APPENDIX: PARTICIPATING ART GROUPS AND ART WORKERS
Beijing ZHANG Zhaohui
ZHANG Zhaohui received in 1998 a Master of Art in Curatorial Studies at Bard College, New York and a Master of Art in Art History in 1995 at China Arts Academy, Beijing. He is a Beijing-based free-lance curator and writer. He curated Food Art at Club Vogue (2000), Departure from Beijing for Design & Art Museum (’99), Corruptionist for Alternative Space, Beijing (’98), and When Heaven and Earth Meets: Xu Bing and Cai Guo Qiang for Art Museum at Bard College, New York (’98). www.china-gallery/en/zhang
Tokyo Ichi Ikeda Art Project
Ichi Ikeda Art Project, originated from a series of performance workshop organized by Ichi IKEDA in the early 80s, aims at developing a network of artists and arts organizations in Asian-Pacific region. Inspired by the character of water, a major medium of his works, Ichi Ikeda developed exchange projects connecting different cultures in Asia. The Art Project is based in Kanagawa and run by Ichi Ikeda and his associates. It maintains only an office space. www.plaza21.mbn.or.jp/WATERS/
Kobe C. A. P. House
C.A.P. (Conference on Arts and Art Projects) is a group that seeks to promote cultural activities on a non-profit basis. It was formed in 1994 by a group of Kansai-based artists as a concern group on the City of Kobe’s art museum project (which was shelved after the 1995 earthquake). After a four-year negotiation, the group were granted by the city government in 1999 temporary usage of the five-storey former Foreign Settlement building as studio and event space. C.A.P. House is indeed the eighth project by the group. C.A.P. has been exploring the possibilities for sites that support art in a manner that is closer to the artist’s perspective. It also seeks to enhance communication between the art field and the public. www.cap-kope.com
Tomoko SUGIYAMA is the representative of CAP. Sugiyama held his first solo exhibition in 1981 and has actively participated in various group and solo exhibitions thereafter.
Nobuhisa SHIMODA is a member of C.A.P., and Secretary of Acte Kobe Japan. Born in Kawasaki city in 1957. He was a founding member of Xebec (sound art center subsidary to Toa Corporation) and has been a programming planning staff since its opening in 1989. Through producing sound performances, contemporary music concerts, and exhibitions on sound art there, his focus has been on the relation between daily life and sonic experience.
Macau Comuna de Pedra
To protest against an official art competition in 1995, a group of artist in Macao had gathered and became the core of Comuna de Pedra, a non-profit art association formed one year later. Run by a committee comprising 6 artists, Comuna de Pedra presents art activities of different art forms, such as dance, exhibition, video art, both in their two-stories studio and open space everywhere in the city of Macau. In 2001 the group was granted a temporary usage of the former Old Lady’s Home, which has become the base for art events including exhibition, performance, lecture and artist-in-residence program. www.comuna.50megs.com
James CHU Cheok Son, member of Comuna de Pedra, was born in Macau. He studied engravings in the 1990s at Macao Visual Art Academy. In 1998 he graduated from the Department of Graphic Communication, School of Arts of Macao Polytechnic Institute. Now he serves as a designer of Cultural and Recreational Services of Macao Provisional Municipal Council and Part-time lecture at Macao Polytechnic Institute, School of Arts.
Manila Big Sky Mind
In 1999, 3 young artists in Manila had founded Big Sky Ming, an artist-run space and gallery café. Now Big Sky Mind had developed to a hybrid of art forms, including visual art, poetry, performance, video and film. Occupying two floors in a departmental building, Big Sky Ming has become a meeting place for a generation of contemporary artists working outside of the mainstream. Two founding members and a group of artist-volunteers runs big Sky Ming. The financial support is from the café. www.bigskymind.ph
Ringo BUNOAN is the founding member and Director of Big Sky Mind. She graduated in 1997 from College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines - Diliman, majoring in Art History. She is an artist, curator, and contributing writer of local and international newspapers and magazines, including Flash Art Magazine.
Melbourne USEby
Asia Pacific Artist Initiatives Project
USEby is an initiative of the Centre for Contemporary Photography and 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne, Australia. It is a cultural exchange project that links and explores artist-run spaces and initiatives throughout the Asia Pacific region. It offers artists, curators and writers the opportunity to exchange ideas and resources and to develop relationships and collaborations. USEby is specifically designed for use by artists and artist-driven organizations. While its aims are ongoing and far-reaching, USEby retains a sense of moderation, acknowledging the resourcefulness and energy of the small-scale, low-fi, DIY aesthetic that often characterizes the artist-run endeavor. www.useby.net/useby.htm
Daniel HUPPATZ, an affiliate of USEby, is a free-lance writer and art critics. He is also a founder of First Floor Gallery in Melbourne. He studied Art History and Critical Theory in university and now a PhD candidate researching at contemporary design in Hong Kong. Huppatz is a co-editor of a book, A4/95, and a regular literary journal, Textbase. He contributed to numerous articles and reviews for art and literary journals including Art+Text, Frieze, and Artlink.
