CONFERENCE PANEL ORGANIZED & REFEREED: 

“Conceptualizing Trans-Asia”

Association for the Arts of the Present (ASAP) annual conference, 2023

Alpesh Kantilal Patel & Jane Chin Davidson, Co-chairs

ABSTRACT:

Conceptualizing TRANS-Asia for this discussion, we aim to challenge the essentialist geography for recognizing and naming “Asia” by returning to questions we raised in our published research on contemporary art about transnational South Asia and China. Through our monographs, Productive Failure: Writing Queer Transnational South Asian Art Histories (pb 2018) and Staging Art and Chineseness: the Politics of Trans/Nationalism and Global Expositions (pb 2022), our engagements with art in the explicit context of sites of exhibition functioned to problematize the norm of constructing cultural geographies as a colonialist form of knowledge production.

Part One: This first part of our two-part panel will extend the conversations in our books by foregrounding TRANS-Asia as a “fugitive” concept through a discussion with artists Patty Chang and Shahzia Sikander, about their artistic output that is rarely seen in the same frame. More specifically, Patel will discuss queer and trans theory with Sikander, and Chin Davidson will discuss performance, eco-feminism, and the Capitalocene with Chang.

Conversations:
Shahzia Sikander and Alpesh Kantilal Patel
Patty Chang and Jane Chin Davidson

Part Two: This second part of our two-part panel will focus on a range of scholarship by early-career scholars including Canada-based Andrew Gayed, who will broaden the focus to SAWNA (Southwest Asia and North Africa), and Hong Kong-based Vivian K. Sheng, who explores affective domesticity and transcultural (dis)identification through the women artists of vastly different geopolitical backgrounds. Also, graduate students Jessica Baum will discuss the work of Singaporean-British sculptor and printmaker of Chinese descent Kim Lim, and Meng Yi from China, studying in Cologne, will examine subjects of performance embodiment in contemporary Chinese art. 

Paper titles:
Andrew Gayed: “Writing Queer Transnational Art Histories from the Diaspora,”
Vivian K. Sheng: “One Morning in the World: Transnational Dwelling via Conflictual Connections,” 
Jessica Braum: Plurilocal Subjectivity: Kim Lim’s Transnational Praxis and Cosmopolitan Imagination,” and
Meng Yi: “Nowhere to Hide: The Bodyscapes of Chinese Women in the Place of Modernity.”