Residency at the Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, 26 August–9 September 2015

Wed, Aug 26 2015

Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, 2014 (exterior view). Photo: Arash Fayez, Courtesy Kadist Art Foundation.

Between 26 August–9 September 2015 Latitudes will be in residency at Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco. During this time, and following its two previous iterations in Mexico City (Casa del Lago, 2012) and Hong Kong (Spring Workshop, 2013), Latitudes will do a new iteration of 'Incidents of Travel' exploring San Francisco. Three specially-commissioned tours by artists Amy Balkin, the artist collective Will Brown (a collaborative project of David Kasprzak, Jordan Stein, and Lindsey White) and outsider librarians Megan and Rick Prelinger as expanded studio visits will focus on the Bay Area and link to Latitudes's current research around the carbon cycle.

You can follow the tours via Kadist's Instagram as part of the 'Artist not at the Studio, Curator not at the Office' Latitudes' takeover, and as a series of posts that will be published on this channel.

In the afternoon of August 29, Latitudes will co-host a 'Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group', a workshop which extends the seminar recently developed in May for the International Curatorial Retreat in Bari, Italy.

The 'Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group' is a forum for informal dialogue about megatrends and the future of contemporary art institutions.

In the same way that the Internet has untethered television from fixed schedules and newspapers from print deadlines, the first meeting broadly addressed to what degree the organizational forms of art institutions are embracing or resisting similar transformations through various curatorial/editorial prototypes and prognosticative use-case scenarios.

Convened by the Barcelona-based curatorial office Latitudes together with Kadist Art Foundation, this second meeting will bring together individuals and expertise in the Bay Area with an active interest in institutional prototyping and emergent usership. With an emphasis on cross-pollination between design thinking and curatorial thinking, the meeting will discuss, among other things, the notion of the post-disciplinary, and the question of appropriate speeds or periodicities of institutions.

In order to be conducive to freedom of interaction, the meeting is held under the Chatham House Rule. This allows participants to express personal views, to listen, reflect and gather insights with a clear distinction from the position of their employers and/or the policies of any associated organization. Participation is expected, but there will be no resolutions issued, no votes undertaken, and no policy statements proposed.

RELATED CONTENT:

Tutors of the 2015 International Curatorial Retreat, 9–13 May, Bari (Italy) 17 May 2015
Nadim Abbas' "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" public tour (19 January 2013)
Ho Sin Tung "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" tour (30 January 2013)
Yuk King Tan's "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" tour (3 February 2013)
Samson Young's "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" tour (7 February 2013)
Latitudes' Open Day at Spring Workshop on 2 February 2013 (9 February 2013)
Archive of social media posts related to "Incidents of Travel" tours and photo-documentation.
13 field recordings from 'Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong'
Interview between Christina Li and Latitudes on 'Incidents of Travel' for Witte de With's 'Witness to Moderation(s)' blog 7 May 2013
Inauguración de 'Incidentes de viaje' & 'Proyectos 2005–2012' en La Sucursal, Casa del Lago, México DF, 27 de septiembre 19:30h 25 septiembre 2012

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This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

2015, Amy Balkin, Bruce Sterling, Hong Kong, Incidents of Travel, Kadist Art Foundation, Megan and Rick Prelinger, Mexico, Near Future Artworlds, residency, San Francisco, Will Brown, Workshop

Latitudes' limited edition tote bags presented in the Asia Art Archive's exhibition "A short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them)"

Mon, Aug 24 2015

We are delighted that from August 24 (and until October 24), Latitudes' limited edition tote bags by Lawrence Weiner, Haegue Yang, Ignasi Aballí and Mariana Castillo Deball, will be presented in Hong Kong as part of Asia Art Archive (AAA)'s exhibition 15th anniversary programme "15 Invitations | a short history of the art book bag".

Organised by AAA Public Programmes Curator Ingrid Chu, the show explores the international phenomenon of the 'art book bag' in "a short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them)". The exhibition features 'the things that go in them'—art publications, magazines, and related ephemera—alongside a vast array of these popular totes in the AAA Library. Chu has invited artists, curators, art book fair organisers, and print and online publishers to provide insight into the changing modes of knowledge production and circulation, and their influence on the recent art of Asia through Field Notes.

Latitudes' totes are presented under 'Sites for Art', the first of five categories that structure the show – others being 'Carriers of Knowledge', 'Markers of Access', 'Badges of Dissent', 'Goods of Desire'). Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.