Paris Trans Europe Halles
Created in Brussels, 1983, Trans Europe Halles (TEH) defines itself as an European network of independent, multi-functional and multi-disciplinary cultural centers for exchange, support and co-operation between its 27 center members from 19 European countries. The member centers are housed in renovated former industrial and commercial buildings. TEH dedicates to the interface between the social and the artistic fields, involving themselves in local contexts while developing international perspectives. It develops international exchanges and cooperation at all levels of cultural production and creation. Cooperative ventures include Youth Exchange Project, Project Phoenix, and In & Out of Europe, which facilitate exchange at artistic, information and personnel levels. www.teh.net
Saint-Ouen, France Mains d’Å’uvres
In 1998, four associations – Usines Ephémères, TransEuropeHalles network, Vecam and Europe 99 – created Mains d’Å’uvres in an old commercial buidling in Saint-Ouen near Paris. Mains d’Å’uvres is a cultural organisation with an interest in contemporary practice within the fields of arts and society. The 4000 sq. m. venue is equipped with art studios, performance and exhibition space. It houses project of various disciplines and facilitates associative and citizen experiences. The functioning of Mains d’Å’uvres relies on decompartmentalization, interaction, exchange and partnership with numerous public and private entities. www.mainsdoeuvres.org
Fazette BORDAGE is the former coordinator of Trans Europe Halles. and the Director of Mains d’Å’uvres. After studying musicology and hosting a musical television magazine, in 1984 Bordage was instrumental in refurbishing Confort Moderne at Poitiers as a venue for cultural activities for young people. In 1986 Confort Moderne became a member of the Trans-Europe Halles European cultural network, which she has coordinated since 1994. Mains d’Å’uvres, a place for social and artistic intervention, at Saint-Ouen, is a new space that she and her team have been working on since 1998.
San Diego Betti-Sue HERTZ
Betti-Sue HERTZ is the Curator of Contemporary Art at the San Diego Museum of Art. In 2000 she organized exhibitions as an independent curator for the Sculpture Center, New York, and The Kitchen, New York. She co-directed 1990s Art from Cuba: A National Residency and Exhibition Program, a cultural-exchange project for five artists in five U.S. cities (1997-1999). She spent the past two decades in New York City and worked in Bronx Council on the Arts for ten years as directors of different arts programs. Hertz has also written and spoken on a variety of subjects including art and urbanism, art from Spanish-speaking Caribbean, and curatorial practice. She holds a M. F. A. from Hunter College, and is a doctoral candidate in Art History at The Graduate School, City University of New York where she is writing a dissertation in the field of art and architecture.
Seoul Loop Alternative Space
Established in 1999, Loop is one of the four alternative spaces sprung up in the same year in Seoul, Korea. As an independent, non-profit alternative space receiving funding from both government and private sector, Loop aims at mainly communicating the public and supporting young artists of various art forms, such as visual art, movie, music and performance. One director, two curators, and a planning committee are response for the selection of exhibitions and performance. The gallery is located in the basement of a four-story building near the Hong Ik University. www.galleryloop.com
Jin-suk Suh is the Director of Loop. Suh graduated in 1994 from MFA program of the School of Art Institute of Chicago, majoring in sculpture. Suh is also an artist and curator. He curated numerous exhibitions in Loop and, as an artist, has exhibited in Seoul, Tokyo an Chicago.
Seoul Hyun-Mi YOO
Hyun-Mi Yoo is an artist and independent curator based in Seoul. She was awarded a Bachelor in Arts in 1987 from Seoul National University and a Master in Arts from New York University in 1992. Yoo has participated in art exhibition consistently since the late 80s in New York and Seoul. Recently her Blank Puzzle project were shown in WEA, Milan (’01) and Christnerose Gallery, New York (’00).
Shanghai BizArt
BizArt is a contemporary art center devoted to support Shanghai young artists and designers, and offer opportunities to cultural exchange projects. The word "BizArt" implies both business and art, which are integrated yet independent. It tries to reach tow goals: bringing business closer to art and being able to sustain the art activities without compromise. The activities of BizArt started in 1998 and in 2000 it settles in the 480 sq. m. open-loft space. www.biz-art.com
Davide QUADRIO was born in Busto Arsizio (Italy, 1970). He studied Chinese Language and History of East Asian Art at the Oriental Languages Department of Venice University. He was a student at the Zhejiang School of Fine Arts, Hangzhou, researching into Buddhist architecture and then traveled and worked in many Chinese cities. Quadrio has been working in education and cross-cultural environment in Milan (1996-1997). Co-operated with the Australian Government (Education Department) for an education program on the subject of contemporary Chinese art. He is now resident in Shanghai as cultural event organizer and artist.
