Continuation of the “Watch on a Promotory” research project

The research project “Watch on a Promotory: Internal and External Artistic Exchanges in East, Southeast, and South Asia in the 1950s-1980s” will continue with a public forum on September 1. Together with the Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (TIAS), the Goethe-Institut China is organizing a workshop on 30 and 31 August at which scholars from various Asian cities will present their research findings.

The first phase of the overarching research project successfully took place from May 16 to 20, 2024 in Bandung, Indonesia, in cooperation with the local Goethe-Institut.

Prof. Dr. Mi You from the documenta Institute is co-initiator of the research project and will moderate both events.

What is the “Art/History Sideways” forum about?

On September 1, 2024, the Goethe-Institut China will host the forum “Art/History Sideways”. The forum will reflect on the history of the Cold War and explore the connections between different regions of Asia and Latin America. In conversation with artist Wang Tuo, researcher and curator Koichiro Osaka will shed light on the complex historical relationships between East Asian countries through cultural politics and artistic practices. Afterwards, researcher and curator Kathleen Ditzig and researcher Wei Ran will focus on the relations between Southeast Asia, Latin America and China. Through historical analysis, they will attempt to make the unconventional positions of cultural practitioners visible. The forum will be led and moderated by curators Su Wei and You Mi.

Further information on the forum

What is the workshop about?

The workshop in Beijing, initiated by Su Weihe and Mi You, is jointly organized by the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (TIAS) of Tsinghua University and the Goethe-Institut (China) at the German Cultural Center Beijing and invites scholars from Beijing, Hanoi, Yogyakarta, Kyoto, Singapore, Kassel and other places to share the research findings commissioned as part of the project. The workshop will shed new light on Chinese art research in the Asian context and reflect on China's increasing isolation. The question of how research into Chinese art can be situated in the context of “Asia” and its history will be the focus and topic of discussion.

Further information on the workshop

Research project: “Watch on a Promontory: Internal and External Artistic Exchanges in East, Southeast, and South Asia in the 1950s-1980s”

Various Goethe-Instituts (Kolkata, Hanoi, Jakarta/Bandung, Kyoto, Manila, Mumbai and Seoul) are working together on the research project “Watch on a Promontory: Internal and External Artistic Exchanges in East, Southeast, and South Asia in the 1950s-1980s” under the auspices of the Goethe-Institut China. The documenta Institute will organize a conference in Kassel in 2025 at the end of the project and produce a publication.

“Watch on a Promontory” is based on the poem ‘On a Cape in Chile’ by Ai Qung, which reflects on his visit to Pablo Neruda in Chile in 1954. It expresses self-expression and the perception of the other in cultural exchange. Based on this account, which is both personal and serves a public purpose, the project hopes to uncover nuanced layers of dialogue between the self and the other that are shaped by changing political foundations and institutional formations.

The project takes as its starting point the Bandung Conference of 1955, which is considered a significant end point of the European colonial era and the beginning of interregional cooperation outside the West. The aim of the project is to explore new approaches in art history not yet covered by the Bandung Conference, to examine the relationship between artistic practice and cultural policy and to shed light on how different regions differentiated themselves in interregional exchange during the Cold War. To this end, the latest research findings of scholars from East, Southeast and South Asia will be presented. The project aims to strengthen multicultural cooperation within Asia and between Germany and Asia.