In Search of Southeast Asia through the M+ Collections

M+, Hong Kong’s museum of 20th and 21st century visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District, is pleased to announce In Search of Southeast Asia through the M+ Collections, which will be presented at the M+ Pavilion from June 22 until September 30, 2018. This ambitious and tightly curated exhibition includes 70 works by 28 artists, architects, and designers from nine Southeast Asian countries, plus Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Sri Lanka, and the United States.

The exhibition is the museum’s first to address a particular geography, in this case Southeast Asia. Exploring the historical and cultural complexities of the region through an interdisciplinary lens and a transnational framework employed by M+ for its curatorial approach, the exhibition gives special attention to layered conditions of place. While topographic, climatic, political, linguistic, and religious affinities do exist across Southeast Asia, its porous borders have created a deep sense of cultural heterogeneity and fluidity. By featuring works from the fields of design and architecture, moving image, and visual art, the exhibition uses the museum’s growing multidisciplinary holdings to shed light on the diverse and wide-ranging cultural practices within the region over the last half-century.

In Search of Southeast Asia through the M+ Collections is co-curated by Pauline J. Yao, Lead Curator, Visual Art, and Shirley Surya, Associate Curator, Design and Architecture. The emphatically interdisciplinary exhibition includes contemporary works of art and design as well as historical archival materials and architectural models. These are grouped into three themes:

“Conditions of Place” features work by artists, architects, and designers that addresses specific local conditions, such as historical origins, climate, topography, vernacular materials, and urban environments. Highlights include material related to a project in Bali by Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa; models and drawings by Malaysian architect Ken Yeang, Ho Chi Minh City–based Vo Trong Nghia Architects, and Singapore-based WOHA Architects; a large-scale bamboo installation by Cambodian artist Sopheap Pich; a film—exhibited in Hong Kong for the first time—by Vietnamese collective The Propeller Group; and an outdoor piece by Indonesian visual artist Eko Nugroho.

“States and Powers” shows how power—exercised through colonial imperialism, nation-building efforts, and contemporary statecraft—can both invigorate and limit cultural expression. Archival material documenting two of the most prolific architectural practices in British Malaya—Booty, Edwards & Partners (later BEP Akitek) and the Malayan Architects Co-partnership (later Architects Team 3)—is featured prominently, as is work by contemporary artists Charles Lim from Singapore and Kiri Dalena from the Philippines.

“Transnational Flows” investigates global flows of people and ideas within and beyond Southeast Asia. Works presented in this section include a video installation by Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija and moving image works by Myanmar-born Taiwanese filmmaker Midi Z and Thai artist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, alongside archival material documenting American architect Buckminster Fuller’s engagement with Southeast Asia and projects by renowned Thai architect Sumet Jumsai and Singapore-based graphic designer Theseus Chan.

In Search of Southeast Asia through the M+ Collections represents design and architecture, moving image, and visual art practices from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Material by artists and designers who work outside the region, including two Hong Kong artists, is also presented. The exhibition features work by anothermountainman (Stanley Wong), Architects Team 3 (formerly the Malayan Architects Co-partnership) / Lim Chong Keat, Geoffrey Bawa, BEP Akitek (formerly Booty, Edwards & Partners) / Kington Loo, Chun Kaifeng, Kiri Dalena, Simryn Gill, Sumet Jumsai, Zai Kuning, Charles Lim, Midi Z, Eko Nugroho, the Office indochinois du tourisme, the Official Tourist Information Bureau of the Dutch East Indies, Pratchaya Phinthong, Sopheap Pich, Bas Princen, The Propeller Group, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Paul Rudolph, Wilson Shieh Ka-ho, T. R. Hamzah & Yeang / Ken Yeang, Hans Tan, Maria Taniguchi, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Vo Trong Nghia Architects, WOHA Architects, and WORK / Theseus Chan.

A series of complementary programmes, including a talk, a teachers’ private viewing, members’ events, and guided tours, will be planned as part of the exhibition. For more information, please visit www.mplus.org.hk/insearchofsea.

In dialogue with the exhibition, M+ presents a new edition of M+ Screenings on September 21–23, 2018, titled Southeast Asia Moving Image Mixtape, which features rarely seen films from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and beyond. The backgrounds, time periods, and expressions presented in these films reveal multiple histories and offer complex readings of a region rich in moving image cultures. The screenings are held at Broadway Cinematheque, Yau Ma Tei.

Exhibition details
Co-curated by: Pauline J. Yao, Lead Curator, Visual Art; and Shirley Surya, Associate Curator, Design and Architecture; with Vera Lam, Curatorial Assistant, Visual Art; William Seung, Curatorial Assistant, Design and Architecture; and Helena Halim, Curatorial Intern

Exhibition design: Collective Studio
Graphic design: Zak Group

Dates and times: June 22–September 30, 2018
11am–6pm
Wednesday to Sunday and public holidays
Location: M+ Pavilion, West Kowloon Cultural District
Admission is free.

For media enquiries
West Kowloon Cultural District Authority:
Jonas Wong
Assistant Manager, Communications and Public Affairs
T +852 2200 0213 / T +852 6608 0909
jonas.wong [​at​] wkcda.hk

International:
Sutton
Nana Lee
T +852 2528 0792
wkcda [​at​] suttonpr.com

About M+
M+ is a museum dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. In Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, we are building one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world, with a bold ambition to establish ourselves as one of the world’s leading cultural institutions. Our aim is to create a new kind of museum that reflects our unique time and place, a museum that builds on Hong Kong’s historic balance of the local and the international to define a distinctive and innovative voice for Asia’s 21st century.

About the West Kowloon Cultural District
Located on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour, the West Kowloon Cultural District is one of the largest cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to create a vibrant new cultural quarter for Hong Kong. With a complex of theatres, performance spaces, and M+, the West Kowloon Cultural District will produce and host world-class exhibitions, performances, and cultural events, and will provide 23 hectares of public open space, including a two-kilometre waterfront promenade.