Katelijn VERSTRAETE has been working in the field of cultural exchange and art promotion. She was born in Roeselare, Belgium in 1969, and finished her masters in Chinese Studies (Leuven, Belgium and Leiden, Holland) after doing research on new Chinese cinema during her studies in Nanjing Normal University. She studied a post-graduate in Marketing (Ghent, Belgium). She frequently set up exchange projects with Chinese and overseas musicians and visual artists in Beijing and Shanghai.
Singapore Substation
Since its inauguration in 1990, the Substation explores wide-ranged avant-garde cultural activities from dance to concerts, from performance to poetry recitals under the instruction of its founder Kuo Pao Kun. New Criteria is the annual visual art activity presenting new works by innovative contemporary artists. Transformed from a three-storey old power station, the Substation building houses a theatre, a gallery, a dance studio, an open-air garden and two multi-purpose rooms. www.substation.org
Audrey WONG took up her post as Artistic Co-Director of the Substation in October 2000. She holds an MA in English Literature from the National University of Singapore and an MA in Arts Administration from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Wong works in the Substation since 1996.
Taipei Bamboo Curtain Studio
Originally an artist studio, Bamboo Curtain Studio extended the scope of activities covering international cultural exchange, artist-in-residency, public art project, and education programs. The studio and exhibition complex was set up in the twin buildings of former chicken farmhouses. One house is space for regular exhibitions and performing art programs. The other one was used as a ceramics and multi-purpose studio. In-between the two buildings is an outdoor garden. www.cabtc.gov.tw/Map/ç«¹åœ .htm
Margaret SHIU TAN is the Director of the Bamboo Curtain Studio. In the last five years, Tan, witnessed the constraints on the development of the arts in Taiwan, has moved from being a creative visual artist to that of an art and culture activist, especially in international cultural exchanges. She has held a number of public positions, currently Executive Supervisor, Association for the Visual Artists in Taiwan, Board member of Taipei City Development Commission, and Board Director of Asian Cultural Council, Taiwan (1996-2001). Shiu Tan was appointed by the Council of Culture to research on international artists in residencies, resulting in a publication, Magnetic Fields: Cultural Exchange Programs as promoted by International Artist-in-Residencies.
Toronto Mercer Union
Founded in 1979, Mercer Union is an artist-run, not-for-profit charitable center committing to the presentation and examination of Canadian contemporary art and relating cultural practices. Through a pro-active program of wide range of activities which include exhibitions, lecture series, panel discussions, artist’s talks, video screenings, performances, publications, and special events, Mercer Union positions itself as a forum for curatorial and critical practices pertinent to its locality and circumstance. Mercer Union receives different levels supports from government. It has three exhibition spaces in Toronto serving different purposes. www.mercerunion.org
Natalie DE VITO graduated from York University, Toronto, in 1999 with a Master of Arts. She has worked with various artist-initiated spaces such as A Space Gallery and The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, before joining Mercer Union as Administrative Director in 2001. She curated naturalia and Hypnotic Suggestion 505 for A Space in 2001 and ’00 respectively. De Vito is also an artist, taking part in a number of exhibitions in Toronto.
Thea DEMETRAKOPOULOS is the Program Director of Mercer Union.
