Session 2

Zoe Butt

Date
2019/10/12 14:50-15:20
Venue
TFAM’s auditorium

The Journey of Conscience as Consciousness: Re-tracing Histories

What does it mean to think and present, as a curator, the shared histories between artists and the trauma of cultural memory, to international audiences? In the process of commissioning work that undertakes an examination of nation beyond the borders of country, what are some of the considerations necessary in its research and realization?

This presentation examines particular projects commissioned / realized for Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber – Journey Beyond the Arrow. Sharing the learning experience of working across the violence of cultural borders; interrogating historical periods that remain locked under official red tape; acknowledging the residual suspicion and emotional stigmatism between and within differing community: all of this and more will be shared in addition to the curatorial praxis of interpretation in the realization of this labor as an exhibition experience for foreign audiences.

Central to the motivations behind such a journey of conscience is the question of responsibility in the facilitation of history as curators. In understanding the landscape of artistic production and art education across the world is very uneven, and in knowing how the art industry has an increasing penchant for “socially-engaged” artwork – how do we as curators, advise and engage community through artist’s and their production? What are our parameters of concern when it comes to our facilitation of representation of others, in the naming of people, issues, cultures and potentially tragic circumstances that are not our own, by the artists in our care? The necessity to comprehend there is always intangible elements to every tangible occurrence is crucial in the transference of object and testimony across differing spaces of culture.

Artists under discussion will include Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Jompet Kuswidananto, Phan Thao Nguyen, Antariksa, Ahmad Fuad Osman and Kidlat Tahimik.

 

Zoe Butt
Zoe Butt is a curator and writer based in Vietnam. Her curatorial practice centers on building critically thinking and historically conscious artistic communities, fostering dialogue among countries of the global south. She is currently Artistic Director of the Factory Contemporary Arts Centre (The Factory), Vietnam’s first purpose-built space for contemporary art, in Ho Chi Minh City. She formerly served as: Executive Director and Curator of Sàn Art, an independent contemporary art space in Ho Chi Minh City (2009-2016); Director, International Programs, Long March Project, Beijing, China (2007-2009) and Assistant Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia (2001-2007). Zoe has been published by Hatje Cantz, Germany; Art Review, London / Hong Kong; Art Asia Pacific, Hong Kong; Independent Curators International, New York; Lalit Kala Akademi, India; Artlink, Australia; Printed Projects, Ireland, JRP-Ringier, Zurich; Routledge, London; Sternberg Press, Berlin, amongst others.

Zoe is a PhD candidate with the Center for Art and Politics, University of New South Wales, Australia; a member of the Asian Art Council for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum since 2015. In 2019, Zoe presented Leaving the Echo Chamber: Journey Beyond the Arrow, one of three exhibitions, as part of the 14th Sharjah Biennial.

Her curatorial projects include interdisciplinary dialogue platforms such as Conscious Realities (2013-2016); the online exhibition Embedded South(s) (2016); and group exhibitions of Vietnamese and international artists at various international venues. Recent exhibitions include: Interface: Oanh Phi Phi, The Factory, Ho Chi Minh City (2019), Empty Forest: Tuan Andrew Nguyen, The Factory, Ho Chi Minh City (2017), Spirit of Friendship, The Factory, Ho Chi Minh City (2017), Poetic Amnesia: Phan Thao Nguyen, The Factory, Ho Chi Minh City (2017), Dislocate: Bui Cong Khanh, The Factory, Ho Chi Minh City (2016), Conjuring Capital San Art, Ho Chi Minh City (2014), Disrupting Choreographies, Carre d’Art, Nimes, France (2013), Poetic Politic, Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, USA (2012).