Summer Institute 2019: Future Commons

Participating professors: Alice Jim, Martha Rosler, Ramon Amaro, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Yuk Hui

Apply now for Tai Kwun Contemporary Summer Institute, a two-week education initiative exploring how the theme of Future Commons affects art and cultural production in Hong Kong and Asia.

Tai Kwun Contemporary convenes 2019 Summer Institute, aiming to address the ways in which urgent philosophical issues apply pressure to contemporary cultural production. The 2019 semester runs from August 5 to 16. Selection is limited to small seminar student groups working closely with the professors. 

The Tai Kwun Contemporary Summer Institute invites professors on an annual basis to focus on a theme each year that ranges from specific discussions related to Hong Kong’s immediate conditions to more abstract discussions about visual art on an international basis. For our 2019 theme on Future Commons, visiting faculty will include: Alice Jim,  Ramon Amaro, Yuk Hui, and Martha Rosler and Rirkrit Tiravanija.

Please click here for more info.

To apply
Students, faculty members, art professionals, and scholars in the arts, the humanities, and related social sciences are invited to submit an application.

Please send the following to learnart [​at​] taikwun.hk:
–One sample of recent writing in English
–Resume

Ramon Amaro, Goldsmiths, University of London
Seminars: August 5–9
Public lecture: August 6

Ramon Amaro is Lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. While studies in race and technology have examined the implications of cultural bias in machine learning and artificial intelligence research, Ramon’s work emerges from within the logics of engineering and the philosophy of mathematics. He was previously a Research Fellow in Digital Culture at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam and quality design engineer for General Motors; and programmes manager for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

Alice Jim, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
Seminars: August 5–9
Public lecture: August 9

Alice Ming Wai Jim is Professor of Contemporary Art and University Research Chair in Ethnocultural Art Histories at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. As an art historian, curator and cultural organizer, her research interests include contemporary ethnocultural and global art histories, media arts, international art exhibitions, and critical curatorial studies. In 2018, she co-edited the fall special issue of RACAR, “What is Critical Curating?” Recipient of the 2015 Centre de documentation d’Artexte Award for Research in Contemporary Art, Jim co-convened the 2019 Global Asia/Pacific Exchange (GAX), Asian Indigenous Relationalities in Contemporary Art, in Montreal. Her current research projects include the history of Asian Canadian art and Afro-Asian Indigenous futurist aesthetics

Yuk Hui, Leuphana University Lüneburg
Seminars: August 12–16
Public lecture: August 13

Yuk HUI is a philosopher teaching at the Institute for Philosophy at the Leuphana University in Germany and at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. He is also a researcher of the Centre international des études Simondonienne in Paris, visiting faculty of the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow. He has published on philosophy of technology and media in periodicals such as Research in Phenomenology, Metaphilosophy, Theory Culture and Society, Parrhesia, Angelaki, Cahiers Simondon, Deleuze Studies, Intellectica, Krisis, Implications Philosophiques, Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie, Techné, among others. He is contributing editor of 30 Years after Les Immatériaux: Art, Science and Theory (2015), and author of On the Existence of Digital Objects (prefaced by Bernard Stiegler, University of Minnesota Press, March 2016), The Question Concerning Technology in China. An Essay in Cosmotechnics (Urbanomic, December 2016), Recursivity and Contingency (prefaced by Howard Caygill, Rowman and Littlefield International, March 2019).

Martha Rosler
Seminar: August 12–16
Public Lecture: August 16                                                                                 

Martha Rosler is an eminent artist, theorist and educator as well as a leading contemporary critical voice within feminist discourses. Rosler’s work encompasses photography, video, installation, photomontage and performance. She has also published over fifteen books of her works and essays exploring the role of photography and art, public space, transportation, as well as public housing and homelessness. Rosler studied at Brooklyn College in New York and subsequently at the University of California, San Diego, obtaining her MFA there in 1974. Her widely seen video work Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975), reflecting her longstanding interest in the position of the female subject within patriarchy, uses humour in this parody of cooking shows to address the implications of traditional female roles.

Rirkrit Tiravanija
Seminar: August 12–16
Public lecture: August 16

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija is widely recognised as one of the most influential artists of his generation. His work defies media-based description, as his practice combines traditional object making, public and private performances, teaching, and other forms of public service and social action. Winner of the 2004 Hugo Boss Prize awarded by the Guggenheim Museum, his exhibition there consisted of a pirate radio (with instructions on how to make one for yourself). Tiravanija was also awarded the Benesse by the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum in Japan and the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Lucelia Artist Award.

Tai Kwun Contemporary
Tai Kwun Contemporary is the contemporary art programming arm of Tai Kwun dedicated to presenting contemporary art exhibitions and programmes as platforms for a continually expanding cultural discourse in Hong Kong. Operated by contemporary art team, Tai Kwun Contemporary is an integral part of Tai Kwun at the Central Police Station compound, Hong Kong.

Tai Kwun 
Tai Kwun is the Centre for Heritage and Arts, a place of inspiration, stimulation and enjoyment for all Hong Kong people. Tai Kwun aspires to offer the best heritage and arts experiences, and to cultivate knowledge and appreciation of contemporary art, performing arts and history in the community. It is situated at the restored Central Police Station compound, one of the most significant revitalisation projects in Hong Kong, comprising three declared monuments—the former Central Police Station, Central Magistracy and Victoria Prison.

This project was conceived and organised by Melissa Karmen Lee