3 - 4 August 2023

Nanyang academy of fine arts

We seek knowledge and history;
but we also desire what is new and inspirational.

Modern Southeast Asia inhabits a fractal domain. We toggle between the necessities of professions, the economic loads of trades and industries, and what we deem culture and art. Our regional world is still about the natural landscape and environmental preservation as it relates to communities, as much as it is about tall buildings, networked roads and the internet.

Yet, the arts appear to lie on the invisible margins, occupying the persistent state of transition, homing to find a place amongst the living and the thriving.

Now in its third edition, the event will highlight Singapore, and NAFA in particular as a positive force in the field of creative arts research and education in the region in the region of Southeast Asia. The goal of the Forum is to forge new connections and nurture existing ones through facilitating critical discourses on the practice, politics, as well as education of creative arts by emerging as well as established interdisciplinary practitioners in the industry.

Sustainability 2.0:
Coding a World that Will Remake Itself

Inspiration

The majority of our activity revolves around a cycle of consumption and production, and this cycle is especially relevant to us operating in the arts and creative sector. Oftentimes, as primary inhabitants of this earth we feel a sense of entitlement based on the assumption that resources around us are infinite in nature. This, combined with a fixation on growth leads us to a constant hunger to discover what is new before anyone else; to have no stones on the face of this earth left unturned. At the rate of which this process of consumption and production accelerates, might this be a time we realize that our thirst for novelty might come at a cost we need to bear in the future? In attempts of breaking boundaries and collecting discoveries, are we merely marching to a drumbeat of doom?

In rethinking our capacities as creatives for visualizing a process of how one’s thoughts change and adjust; some questions may arise. How can our creative practices help others visualize the transformation process of their thinking? How can we firstly identify, understand, interpret, and predict consumer behaviors which are shaping society?

The Southeast Asian Arts Forum 2023 aims to explore this narrative surrounding the cycle of creation and destruction. It aims to look back into our past and find multitudes of possibilities in how we push the boundaries of our practices. We seek creative practices which represent not only the thrive to survive, but also one which seeks to attain harmony between humans and our surrounding ecology.

Theme of discussion

The forum will focus on the concept of sustainable consumption and production, as well as highlight some of the ways where artistic practices can provide a metaphor for generating a new algorithm which subconsciously codes a new pattern of behaviour. This includes practices which focuses on developing awareness on social and environmental issues, cultural heritage preservation, resource management and accessibility in creative production, and are deliberate in maintaining ecological and social integrity.

Artists, researchers, and creative professionals from around Southeast Asia who take part in the Forum can share their experiences of working on long term, community-based projects and project-based artworks, as well as research projects which provoke a wider conversation on the subject matter. The projects may be one which is recently completed or is still ongoing.

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

80 Bencoolen Street Singapore 189655