Each Latitudes' tote is accompanied by a publication that relates to each artist: Lawrence Weiner will contain the leaflet of his 2008 exhibition at Fundació Suñol, Haegue Yang will include the publication which features an essay by Max Andrews' of Latitudes; Ignasi Aballí's tote will include his 2009 publication 'Nothing, Or Something' inside and Mariana Castillo Deball will have 'Amikejo', the exhibition catalogue of the 2011 cycle one of which presented works by Castillo Deball and Irene Kopelman.

Installation view of a short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them) exhibition at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 24 August–24 October 2015. Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.

Zine for "a short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them)" exhibition at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 24 August–24 October 2015. Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.

Installation view of 'Carriers of Knowledge' section in "a short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them)" exhibition at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 24 August–24 October 2015. Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.

Installation view of 'Badges of Dissent' section in "a short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them)" exhibition at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 24 August–24 October 2015. Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.

Installation view of 'Goods of Desire' section in "a short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them)" exhibition at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 24 August–24 October 2015. Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.

Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

2015, Amikejo, Asia Art Archive, Exhibition, Fundació Suñol, haegue yang, Hong Kong, Ignasi Aballí, Lawrence Weiner, Mariana Castillo Deball, publications, Tote Bags

Archive of Cover Story (April): "Beneath the Connaught Road West flyover, Hong Kong, 19 January 2013"

Mon, May 4 2015

This past March we launched our re-designed website, which includes improved features as well as new sections such as "cover story" on our home page: a monthly focus on one artwork, artist, book, site or trip we've experienced in our recent past, accompanied by a short text.

Our April Cover Story titled "Beneath the Connaught Road West flyover, Hong Kong, 19 January 2013" looked back at the first 'Incidents of Travel' tour led by artist Nadim Abbas, part of our month residency at Spring Workshop.

We recommend reading the text while listening to this field recording we made on the very same spot!

Related content:

Cover Story #1: Wilfredo Prieto's work "Grease, Soap, Banana" (2 April 2015)
New re-designed website now online! (25 February 2015)
Witte de With and Spring Workshop's 'Moderation(s)' publication 'End Note(s)' is out! (5 March 2015).
Nadim Abbas' "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" public tour (19 January 2013)
Archive of social media posts related to "Incidents of Travel" tours and photo-documentation.
Interview between Christina Li and Latitudes on 'Incidents of Travel' for Witte de With's 'Witness to Moderation(s)' blog (7 May 2013)
13 field recordings from 'Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong'

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This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption).
Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

2015, cover story, Heman Chong, Hong Kong, Incidents of Travel, Moderations, Nadim Abbas, soundcloud, Spring Workshop, website, Witte de With

Witte de With and Spring Workshop's 'Moderation(s)' publication 'End Note(s)' is out!

Thu, Mar 5 2015

Cover and back cover of 'End Note(s)'.

'End Note(s)' is finally out! The publication marks the conclusion of two years of residencies, discussions, editorial and exhibition projects within the framework of 'Moderation(s)', a multiform collaboration between Hong Kong's Spring Workshop and Rotterdam's Witte de With, steered by Singaporean artist and curator Heman Chong.

Latitudes participation took place in January 2013 with a month-long residency at Spring Workshop, Hong Kong, and with the production of "Incidents of Travel": an invitation extended to four Hong Kong-based artists – Nadim Abbas, Ho Sin Tung, Yuk King Tan and Samson Young – to develop day-long tours, thus retelling the city and each participant’s artistic concerns through personal itineraries and waypoints.

As announced a few months ago, Latitudes has contributed to the publication with a visual essay documenting each of the artists' itineraries accompanying them with a revised and re-edited version of the May 2013 conversation with curator Christina Li (Moderation(s)' witness).

Section of the book (pp. 61–89) is dedicated to Latitudes' "Incidents of Travel". Here are the names of the artists and the locations visited during each of their tours.

Itinerary and photo-documentation of Nadim Abbas' tour on 19 January 2013.

(Above and below) Itinerary and photo-documentation of Yuk King Tan's tour on 24 January 2013.

Itinerary and photo-documentation of Ho Sin Tung's tour on 29 January 2013.

(Above and below) Itinerary and photo-documentation of Samson Young's tour, 7 February 2013.

A reedited version of a conversation with curator Christina Li – Moderation(s)' witness – originally published on Witte de With's blog dedicated to the project.

Here's an excerpt of our conversation with Christina:

Christina Li: The artists' tours were meant for you both to converse privately with each selected artist while getting to know their practices and the city. Did the public aspect of the Nadim Abbas' tour and your experience of the commercial tours suggest a different perspective of how the format could function from your initial perception? How has this attempt challenged your thinking in mediating and presenting the immediate experience and documentation of these tours to a larger audience?

