Ute Meta Bauer, curator and director of the NTU CCA Singapore, investigates the profession of the curator in Southeast Asia, a region experiencing a time of increased global visibility as well as nation- and institution-building. In the Philippines and Singapore, a wide range of excellent museums and collections function like similar infrastructure globally. At other locations, the space of the curatorial is where art gets produced in studios, in artist residency programmes—often run by artists for artists—or in smaller organisations, most often also created by artists due to the lack of spaces to meet, show, and discuss art. The profession of the curator is fairly new, and time and again it is artists that present their own work and those of their peers.

How do artists, curators, and art historians engage with the intricacies of a particular place? How do they respond to the specificities of the local under the expectations of the international? It is crucial to acknowledge the multitude of voices in this complex history of the region. What emerges is a highly diverse art system that shifts away from traditional formats to embrace new or alternative platforms—from symposia to fieldwork—with the aim of emphasizing producing and curating as a process of critical thinking that goes beyond presentations and representations.

The lecture will be followed by a conversation between Ute Meta Bauer, Barbara Clausen (curator and art historian, UQAM) and Alice Jim (curator and art Historian, Concordia University / Hexagram).

Organised by the Goethe-Institut in collaboration with the CCA, UQAM, and Hexagram.