any further information, contact
Visiting Arts
11 Portland Place
London W1N 4EJ
Great Britain
Tel: +44-171-389 3019
Fax:+44-171-389 3016
E-mail: asemconf@visitingarts.demon.co.uk