Latitudes: Although the commercial tours were taking place regularly by prior arrangement, we happened to be the only participants on each of the days [Feng Shui tour and Tour of the Devil's Peak]. We tried to keep the artist tours casual and inconspicuous and to respect the notion of hospitality and privacy in the same way that if we came to your house for dinner, you would not expect us to bring a group of strangers with us. In fact, the day with Yuk King Tan concluded with a household of Filipina domestic workers making food for us – women whose trust and friendship she had earned through her personal affiliations and the concerns of her art. In this case, it would obviously have been completely inappropriate and something of a human safari to bring along an audience.

Visiting Waterfall Bay with Nadim Abbas was part of the public tour on 19 January 2013. Photo: Trevor Yeung.

But we had no desire to make the days exclusive or private as if they were some kind of bespoke tourist service. Other people sometimes joined for parts of the days if the artist had suggested it, yet the main point of emphasis was our commitment to the tour in lieu of the typically brief studio visit and a situation in which the artist has had ownership of planning the whole day. If there would be definitely something like an audience present throughout (that might expect to be engaged or come and go) the dynamics and the logistics would have changed.

The artist tours were conceived from the point of view of research, and we have been reluctant to burden the artists or overload the format to the degree that they become durational artworks or somehow theatrical. We are not particularly focused on tidying up whatever their ontological status as art might be and likewise, we have deliberately not just invited artists whose work has a clear sympathy with performative, urban research or an obvious relation with sociability or place. We feel it is important that the format is quite malleable to the personality of each artist and that in the same way that you might browse a newspaper or share a car journey with somebody, the tours do not require a wider audience to legitimize them. In the same sense, they have not necessarily required documentation to make them valid. However, we have been increasingly interested in the idea of reportage or live broadcast in terms of the ‘making of’ or ‘artist at work’ genre, while at the same time being really wary about our own positions as protagonists and photographs that might seem like they belong in a travel magazine.

The tours in Mexico City took place for five consecutive days right after our arrival, so the way we shared the photographic material was more direct via our Facebook page at the end of each day. The exhibition at Casa del Lago opened only two days after we concluded the last tour, so we had to come up with a straightforward display form. For each tour, the photographer Eunice Adorno accompanied us and in the end, we projected a selection of 200 of her images as a slideshow and displayed a few of them printed on the wall alongside a large map of the city with pins locating the sites we visited. We also had printed itineraries, written by the artists, so anyone could later follow the routes themselves if they so desired.

Visiting the Espacio Escultórico at U.N.A.M. with Jerónimo Hagerman, one of the five tours around Mexico City in September 2012. Photo: Eunice Adorno.

In Hong Kong we were using Twitter, Instagram, and Vine during the tours, so it was an experiment in documentation-on-the-fly and live journaling which was open to real-time responses. We also made a series of one-minute field recordings. The tweets were archived soon after alongside these recordings, as well as related Facebook posts. We also published blog posts about each of the tours which included many photographs (by us and others) alongside paragraphs from the artists’ itineraries. This might seem to highlight merely mundane technical aspects of the project but it also heightened our interest in further exploring the idea of the curatorial bandwidth beyond exhibition making, something we continued to investigate in following projects such as #OpenCurating.

'End Note(s)' Colophon:

Concept: Heman Chong
Editors: Defne Ayas, Mimi Brown, Heman Chong, Amira Gad, Samuel Saelemakers
Contributors: A Constructed World, Nadim Abbas, Defne Ayas, Oscar van den Boogaard, Mimi Brown, Heman Chong, Chris Fitzpatrick, Amira Gad, Travis Jeppesen, Latitudes, Christina Li, Guy Mannes-Abbott, Samuel Saelemakers, Aaron Schuster
Copy Editors: Janine Armin, Marnie Slater
Production: Amira Gad, Samuel Saelemakers, Heman Chong
Design: Kristin Metho
Printer: Koninglijke Van Gorcum
Publisher: Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art Rotterdam, the Netherlands
ISBN: 978-94-9143-529-4

RELATED CONTENT:

First week of the "Moderation(s)" residency at Spring Workshop, Hong Kong (17 January 2013)

Nadim Abbas' "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" public tour (19 January 2013)

"Temple and Feng Shui Tour", a guided walk around Hong Kong Island & Kowloon (22 January 2013)

Ho Sin Tung "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" tour (30 January 2013)

Yuk King Tan's "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" tour (3 February 2013)

Tour of Devil's Peak and the Museum of Coastal Defence (6 February 2013)

Samson Young's "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" tour (7 February 2013)

Latitudes' Open Day at Spring Workshop on 2 February 2013 (9 February 2013)

"Archive as Method: An Interview with Chantal Wong, Hammad Nasar and Lydia Ngai" of the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong. Concluding #OpenCurating interview (1 May 2013)

"Digression(s), Entry Point(s): An interview with Heman Chong", Singapore-based artist, curator and writer. Eighth in the #OpenCurating research series. (4 April 2013)

Archive of social media posts related to "Incidents of Travel" tours and photo-documentation.

