project glocal

Project Glocal | 亞洲城市串流

Project Glocal is a social experiment that involves artists from different cities in Asia. It started with Bangkok, HongKong, Manila and Singapore in 2011-2012. The idea is to subject these artists to situations or circumstances where they are to interact with and in their respective cities and other cities with Project Glocal artists. Interactions were in form of conversations (dubbed in this project as Small Talk, which connotes that in this conversation the agenda is to dissect “small” issues of artists in and with cities and not to create grand narratives), exhibit that featured existing works that correlate to other Project Glocal artists’ work or create new collaborative works, and a publication that catalogues experiences in engaging in and with arts, artists, cities, people, and all three of them together or separately. The main agenda is for the city artists to find interest in each other, to nurture sense of kinship and to encourage them to form a lasting bond beyond their geo-political boundaries.

Project Glocal was conceptualized and spearheaded by independent curator Dayang Yraola. The first public project, entitled Conversation of Cities, was launched in 2012 through a small talk and exhibit at Tin-Aw Gallery in Manila. Two other small talks and exhibits were held in Manila in 2012—HabitForming at Artinformal in May; and Cityzening at U.P. Vargas Museum in October, which was also the major activity for Project Glocal 2012, where 21/29 of the Project Glocal artists were present. A string of small talk and art walks were held in HongKong (Baptist University of HongKong in March and September) and Bangkok (Silpakorn University and Artery Gallery in Bangkok in February and July). Final activity, titled Dezipcoding, was another small talk and exhibit featuring collaborative works and on-going projects by Project Glocal artists, held at the Singapore Art Museum 8Q in November. Artists who participated in the 2012 run of Project Glocal were (names arranged in no particular order):

 Anton del Castillo, Urich Lau, Black Baroque Committee, Mark Salvatus, Jason Wee, Song Ming Ang, Riel Hilario, Luke Ching, Vichaya Mukdamanee, Wantanee Siripattanuntakul, Warawut Tourawong, Rutheirat Kumsrichan, Esther Yip Lai Man, Tang Kwok Hin, Mimi Tecson, Tang Ling Nah, Irma Lacorte, Mark Salvatus, Jittagarn Kaewtinkoy, Thosapol Boribon, Preeyachanok Ketsuwan, Mideo Cruz, Wesley Valenzuela, Jaffa Lam, Michael Lee, Joo Choon Lin, Tam Wai Ping, Ho Siu Kee, Francis Yu.

More info can be found on: projectglocalSTAMPED.blogspot.com


Glocal 英文取自 Global（全球）與 Local（在地）兩個單字而成，或可譯為「全球在地化」。Project Glocal 原為策展人 Dayang Yraola 於 2012~2014 年策劃的藝術合作／社會實驗。數位荒原於2014年三月邀請的 Project Glocal Taipei 駐村與交流，將涵蓋台北、馬尼拉、吉隆坡、雅加達／萬隆等不同亞洲城市的藝術家，計劃理念是將這些不同背景的藝術家，分別放置在與其他參與計劃的藝術家對等的某種情境或外在條件下互動。

互動在此具有「對話」的形式，不可否認的是一種集體想像的、文化與國族的縮影，經常濃縮在不同的細微環節裡。由這樣計劃所推動的「交流」並不是為了創造「宏大」敘事，而是在城市脈絡下剖析藝術家交往而呈現的「微小」議題。正如同重見／重建的理解，當我們在可見性的基礎上，重新連結與其他東南亞藝術家的交流現場時，這些取樣切片也將由小而大地容現了當代亞洲的特殊文化地景（cultural landscape），進而從本地串連到常被人們忽略的亞洲藝術場景。