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Censorship of SEA Arts in Times of Crisis
May 18 @ 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
Event Background
In peak moments of political change or crisis, there is often a corresponding increase in arts censorship. Arts and culture in Southeast Asia already face multiple challenges – the lack of resources, narrow public support, an opaque legal and admirative landscape of practice. On top of this, across the region, arts and cultural workers regularly experience increased surveillance, censorship or pressure during periods of leadership challenges, economic turmoil or social unrest. Yet, these are moments when artists’ voices are most urgently needed. As Farida Shaheed has noted, artists bring “counter-discourses and potential counterweights to existing power centers.”
This panel to be held at SEA Junction on 18 May at 5.30-7.00 pm, will present cases from Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, where artists and art making are by default at the mercy of various normalized acts of censorship, yet are also particularly targeted at specific heated political moments in these contexts. It takes an exploratory tone, asking if there are observable patterns across these three countries. How do artists make in heat, and navigate these moments of high risk and precarity? Are there possible intersections across these cases that make space for possible solidarity and support among the arts sectors in the region?
This panel is organized as part of the pilot project “Southeast Asian Arts Censorship Database”, which documented arts and culture censorship in the region. Launched in 2022 by ArtsEquator in partnership with Five Arts Centre, supported by the Swedish Arts Council and Globus Nordisk Kulturfond the pilot covered incidents occurring from 2010 to 2022, in six Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam (see further https://artsequator.com/censorship/).
The composition of the panel is as follows:
Moderator:
- Rosalia Sciortino, founding director, SEA Junction
Speakers
- Adrian Jonathan Pasaribu, chief editor and co-founder, Cinema Poetica
- Kathy Rowland, co-founder and head of research, ArtsEquator.com
- Katrina Stuart Santiago, founder, People for Accountable Governance and Sustainable Action-PAGASAph
- Patporn (Aor) Phoothong, independent researcher
Speakers and Moderator Bios
Adrian Jonathan Pasaribu is the chief editor and co-founder of Cinema Poetica—a collective of film critics, activists, and researchers in Indonesia. Having earned a Master’s degree in Film Studies from Universiteit van Amsterdam in 2023, Adrian nowadays works as a freelance editor, writer, researcher, and film curator in Denpasar.
Kathy Rowland is the co-founder of and head of research at ArtsEquator.com, a registered charity that she co-founded with Jenny Daneels in 2016. ArtsEquator supports arts criticism and freedom of expression in the arts in the region. Kathy has worked in the arts for over 25 years, running arts and culture programs and arts media platforms and supporting freedom of artistic expression.
Katrina Stuart Santiago is a writer and cultural critic from Manila, co-founder of small press, bookshop, and gallery Everything’s Fine, and founder of People for Accountable Governance and Sustainable Action-PAGASAph. She is 2021 Feminist Journalist of AWID, 2023 Public Intellectual of the Democracy Discourse Series, and co-author of UNESCO-Germany’s Fair Culture Charter. She writes at katrinasantiago.com and is @radikalchick online.
Patporn (Aor) Phoothong is an independent researcher focusing on peace education via peace museum and archives. Her current research is a feasibility study for the establishment of a peace museum connected to the deep south of Thailand. She has also co-founded an initiative to establish a 6 October 1976 Massacre Museum and Deep South Museum and Archives’ Initiative. Her focus has been on using museums and archives as a tool for conflict transformation and ending the culture of impunity. In addition, Aor also serves as a consultant for an international development organization specializing in violent extremism, gender dynamics, and peace process.
Rosalia Sciortino is associate professor at the Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, Bangkok, visiting professor at the Master and PhD in International Development Program at Chulalongkorn University and director of SEA Junction. She is the emeritus regional director for Southeast Asia with the Rockefeller Foundation and the International Development Research Center, Senior Adviser for AusAid (now DFAT) in Indonesia and former program officer with the Ford Foundation in Indonesia and the Philippines (see further information at rosaliasciortino.com).
For more information, please email: info@seajunction.org or phone/wa: +66970024140
NB: The event is free, but donations are welcome to support SEA Junction activities.
Organizers:
ArtsEquator is an arts organization that values and promotes Southeast Asian regional art practice. Through the ArtsEquator Fellowship and other programmes, ArtsEquator is committed to developing arts writing and criticism which identify Southeast Asian creative practices as part of, rather than adjunct to, global contemporary arts. Our aim is to cultivate and grow arts criticism in Southeast Asia amongst our principal stakeholders – arts critics, arts makers and arts audiences.
Five Arts Centre is a dynamic collective of Malaysian artists, activists, and producers, dedicated to generating alternative art forms and images in the contemporary arts landscape. It is well-known for cutting edge performances in theatre, dance, music, and young people’s theatre, and incorporates aspects of the visual and digital arts as well. The collective has performed and presented its work across Southeast Asia, as well as in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, India, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Greece, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Finland, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
SEA Junction, established under the Thai non-profit organization Foundation for Southeast Asia Studies (ForSEA), aims to foster understanding and appreciation of Southeast Asia in all its socio-cultural dimensions, from arts and lifestyles to economy and development. Conveniently located at Room 407 and 408 of the Bangkok Arts and Culture Center or BACC (across MBK, BTS National Stadium), SEA Junction facilitates public access to knowledge resources and exchanges among students, practitioners and Southeast Asia lovers. For more information, see www.seajunction.org, join the Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/1693058870976440/ and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @seajunction.