13 field recordings from 'Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong'

Witte de With opens the group show "The Part In The Story Where A Part Becomes A Part Of Something Else" on May 22, 2014 (21 April 2014)

Interview between Christina Li and Latitudes on 'Incidents of Travel' for Witte de With's 'Witness to Moderation(s)' blog (7 May 2013)

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This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and @LTTDS.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption).
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

2013, 2015, Christina Li, editorial, Heman Chong, Hong Kong, Incidents of Travel, interview, latitudes, Moderations, Publication, residency, Spring Workshop, Witte de With

Storify of Curating Lab 2014 Overseas Field Trip to Hong Kong, 16–20 June 2014

Tue, Jun 24 2014

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This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

2014, Asia Art Archive, curating, Curating Lab, field trip, Heman Chong, Hong Kong, M+, ParaSite, research, Singapore, Spring Workshop, storify

Lead Facilitators, Curating Lab 2014–Curatorial Intensive, National University of Singapore (11–14 June), symposium (14 June, 15–17h) and field trip to Hong Kong (16–20 June)

Fri, May 30 2014

Curating Lab 2012. Courtesy: NUS Museum.

Alongside artist, curator and writer Heman Chong, Latitudes will lead the first phase of Curating Lab 2014 (11–14 June), a curatorial intensive in which 15 participants engage with the practice of exhibition-making through lectures and tutorials concluding with a field trip to Hong Kong (16–20 June).

Curating Lab 2014 is an eight month-long programme offering final year students, recent graduates and young curators exposure into contemporary curatorial perspectives and practices. Organised by NUS Museum with support from Singapore's National Arts Council, participants are firstly involved in a week-long curatorial intensive completed with an overseas field trip to Hong Kong. This first phase is followed by internship assignments to contemporary art spaces in the city (July–December 2014), and concludes with a final exhibition project in January 2015.

Courtesy: NUS Museum.

Curating Lab 2014 will focus on contemporary art and curatorial practices that engage with the exhibition as a site of knowledge production; one that is multifarious, relational and participatory providing scopes for intents and slippages, opened to interpretative articulations and re-articulations, subjected to varying contexts of exhibition-making and the very audiences that perform and shapes its production. Lectures and workshops will be led by Heman Chong and Latitudes to explore concepts of knowledge production in the realms of art, fiction, journalism, theory and other possibilities.

As part of Curating Lab 2014's curatorial-intensive, the public symposium "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" on 14 June (3–5pm, Level 5 of the National Library Building), will bring together Singapore-based artists and curators Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (Curator, National Gallery Singapore), artist Charles Lim; Anca Rujoiu and Vera Mey (Curators, CCA — Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore) and artist Shubigi Rao, to discuss their recent and ongoing projects. Addressing the format of the exhibition in terms of duration and process, the symposium will consist of two complimentary sessions that will reflect on the exhibition's capacity to articulate its own making and incorporate its own history. In the same way that the Internet has untethered television from fixed schedules and newspapers from print deadlines, the symposium will further ponder on how the exhibition and today's art institutions are undergoing similar transformations.

"When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" will count on the engagement of Curating Lab 2014 participants who will be live-tweeting proceedings, mapping concepts of the discussions, and devising an approach to documenting and reporting the day for those not physically present.

The symposium is convened and moderated by Heman Chong and Latitudes.

The Asia Art Archive (AAA) library. Courtesy: Asia Art Archive.

Following on the Curatorial-Intensive, the overseas Field Trip to Hong Kong (16–20 June) aims to expose participants to international curatorial practices and situate their curatorial processes within the region. Participants will be visiting a range of private and public spaces such as Spring Workshop, Asia Art Archive, Para/Site and M+ Museum.

