Shadow Soundings (through leaves)
by JB2021 ESOK Curatorial Team
As a humble response to the curatorial theme — “ESOK-Membangun Sejarah Bersama” (Tomorrow – Building History Together), JB2021 ESOK [Monthly event] Shadow Soundings (through leaves) is a conversation about the sense of togetherness in light of a posthuman convergence suggested by philosopher Rosi Braidotti. The discussion centres around experimental moving-image works and films demanding alternative historiography to rehabilitate the intimacy and immediacy shared among all of these more than human history agencies. The discussion will take The Migrant Ecologies Project’s recent award-winning short film titled {If your bait can sing the wild one will come} Like Shadows Through Leaves as the point of departure as a way to triangulate the critique about humanism, the limitation of the anthropocentric approach, and, fundamentally, concerns about relationality of knowing through ocular centric experiences. Together though apart, we hope to unpack the productive entanglements emerge through various modes of situated listening while shedding light on various structural inequalities of being human in this particular moment in time.
Speakers
Lucy Davis is a visual artist, art writer and founder of the collaborative, transdisciplinary The Migrant Ecologies Project (MEP) which encircles more than human ecologies, materiality and memory in art and culture,—primarily but not exclusively in Southeast Asia. Of relevance to this Jakarta Biennale panel, a 2021 MEP short film : {If your bait can sing the wild one will come} Like Shadows Through Leaves World Premiered as International Competition at Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (May 2021) where it was awarded the FIPRESCI International Federation of Film Critics Award for the festival. Another MEP animated short, Jalan Jati (Teak Road) screened in over 60 international venues, including Rotterdam IFF (2013) And Yamagata IDFF (2103). Awards include the Promotion Award at Oberhausen ISFF (2012), two Singapore Short Film Awards for Sound and Animation (2013), and Jury Mention for Technical Achievement, ISFF, Ahvaz, Iran (2015).
Lucy lived for nearly 30 years in Singapore and was a founding faculty member of the School of Art Design & Media, Nanyang Technological University but left Singapore in 2016 after to a government intervention in her employment status. She is currently Professor of Artistic Practices in the MA Programme in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art at Aalto University, Finland.
Philippa Lovatt is a Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of St Andrews, UK where she is Co-director of Centre for Screen Cultures and a member of the Centre for Energy Ethics. Her research focusses on artists’ moving image, eco-cinema, sound, and Southeast Asian independent cinema. She is currently writing a book on the politics of sound and listening in artists’ film. She has recently edited two dossiers for Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (“Theorizing Region: Film and Video Cultures in Southeast Asia” co-edited with Jasmine Nadua Trice and published in Spring 2021) and Screen (“Tracing the Anthropocene in Southeast Asian Film and Artists’ Moving Image” co-edited with Graiwoot Chulphongsathorn, forthcoming in Winter 2021). She has previously published her research in Screen; Sound, Music and the Moving Image; The New Soundtrack and Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia.
Hsu Fang-Tze is a lecturer at the Department of Communications and New Media Department, National University of Singapore (NUS), and a curator of the NUS Museum. She holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from the National University of Singapore. Her dissertation research was supported by the President’s Graduate Fellowship and the FASS Promising Graduate Scholar Award. Her research interests include formation of visual modernity, Cold War aesthetics, memory, philosophies of technology, and the embodiment of artistic praxis in everyday life.
Credits
This monthly event is supported by Plus Jakarta, Enjoy Jakarta, the Ministry of Education and Culture, SAM Fund For Art And Ecology, and jointly held with Jakarta Arts Council.
Image of film still in our publications are from {if your bait can sing the wild one will come} Like Shadows Through Leaves, by The Migrant Ecologies Project. Film conceptualized by Lucy Davis, together with: Sound Designer, Zai Tang; Cinematographer & Editor, Kee Ya Ting. Editor, Daniel Hui & Design Studio Crop Singapore.
JB2021 ESOK Monthly Event is a platform run by the curatorial team as a way to expand and share ideas, thoughts, and the process of working towards making JB2021 ESOK happen. Stay up to date on our upcoming event through our social media channels on Instagram and Facebook.