Research-Based Art Practices in Southeast Asia

This book is the first overall study of research-based art practices in Southeast Asia. Its objective is to examine the creative and mutual entanglement of academic and artistic research; in short, the Why, When, What and How of research-based art practices in the region. In Southeast Asia, artists are increasingly engaged in research-based art practices involving academic research processes. They work as historians, archivists, archaeologists or sociologists in order to produce knowledge and/or to challenge the current established systems of knowledge production. As artists, they can freely draw on academic research methodologies and, at the same time, question or divert them for their own artistic purpose. The outcome of their research findings is exhibited as an artwork and is not published or presented in an academic format. This book seeks to demonstrate the emancipatory dimension of these practices, which contribute to opening up our conceptions of knowledge and of art, bestowing a new and promising role to the artists within the society.
Caroline Ha Thuc is a part-time Lecturer at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, as well as an independent art writer, researcher and curator. She holds a Ph.D. from the School of Creative Media at City University,Hong Kong, and is currently also a part-time researcher at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China. Specializing in Asian contemporary art, Ha Thuc contributes regularly to different academic journals and magazines, focusing on the artistic production of knowledge. She has published books about the Hong Kong art scene as well as Japanese and Chinese contemporary art.