Follow:
#CuratingLab2014

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This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

2014, Asia Art Archive, Curatorial Practice, exhibition-making, Heman Chong, Hong Kong, M+, ParaSite, Singapore, Spring Workshop, symposium

A day at Hong Kong's Asia Art Archive, 31 January 2013

Mon, Jul 8 2013

A few months ago, on January 31, an 8-hour internet-free workshop took place at the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong. The workshop had the objective of harvesting quotes from amongst the thousands of books, artists correspondence, articles, exhibition invitations that are available at the archive, that made reference to three main subjects: "Influence" (on references, legacy, canalisation), "Itinerary" (on events, time, place, location) or "Moderation" (on collaboration, group dynamics, strategies for participation, partnerships). The workshop was led by artist/writer and Moderation(s) moderator Heman Chong, together with curatorial duo Latitudes, and counted with the participation of two Incidents of Travel artists' Nadim Abbas and Yu k King Tan, as well as with Spring Workshop founder Mimi Brown and Chantal Wong, Head of Strategy & Special Projects at Asia Art Archive. The results of these processes or 'entry points' will be presented later this year (date TBA) on a temporary shelf within the Asia Art Archive, where a host of bookmarks, Post-it notes, and jottings placed within books and documents will reveal the traces of an extended interpersonal conversation. On a related note, and following on from that experience, Latitudes mantained a conversation with the above mentioned Chantal Wong, as well as with Hammad Nasar (Head of Research and Programmes) and Lydia Ngai (Head Librarian) of the Asia Art Archive in the context of Latitudes' #OpenCurating research project. The conversation was published at the end of April, as the concluding chapter of a series of ten interviews conducted since August 2012 with artists, editors, curators, archivists and new media specialists on how the internet and the ongoing expectation for new forms of interaction between publics is changing contemporary art museums programmes.
Workshop participants (left to right) Artist Nadim Abbas; curators Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes; artist, writer and Moderation(s) moderator Heman Chong, artist Yuk King Tan, Spring Workshop founder Mimi Brown; Head of Strategy & Special Projects at Asia Art Archive, Chantal Wong; and Athena Wu, Programme Manager at Spring Workshop.

View of Sheung Wan area from the Asia Art Archive. Photo: Latitudes.

A quick database search before jumping onto the bookshelves.

Reading, selecting, highlighting, noting down... Photo: Mimi Brown.

Workshop participants amongst Asia Art Archive's library stacks.

Related contents:

(1 May 2013) "Archive as Method: An Interview with Chantal Wong, Hammad Nasar and Lydia Ngai" of the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong. Final #OpenCurating interview.
Soundscapes of "Incidents of Travel";
Storify "Incidents of Travel";
Flickr album of the four tours of "Incidents of Travel".

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All photos: Spring Workshop (except when noted otherwise).

2013, archive, Asia Art Archive, collaboration, Heman Chong, Hong Kong, Moderations, Nadim Abbas, publications, quotes, Spring Workshop, Workshop, Yuk King Tan

Interview between Christina Li and Latitudes on 'Incidents of Travel' for Witte de With's 'Witness to Moderation(s)' blog

Tue, May 7 2013

From April 2013 onwards, writer and curator Christina Li (HK/NL) takes up the role of a designated Witness to Moderation(s) the year-long programme of exhibitions, performances and residencies that unfolds between Witte de With in Rotterdam and Spring in Hong Kong. As such, Li is invited to post regular blog entries responding to the multi-faceted projects part of Moderation(s).

Christina Li has been a part of Moderation(s) since its inception, and participated in the research and development workshop that took place at Witte de With in October 2012. Li will also be one of the four curators –together with Lee Ambrozy, Amira Gad, and Xiaoyu Weng– organising the day-long conference Stories And Situations: The Moderation(s) Conference to take place on 5 October 2013 at Witte de With.

The interview published below between Li and Latitudes was originally published on Witte de With's website on May 2, 2013.

Christina Li: “Incidents of Travel” in Hong Kong is the second iteration of a project that you started in Mexico D.F in 2012, could you talk a little bit about how the idea of inviting artists to plan an itinerary functioning as both an artistic encounter an alternative studio visit came about?

Latitudes: The idea of the tour guide is of course not new. Back in 2009 while we were doing a year-long project in the Port of Rotterdam, we organised a series of bus tours to the port where we would present projects by Jan Dibbets, Lara Almarcegui or Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller, etc. Listening to the feedback of the group that took part during those tours, we realised there was something very valuable about the idea of being (kindly) trapped in a bus for a day and to be taken around with a group of people whom you shared interests or even friendship with. Some were co-workers and took the day to talk about non-work related issues, to admire the landscape, to listen to the soundtrack that accompanied the bus tour and basically to enjoy a day away from the keyboard. We wanted to repeat what we thought was a successful format and thought our trip to Mexico DF was a perfect occasion for that.

