TeamBrackCo-organised by Brack and iFIMA
Location: Dance Nucleus
90 Goodman Rd, Block M #02-53, Singapore 439053
Date: Wed, 29 May 2024
Timing: 2.00 pm – 7.00 pm
Studio open from 1.30 pm
Facilitated by Jay Koh, DFA
Sign up: https://forms.gle/pz4vzsmXHPnuJsJL9
In this discursive and participatory workshop, we aim to explore the development of holistic knowledge as a response to systemic structures and contexts that dominate and condition our thinking and action. We welcome practitioners from different fields working with others in everyday public and real-world scenarios through interactions, reciprocity and negotiations.
This introductory workshop provides a prelude to a deeper dive into helping practitioners develop their research projects holistically with greater clarity, direction and focus in the future.
The goal is to complement the practices of practitioners to develop a praxis that is constructive and dynamic at the meta-level. We will address the limitations of the Western modernistic educational system, which prioritizes texts-based/author-centric knowledge, external individualism, and pursues materialism, to explore an expanding mindset and alternate philosophy.
Participants will initiate various micro-discussions on educational competence, from institutional to non-institutional and graduate to postgraduate levels, in relation to the social contract within a progressive society. We will also discuss differences in research approaches, such as artistic, theoretical, and praxis-led/based, and biases related to social, disciplines, and egocentricity.
Our discussions will help us understand and critically evaluate real-world situations, debunk myths, and identify ideal qualities and conditions. We will explore processes for nurturing engaged listening, intersubjective exchanges, participation, and collaboration. We will also discuss positions of power and privilege, such as dominant, minority, and outsider, across disciplines and contexts, including hard-to-reach communities, conditioned, and oppressive culture. Lastly, we will identify the outcomes and collateral damages from institutional and state violence, as well as the rise in tension and anxiety in response to uncertainties and attitudes toward changes.
Donations welcome.
Note to participants:
- Participants will be asked to share questions they have before the workshop, which our facilitator Jay Koh will address directly during his introductory sharing.
- Each participant will prepare a short 5 -10 min sharing about 1 specific project that you are currently working on.
Workshop Schedule:
2.00 pm – 3.00 pm: Introduction
Grounding: Sharing of Jay Koh’s praxis and scope for the workshop
Jay Koh will use his background to respond to the questions from participants
Break
3.30 pm – 7.00 pm: Sharing by participants with bespoke feedback from Jay Koh and participants after each sharing
Image courtesy of Jay Koh
Information about the organisers:
Jay Koh, DFA | iFIMA
Jay has accumulated activist practices in public health issues, hard-to-reach communities and genetic science prior to working in the arts and attaining his doctorate (DFA) in trans-disciplinary artistic research (UniArts Helsinki). Known as an artist-curator and educator, he is also labeled as an artist-scholar. Jay is moving away from the modernist trajectory towards a praxis that is people centered, responding to the everyday to include non-western philosophy.
Known for his durational international art projects, working across sectors, disciplines and belief systems in various social-political environments (flawed to functional democracies, military, communist-led states and different forms of nomadic cultures), he authored the praxis-based Art-led Participative Processes and is cited by scholars in journal texts on feminist manifestos, participatory ecosystems, palliative care, and others. He initiated various ‘Working with People-Centredness Processes…’ seminars/workshops and the Open Academy programs (Mongolia, Myanmar and Vietnam) with funding from international foundations, supervisor for an advanced master module (Art & Society Zurich HdK) and taught in research methods (Chulalongkorn FFAA- Master Curatorial Practice), works as an evaluator, mentor and external examiner (master, PhD) in Asia and Europe, and has undertaken various international cultural and environmental research projects (Academy of Finland, British Academy), contributed commissioned and peer-reviewed texts on contemporaneity, public engagements, decolonialisation issues, and ongoing research to develop resilience and mindfulness.
Brack
Brack is a Singapore-based art collective and platform for socially-engaged artists in Southeast Asia. We are interested in practices of gathering, and in dialogical exchanges across mediums, disciplines, and communities. We seek to understand how socially-engaged art can activate a space, community, or society, and we experiment with these very activations—through audience engagement, writing, and working with artists.
Right now we’re exploring practices of gathering, how to facilitate collective re-imagining of alternate worlds / futures, what ‘radical hospitality’ might entail, and how we can constructively engage with conflict and difference. Our work is socially-engaged, interdisciplinary, and experiential, and we seek to integrate critical self-reflexivity into all that we do. Always interested in the inter-relational, we work with a diverse community of artists, writers, and cultural / social intermediaries who are well-placed in Southeast Asia to understand these processes on a deep level. We intend for our platform to enable dynamic collaborations between practitioners, thinkers, writers, and makers.
Aside from this online gathering space, our works manifest as exhibitions, talks, workshops, dialogues, and collaborations with local and international practitioners, in our effort to forge an alternative praxis within artist-audience dynamics.