Symposium: We Can’t Forget How to Move (recordings available)
In 1999 the touring exhibition ‘Cities on the Move’ arrived in Bangkok for its sixth iteration. ‘Cities on the Move’ (1997–2000), co-curated by Hou Hanru and Hans Ulrich Obrist, set out to explore the intersection of East and Southeast Asia’s city cultures and urbanisation, involving more than 150 architects, artists, film-makers and designers in an attempt to recreate an ever-evolving city that occupied the white cube of different exhibition spaces in Vienna, New York, Bordeaux, Humlebæk, London and Helsinki.
Bangkok was the only edition to take place in Asia, and the only one to take place without a single major institution; instead, it saw works scattered in different sites and spaces across the city. More than twenty years later, we may reflect on the ‘global village’ optimism of the 1990s and the more ambivalent and shifting circumstances of geopolitics that surround it. We may ask what it was that ‘Cities’ encountered when it arrived in Bangkok, how it was changed by the city, how it was experienced and what might this tell us today? We want to learn if there are insights to reconsider our position now – perhaps for our future moves.
20 July 2022, 12:00–2:00pm (London) / 6:00–8:00pm (Bangkok)
Format: Zoom
Speakers: Nikita Cai, Hou Hanru, Ole Scheeren, Kanokwan Trakulyingcharoen, Mia Yu, Anthony Yung, moderated by David Morris and Wing Chan
21 July 2022, 12:00–2:00pm (London) / 6:00–8:00pm (Bangkok)
Venue: Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok
Artists: Kornkrit Jianpinidnan, Chitti Kasemkitvatana, Manuporn Luengaram, Navin Rawanchaikul, Kata Sangkhae, moderated by Gridthiya Gaweewong
Co-organised by Afterall Exhibition Histories; School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong; Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London; Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok; and Zurich University of the Arts. This symposium is presented by Shared Campus as the keynote event of the summer school co-organised by School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong and Zurich University of the Arts. The working committee includes William Davis, Gridthiya Gaweewong, Leung Chi Wo, and David Morris.