Tour with Lara Almarcegui and botanist Remko Andeweg around the Port of Rotterdam, 8 November 2009. Photo: Latitudes. More images of the tour here.

While preparing a small exhibition of our eight years of practice for Casa del Lago in México DF, we felt we needed to add a ‘here and now’ contribution, and suggested inviting five artists (Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Diego Berruecos, Terence Gower and Jerónimo Hagerman) to develop a day-long tour for us. The choice of artists was mixed, some we had met before (Jerónimo or Terence) but didn’t know their work in much detail, and others (Tania, Minerva and Diego) we had been following their work for a while, but never met them in person. Our invitation was very open, our idea was for them to develop an itinerary that helped us understand their creative world, and that included them taking us to their favourite (or hated!) museums, libraries, markets, monuments, housing states, shops, restaurants, etc. that were special to their lives or to their artistic practice. We offered all artists a fee, covered all food and tickets-related expenses and had a car to take us around 9am–6pm, after that, we used public transport. Experiencing any city accompanied by a local friend always offers a much deeper insight into any city, but navigating it with an artist whose work you admire, is even more meaningful as each site amplifies a personal connection.

Photo: Eduardo Loza

Li: Did you choose to adopt a different approach in your invitation to the artists in the Hong Kong edition? As far as I understood, Nadim Abbas’ tour was open to the public, while Yuk King Tan’s, Ho Sin Tung’s and Samson Young’s were conducted in a more intimate manner within a smaller group; what was the reason behind this decision? What were the responses to Nadim Abbas’ tour?

Latitudes: No, the invitation was the same in both occasions, though in Hong Kong we mostly used public transport. We also had more time to prepare and digest information, as were a month in residence at Spring. In the end it worked out as one tour per week as that suited best the artists’ schedule. Nadim’s tour was the first and was indeed open to the public, it has been the only tour so far with this aspect, although it was still a small group, initially of around fifteen people. We were interested in pushing the format and of course this meant that Nadim had to consider practical issues like distances and locations more carefully (ie. avoiding long walking distances, accessibility for groups, food availability…) in order to be realistic with the timings. A few people joined on and off, some engaged more actively than others. It was wonderful to see that Hong Kongers were also discovering sites they had never been to, like the Waterfall Bay Park or the nearby Waterfall Bay. Somehow we were all tourists for a day.

Nadim Abbas tour, 19 January 2013. Waterfall Bay Park's waterfall. Photo: Trevor Young

Li: Since these tours have always been meant for you both to converse privately with each selected artist and to get to know their practices and the city, has opening these tours up conjure a different perspective of how these tours could function for you both initially? How has this attempt challenge your thinking in mediating and presenting the immediate experience and documentation of these tours to a larger audience?

Latitudes: The tours were conceived from the point of view of research, and we haven’t wanted to necessarily burden the artists or the format with the expectations that they were participatory performances or some kind of touristic spectacle. We’ve tried to keep them quite casual and inconspicuous in this sense, and to respect the notion of hospitality in the same way that if we came to your house for dinner, you wouldn’t expect us to bring a group of strangers with us! Indeed this was literally the case in the day with Yuk King Tan, which concluded with a household of Filipina domestic workers making dinner for us – women whose trust and friendship she had earned through her personal affiliations and the concerns of her art. It is really not a question of us making the tours exclusive or private – we have not actually prohibited anyone else from coming along if the artist suggested it or was anyway okay with it. Yet it somehow seemed important to be able to commit to spending an entire day with them, and as soon as there is definitely something like an audience present (that might expect to be entertained or decide to leave) the dynamics and the logistics change.

The tours in México DF took place during five consecutive days right after our arrival, so the way we shared the photographic material was more direct via our Facebook at the end of each day. The exhibition at Casa del Lago opened only two days after we concluded the last tour, so had to come up with a fast solution to present our explorations: we projected a selection of 200 images as a slideshow, and displayed a selection of printed photos on the wall alongside a large map of the city with pins that located the sites we visited and the actual itineraries we followed written by the artists, which contained short descriptions of each site (we printed extra copies of these and made them available in the exhibition so one could pick them up and follow the route. These are now available to download from our website.)

Photo: Adrián Villalobos

In Hong Kong we were able to tweet during the tours, so it was an interesting process of documentation-on-the-go, of keeping a live diary of one’s journey, and to receive real-time responses from colleagues all over the world – the tweets have now been archived alongside some thirteen sound recordings, Facebook and blog posts. We also published blog posts of each of the tours which include extensive photo-documentation (by us and colleagues who took part) of the day interconnecting each photo with paragraphs of the itineraries are written by the artists and our own impressions.

