Chantal Wong
Conference Report. November 2023
Maybe there are things that museums can do and some they can’t, or shouldn’t, as institutions with state reliance, receiving public and tax payers’ funds, and with responsibilities to wider segments of society. So, the tension I personally felt around the (im)possibility of museums to “deform” and “crip spaces,” and whether it can reconcile the messy, te smelly, bloody, and ageing body, all terms and descriptors I am loosely borrowing from Daina Leyton and Anna Gallardo, is somewhat of an unreasonable and unnecessary aspiration. This is something to which I am reconciling myself after a challenging and emotionally charged CIMAM conference.
Because messiness and radicality perhaps should exist outside the system, and unless they are invited into the museum, like guests at a dinner party, should not be coopted by the system – it is necessary for them to live beyond, to live at the fringes of the norm or what is socially permissible in that context at that moment time, in order to guide society towards new possibilities and horizons. Art and experimentation will exist whether or not the museum exists. The museum is a singular part of the landscape, but is often mistaken – or it mistakes itself – for the center of a cultural landscape. It assumes its position and responsibility as the primary if not the sole mediator between art and the public. But art and its potential for transmission have other means to exist in an equally if not more direct and “impactful” way between communities and art/artists – artists and cultural workers exist and create directly with, for and amongst their communities by initiating art spaces in under-resourced neighborhoods, teachering in formal or informal structures, or by curating and running platforms and festivals.
The institution/museum can alternatively ask how it can be part of the healthy flourishing of art to exist throughout the ecology and society within which it lives, but is outside its walls. How can it support the art spaces, how can it support the art teachers and their schools, how can it support the non-material aspects of art – critical thinking, imagination, practice of experimentation, place and identity making, storytelling – to flourish beyond its walls and not always consider how a material version can be presented back on or within its institution or housed back in its collection?
I heard and saw incredible projects outside the museum during my time in Buenos Aires, the program was thoughtfully organized by Moderno and its team, with great attention to connecting their city to the visitors of CIMAM. I only mention two here:
Proyecto Escuela Liliana Maresca: I am grateful to Ariel Cusni for the many conversations around the tireless work of the artists who work at the public school Escuela Liliana Maresca. In 2008, a group of artists came together to introduce an art focus into the redesigned curriculum of a public school in Villa Fiorito, a marginalised town in Greater Buenos Aires. Today the curriculum is centred around expanding the horizon of possibilities for over 300 students through art and art thinking.
Pulperia Mutuálica: I am grateful to Nina and Osias for taking the time to introduce the radically queer, political, fun, workshop space, to bring closer and make stronger the friendships and bonds of their queer community, while also guiding society as a whole to go where it is often too afraid to go – towards liberation, joy, and freedom.
How does the museum play a role in supporting and acknowledging these projects?
Tangentially, I had beautiful side conversations during CIMAM. Four women attendees including myself all admitted feeling like we didn’t belong or felt like imposters at CIMAM. Among them were two are senior staff members of museums, one an internationally recognized curator. And I asked myself, if the four of us don’t feel like we belong, then who is this conference for and who does feel they belong? At first, feeling combative, I argued for the necessary reshuffling of players in the art world, but finally, with great wisdom one of my interlocutors suggested nurturing an “alliance of beautiful imposters” instead, and I realized she was right. Ultimately, I’d rather stay on the fringes. It is my choice to live freedom, and not to represent freedom.
P.S. As a final thought: Artists and cultural workers in Buenos Aires whom I met were extremely clearsighted and deliberate while enveloping their radicality in a furry, cute, pink, cotton-candy fuzziness. The evident entanglement of joy, queering (beyond definitions and orientations), and the intentional decolonizing and reclaiming of color especially violets, and baby hues, as acts of defiance and political action, have enabled me to reconsider the radical potential and resilience of a politics of softness, care, and interdependence.
Bio
Chantal is Advisor and Convenor for AFIELD, an international network and advocacy and support platform for artists leading transformational change in their communities and society.
Chantal worked with Asia Art Archive from 2006-2017, a research centre and archive of modern and contemporary art from Asia as head of strategy helping to build up an invaluable resource for the (re)writing of histories with post-colonial perspectives from the region. As Head of Strategy, she launched a new website and back-end to facilitate research, drove an organisation restructure and established the organisations’ first journal creating original content coming from the archive and opening up a discussion around the conceptual parameters of the organisation.
She is the co-founder of a number non-profit organisations: Things That Can Happen (2014-2017), an art space set up post Umbrella Movement as a response to the dramatic changes of Hong Kong’s social, cultural and political context, as well as a counter-point to the growing number of commercial whitecube galleries. Housed on the first floor of a residential walk-up building, the site was located within one of Hong Kong's most diverse communities, with both the highest concentration of senior citizens and new immigrants in the city – threatened by urban redevelopment, its significance in Hong Kong’s social and industrial history, as well as its geographic centrality in Hong Kong. Conceived of as a two-year project, ‘Things' developed exhibitions and projects, residencies, a library, and engaged with issues of social concern. Things that can happen’s site and social interest led to the founding of ‘Learning Together’ (2015-present) an initiative co-founded by and empowering refugee and asylum seeker youth to become leaders through pedagogical coaching, project-based learning, scholarships, and leadership training that started off on the roof and garage of the art space. Learning Together runs to the present day and is co-founded by the youth that were trained through the program.
From 2017-2022, she was the Founding Director of Culture at Eaton HK Hotel, a purpose-driven hospitality brand focused on culture and community impact where she led an art and programming team to transform the site into a one of the most experimental and vibrant cultural and community centres in the city - a champion for creativity, artistic experimentation and safe-space for intersectional communities, in particular those who have been historically marginalised, and activists. From Eaton, she co-initiated the Women’s Festival (2018-present), a platform promoting gender awareness and equality through public discourse and culture programs, and the Movement Festival (2019-present) a 24-hour festival merging diverse forms of art centred around movement – physical and social – throughout the entire hotel site.
Most recently, with Inti Guerrero she co-curated Myth Makers—Spectrosynthesis III at Taikwun Contemporary in Hong Kong (Dec 2023-April 2024) that circled around the core notion of “queer mythologies” and delved into modern and contemporary mythologies along with practices of the body, by gathering a diverse range of artistic idioms related to LGBTQ+ perspectives from over 60 artists from Asia and its diasporas. The exhibition, suggesting that same-sex relationships and multiple genders have long existed in cultures across Asia, often under different names, and are constantly evolving in response to social or cultural changes, brought over 80,000 members of the public to together.