Yogyakarta (Indonesia) Cemeti Art House
Cemeti Art House, founded in 1988, aims at exhibiting and communicating the works of Indonesian and foreign contemporary artists. The activities organized by the House each year includes exhibitions, performances, site-specific and happening art, discussions, slide presentations, and artists talks. The Cemeti Art House building was designed in 1999 by a gifted local architect and includes the exhibition space, the studio and storage space, the garden, and office space. In 1995, the Cemeti Art Foundation was founded and operates independently from the House. Nindityo Adipurnomo and Mella Jaarsma, founders of the House and both artists themselves, are responsible for the daily operation of the House. www.cemetiarthouse.com
Mella JAARSMA was born in Netherlands and now resides in Indonesia. She is the founder and co-director of the Cemeti Art House and also board member of the Cemeti Art Foundation. Jaarsma studied arts in the Netherlands and graduated from the Art Institute of Indonesia, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in 1986. Jaarsma is a curator and an aritst, having participated in exhibitions and performances actively since the mid ’80s. She received Artists work grants (1989-91) from The Ministry of Culture and Education, The Netherlands and in 1998 Travel grant to Japan from The Japan Foundation, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Hong Kong
1aspace1aspace is an independent, non-profit-making contemporary visual art organization founded and operated by a collective of Hong Kong artworkers. Its aim is to promote the critical dissemination of contemporary visual arts practices and affiliated artforms through the 1a program of works drawn from Hong Kong and the international arena. The art space is known for its experimental curatorial approach and creative interaction with the public. 1aspace is operated by the Program Committee and augmented by an Advisory Panel of local and international artworkers. Operation funding of 1a has been assisted by grants and private donations. The first exhibition venue of 1aspace was set up in 1998 in an old government warehouse in Oil Street, which was also home to numerous art groups and artists. In August 2001, it settled in the Cattle Depot Arts Village, a group of renovated buildings over 90 years old. www.oneaspaace.org.hk
Artist Commune
As a place for Hong Kong youth artists to exchange ideas, learn and development, create and implement, Artist Commune provide with a place for running exhibition, workshop and a reference library. In addition, we conduct exhibition, seminar, and training course; encourage idea exchange between Hong Kong youth artists and between difference institution and countries. www.hk-artistcommune.net
Hong Kong Fringe Club
In 1984 the Fringe Club took over the Dairy Farm warehouse building in a poor and inhabitable condition. Over the years, stage by stage, the building has been restored with care and given entirely new functions. Now the Fringe Club is recognised as a lively and dynamic contemporary arts space, not just in Hong Kong but in the Region as well. It has created an open and informal environment for local and overseas artists to create new works and to hone their skills. It is often cited as a successful example of how to make positive re-use of a derelict building and, by doing it, revive a rundown neighbourhood. The building now houses two theatres, two gallery spaces, a photo gallery, two caf -bars, a rehearsal room, a pottery studio and showroom, a roof garden and ‘M at the Fringe’ restaurant. Each year the Fringe Club puts on an urban culture festival called City Festival. Outside of that, it presents around 60 exhibitions and over 200 performances throughout the year. www.hkfringeclub.com
Museum of Site
Since its reception in 1998. Museum of Site (MOST)’s primary aim is to cater for the needs of art professionals and educators, community inhabitants in northwest of Hong Kong, where culture and arts are highly-under-developed. MOST is converted from a village house in Kat Hing Wai, a walled village built by Tang’s clan in Kam Tin, Yuen Long in 1662. MOST is both geographically and symbolically located out of the central loci, cultural fabric of Hong Kong. Its missions include presenting quality exhibitions and educational programs to the public, and through which widens audience base; promoting environmental art and new art-forms such as multimedia, video and computer-generated art; developing cultural exchange mechanism; provide studio space for local and visiting artists; lobbying the Government in developing a long-term policy for the development of arts. www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/3435/file.htm
Para/Site
Para/Site is a non-profit making art space run by a group of independent artists in Hong Kong and supported by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Founded in the beginning of 1996, it was temporarily located in Kennedy Town for a four-month project called “Artists-in-Western† with a special concern of communicating artists and local community. In April 1997, it moved to the present location, a two-storey shop space around 150m sq., in Sheung Wan. Para/Site is the first visual art organization using running a space as an art project to apply for HKADC’s funding, which is vital to the survival of alternative art space in Hong Kong. Para/Site Central, the branch space of Para/Site being hosted in a commercial gallery, is the smallest exhibition space in Hong Kong. It aims at promoting quality works by young local artist. www.para-site.org.hk
Videotage
Founded in 1985, Videotage is an interdisciplinary artist collective that focuses on the development of new media in Hong Kong. Starting out as a facilitator for collaborative projects, Videotage has evolved into an operation dedicated to the production, development and study of film, video and other alternative time-based media arts. Since 1996, Videotage invites internationally renowned artists/curators to conduct talks, seminars and workshops in Hong Kong for the Microwave Festival, the only international media art festival in Hong Kong every year. In addition to working with overseas artists and organizations, Videotage is active both on the local and international art scenes. Videotage also offers an alternative distribution channel and reference point for local video art by publishing "The Best of Videotage". In 1999, with the support of the HK Arts Development Council, Videotage starts to set up the web channel to develop the Internet. In the same year, Videotage was chosen by the Provisional Urban Council to particpate their artist-in-residence scheme at Sheung Wan Civic Centre. Videotage is supported by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council 00-01 one-year grant. www.videotage.org.hk
Z+
Z+ is an extension of Zuni Icosahedron, an independent, non-profit making, cross-discipline cultural organization founded in 1982. Self-defined as an “undefined space†, Z+ was born with the physical space of 7,000 square feet loft in Oil Street. Z+ continues its multi-functional direction after the resettlement in Cattle Depot under the management of Zuni and The Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture. Z+ is a space for exhibition, performance, concert, lecture, fashion show, rehearsal, and any other possibilities. www.zuni.org.hk