Li: You also have been to some other more specialised tours on offer during your stay in Hong Kong, were there more specific aspects of Hong Kong you were hoping to explore which guided your choices in attending these tours as a sightseer and a cultural tourist?

Latitudes: We were interested in studying what kind of readings the city offered away from the usual tourist sites (the Tian Tan Buddha, Victoria Peak, shopping tours, a day in Macau,…). We wanted to see if we could find more ‘marginal’ sculptures or sites that presented vernacular displays far from the polished and pre-packaged tourist experience.

1km of floating boardwalks, Deep Bay, Mai Po Marshes. Photo: Latitudes.

We picked up hundreds of leaflets in the information office and found a couple interesting ones offered by the Walk Hong Kong company we thought were somehow out of the usual menu. We have always been interested in environmental issues and wanted to approach the high density of Hong Kong from another angle, from its relation to the surrounding nature. We visited the Mai Po Nature Reserve in the New Territories, a wetland on the Australasia migratory route, and ended the day in Long Valley in Sheung Shui, observing birds and farmers collecting large amounts of lettuces and watercress. This also tied in with another wetland we visited later with Ho Sin Tung, the Nam Sang Wai area, in the northwest of Hong Kong. This is to say that our own interests ended up tying in nicely with the sites, we visited with the artists. Samson Young took us to a nearby area on his tour, to the border fence that separates Hong Kong with mainland China where we listened to “Liquid Borders”, a soundtrack he has been recording placing contact microphones in the wired fencing and mixing it with the sound of water of the Shenzhen River.

Another tour we joined was the Feng Shui tour led by Susan Braun. We started visiting Norman Foster’s Hong Kong HSBC building in Admiralty built according to strict Feng Shui principles and finished at the Chi Lin Nunnery. The final one was with Martin Heyes, a former British Army officer and passionate World War II specialist, who took us to Devil’s Peak at the eastern extremity of Kowloon and to the Museum of Coastal Defence, to learn everything about the 1941 Japanese invasion of Hong Kong.

A group of Japanese tourists visit the battery on Devil's Peak. Photo: Latitudes

Li: As a whole, what would you say about the kinds of insights you have gained about the city from these tours, which might be seen as complements to the knowledge produced from the more casual encounters you have had through “Incidents of Travel”?

Latitudes: The Walk Hong Kong tours were an opportunity for us to specifically learn about birds, marshlands, Feng Shui and the 1941 Japanese invasion, but most importantly it was an opportunity to discuss with our tour leaders issues that went beyond the tour script so to speak, issues like immigration, recent historical events such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, the current economic climate, the relationship to mainland China, etc. Curiously, all of the tour leaders were expats that had lived in Hong Kong for many years, so for us it was very interesting to hear how it was to live there today. The same goes for the artists, we absorbed a great wealth of information from each other beyond discussing the sites we were taken to. We talked about books, films, about the art world, what it is to be an artist and a curator today, etc.

‘Incidents of Travel’ and our residency was very much in line with what Heman Chong, moderator of the Moderation(s) the program, explained during the January press conference: Moderation(s) is about stretching time. Not surprisingly, the image he chose to illustrate the long term collaboration between Spring Workshop and Witte de With was a clock. That image stood out very clearly during our time there. The offered time gave us the chance to generate conversations with the artists, to find a common ground, to generously share and exchange some kind of knowledge, and to engage in multiple and repeated dialogues with locals and expats, a rare luxury one is not often given.

Latitudes' talk on 'Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong' and their curatorial practice during 'Open Day' at Spring Wo r kshop, 2 February 2013.

Related contents:
13 Soundscapes of "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong";
Social media archive"Incidents of Travel";
Flickr album of the four tours of "Incidents of Travel".

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All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

2013, Casa del Lago, Christina Li, Heman Chong, Hong Kong, Incidents of Travel, interview, latitudes, Moderations, México, Spring Workshop, tours, Witte de With

"Archive as Method: An Interview with Chantal Wong, Hammad Nasar and Lydia Ngai" of the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong. Final #OpenCurating interview.

Wed, May 1 2013

"Archive as Method: An interview with Chantal Wong, Hammad Nasar and Lydia Ngai" of the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong, is available on ISSUU to view on screen and is also downloadable. Also available as a pdf on Latitudes' web.

…And last, but certainly not least, our #OpenCurating research concludes with an interview with three members of the amazing Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong.
Asia Art Archive (AAA) was founded in 2000 with the mission of documenting, securing and making easily available information on the history of contemporary art in Asia within an international context. Based in the Sheung Wan district of Hong Kong, the non-profit organisation holds hundreds of thousands of physical and digital items. AAA aims to stimulate dialogue and critical thinking about how the region’s art histories are told and to “facilitate understanding, research, and writing in the field, enrich existing global narratives, and re-imagine the role of the archive”. Through its website – aaa.org.hk – AAA offers access to a wealth of digital material including scanned images, correspondence, artists’ personal documents, audio and video of performance art, artist talks, lectures, and events. A broad range of initiatives including the journal Field Notes, research grants, residencies, symposia, exhibitions and teaching workshops address the core of AAA’s commitment “to create a collection belonging to the public, existing not in an enclosed space, but in a space that is open and productive, generating new ideas and works that continually reshape the Archive itself”.

Follow:
@LTTDS
#OpenCurating
@AsiaArtArchive

ABOUT #OPENCURATING

What "old rules" about art programming, production and distribution has the internet broken? What challenges, expectations, and new possibilities does digital culture and social media present to contemporary art institutions? To what degree are curators, media teams, publishers and archivists concerned with a dialogue with their audiences? #OpenCurating has investigated these questions through how new forms of culture, participation and connectivity are being developed both on site and on line.

The research was structured around three elements. Ten new interviews were produced and published as free digital editions as well as via Issuu; a Twitter thread was moderated around the hashtag #OpenCurating; and a public conversation (transcribed as interview #7) between Latitudes and Yasmil Raymond, Curator of Dia Art Foundation, New York, was held on 19 February 2013 at the Auditorium of the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA).

#OpenCurating was a research project by Latitudes produced through La Capella. BCN Producció 2012 of the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona.

Content partners: Walker Art Center

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

#OpenCurating, 2.0, 2012, 2013, archive, Asia Art Archive, BCN Producció, editorial, Hong Kong, interview, Library, OpenJournalism, openness, publications, research

"Digression(s), Entry Point(s): An interview with Heman Chong", Singapore-based artist, curator and writer. Eighth in the #OpenCurating research series

Tue, Apr 2 2013

Cover of the interview. Photo: Joan Kee.

Interview available for download as a pdf or readable on ISSUU via Latitudes' web.

Heman Chong’s art practice is comprised of “an investigation into the philosophies, reasons and methods of individuals and communities imagining the future”. His ongoing project, The Lonely Ones, looks at the representation of solitude and the “last man on earth” genre in art, film and literature, and is the basis for a forthcoming novel entitled Prospectus. Chong’s recent solo exhibitions include LEM 1, Rossi & Rossi, London (2012), Calendars (2020–2096), NUSMuseum, Singapore (2011) and The Sole Proprietor and other Stories, Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou (2007). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including the Asia Pacific Triennale 7 (2012), Performa 11 (2011), Momentum 6 (2011), Manifesta 8 (2010), Busan Biennale (2004), and the 50th Venice Biennale (2003) representing Singapore. Amonograph of his work entitled "The Part In The Story Where We Lost Count Of The Days", edited by Pauline J. Yao, will be published in June 2013 by ArtAsiaPacific.

The interview was initiated at Spring Workshop, Hong Kong, in the context of Chong’s invitation to Latitudes to make a curatorial residency as part of Moderation(s), a year-long series of programming between Spring and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam. "Digression(s), Entry Point(s): An interview with Heman Chong" also includes a guest spot with Gotherburg-based artist and writer Anthony Marcellini.

Follow:
@LTTDS
#OpenCurating
@HemanChong
#Moderations

ABOUT #OPENCURATING

Drawing on the emerging practices of so-called 'Open Journalism' – which seek to better collaborate with and use the ability of anyone to publish and share – #OpenCurating is a research project that investigates how contemporary art projects may function beyond the traditional format of exhibition-and-catalogue. #OpenCurating is concerned with new forms of interaction between publics – whether online followers or physical visitors – with artworks and their production, display and discursive context.

The project is articulated around a series of ten new interviews with curators, artists, writers and online strategists published as a free digital edition [read here the published ones so far], a Twitter discussion moderated around the hashtag #OpenCurating and an public conversation with Dia Art Foundation curator which took place at MACBA on the 19 February.

#OpenCurating is a research project by Latitudes produced through La Capella. BCN Producció 2012 of the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona.

Content partners: Walker Art Center

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

#OpenCurating, 2013, BCN Producció, collaboration, exhibition-making, Heman Chong, Hong Kong, interacción, interview, Moderations, negotiation, OpenJournalism, Singapore, Spring Workshop, Witte de With

Longitudes

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