Akanksha Raja, Author at ArtsEquator

NGO Cheers Opening of Animation Studio in Phnom Penh [Cambodia]

“Visitors to the Institut Francais tonight will be met by life-size cardboard characters inspired by the 2D animations and illustrations of Phare Creative Studio, a new social enterprise that helps fund NGO Phare Ponleu Selpak in Battambang City. The launch event for the animation and graphic design studio—which will be split between Battambang and Phnom […]

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Home is where the art is, at Ban Pong district in Ratchaburi [Thailand]

“Around an hour’s drive west of Bangkok, Ban Pong district in Ratchaburi has been turned into a vibrant art gallery, where visitors can explore the town and take selfies with striking works by more than 40 contemporary artists. Under the Ban Pong City Contemporary Art Development Project by AT Exchange (Art Terminal Exchange), this two-and-a-half

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In the Lopez Museum, the explosive silence of four women artists [Philippines]

“In “Pauses of Possibility,” the Lopez Museum gathers four Filipino women artists — Marina Cruz, Kara de Dios, Elaine Navas, and Pam Yan Santos — in celebration of introspection and life’s quiet moments. Curated by Lopez Museum curator, Ricky Francisco, the works of these women, called “guest artists” in the exhibit notes, are arranged throughout

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Podcast 15: Theatre Invasion Singapore

Duration: 26 minutes Matt Lyon speaks to Adeeb Fazah and Teresa Zhou, two members of Theatre Invasion Singapore, a passionate team of four final-year undergraduates from NTU’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information who’re on a crucial mission: to promote the magic of theatre among young adult audiences. They share their journey from unearthing

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Fresh Blood: “Move ____, as we move” by The Kaizen M.D.

By Akanksha Raja and Clara Cheong (1200 words, 8-minute read) There’s fresh blood on the theatre scene and ArtsEquator sent out two young reviewers to watch emerging performing art collective The Kaizen M.D.’s latest production “Move ___, as we move”, staged at Centre 42. Here’s what they thought about it. Akanksha: Move was conceived and written

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First Bangkok Art Biennale to Launch In 2018 [Thailand]

“The first Bangkok Art Biennale (BAB) will be held next year, from November 2018 to February 2019 in Thailand’s capital. The announcement regarding BAB’s first edition was made in Venice on May 13 at the Westin Europa & Regina Hotel, San Marco, by the Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation, which was co-founded by food and beverage mogul

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15 – 21 May 2017: Indonesia

Top Picks in Jakarta, Yogyakarta, and Makassar from 15-21 May 2017 JAKARTA BBUZZSHOW@JAKARTA, Now – 30 May 2017, Galeria Fatahillah, Jakarta BBuzzShow is one of BBuzzArt’s global traveling exhibitions that provide exhibition opportunities for emerging artists. BBuzzArt is a social platform that aims to support emerging artists by connecting artists and art lovers

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What does it mean to represent the ‘Filipino’ in the 2017 Venice Art Biennale? [Philippines]

“The idea of a “national identity” isn’t flat, as some people might have you think. It is a vast, complex landscape, with boundaries leaking from one to the other. Perceived differences form a major part of what one’s national identity is supposed to be, but it is an idea sifted through many filters, such as

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Podcast 14: La Cage and Tropicana

Duration: 30 minutes Former Flying Inkpot reviewers Matthew Lyon and Naeem Kapadia get together to discuss Tropicana the Musical and Wild Rice’s La Cage – two glamorous, star-studded, cabaret-themed musicals that opened within a few days of each other within the past month. While one’s a localised version of a Tony Award-winning Broadway original, the other’s a Singapore original that

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Artists in Southeast Asia: Zoncy, Anon Pairot and more share what inspires their recent artworks [SEA]

“The references that artists use to inform their work are widely varied: these can be a song, a film, a novel, a fashion image, a building in their neighbourhood, a childhood memory and sometimes a combination of two or more of them. The possibilities and permutations are endless. Five Southeast Asian artists, Robert Zhao Renhui

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Let’s Talk About Ageism and Dance [Singapore]

“At an event last week, about 30 adults came together to present a community dance. Some of them were women and men in their 70s and had never danced in public before. The excitement on their faces, the joy in the gait as they took their positions and the sheer bliss they exuded while moving

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Major Exhibition Takes Contemporary Cambodian Art to US [Cambodia]

“The theme of the exhibition is as intriguing as Cambodia itself: a land in which events of the past 50 years continue to weigh on people, even those far too young to have witnessed them. “Cambodia: Looking Back on the Future,” opening today in the U.S., will feature the works of 11 artists as well

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Mesmerising molam [Thailand, Laos]

“Twenty-five years ago I joined a team from the Japan Foundation on a tour of Isan to meet and talk to molam artists, as part of a project on Lao music in the region. We met up with the then-president of the Molam Association, National Artist Kane Dalao, and his two female molam partners, Boonpeng

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Zane Gan

Photo Essay: Backstage Pass to Wild Rice’s “La Cage Aux Folles”

Photography By Zane Gan, text by Sean Ghazi Photographer Zane Gan tracks Sean Ghazi, who plays George in Wild Rice’s La Cage Aux Folles, capturing the camaraderie, rituals and water bottles that keep the show going on. The hit musical, directed by Glen Goei, runs until 13 May 2017. Making the rounds before the

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Podcast 13: Classical and Contemporary Indian Dance

Duration: 25 min “When we want to talk about tradition and contemporary … I see it as a kind of a recalibration, a relocation of form in this time and this space. Watching Raka and her group, to my eye, it was very difficult to say here is where tradition stops and here is where

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Review: Oh Soon-Hwa’s “Coastal Regions (Delta)” at The Private Museum [Singapore]

“From its headwaters in the Tibetan plateau, the Mekong River flows past six countries for over 4,000 kilometers to the South China Sea—but its journey is unquiet. Since the 1990s, the river has been punctuated by a string of Chinese hydropower dams, with dozens more in the works. Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam are also

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Following the Threads that Connect Clothing to Religious Persecution in Southeast Asia [Thailand]

“The violence meted out against people for their religious, political, and ethnic affiliations, often signaled by clothing and the symbols they wear, provides a lens through which to see abuses of power. All over the world, clothing and symbols can take on protective, threatening, or dangerous meanings. As happens in the West, discrimination against Muslims also occurs in Thailand and

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‘Brother Cane is part of me’: Josef Ng [Singapore]

“Neatly stashed away in an HDB flat somewhere in the western part of Singapore are a folded black robe, newspaper cuttings, tiles with splashes of red dye, and strands of pubic hair. These are all that remains of Josef Ng’s Brother Cane, one of the most controversial performances in Singapore’s contemporary art history. “Yes, everything

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Aaron Seeto and the Importance of Art Education [Indonesia]

“Ahead of Museum MACAN’s (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara) slated opening in November 2017, we sat down with Aaron Seeto, director of the museum, to find out what’s planned for Indonesia’s first museum dedicated entirely to international modern and contemporary art. MACAN will officially be launching later this year, in November, and

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Prayer, Puppetry, and Politics: The World of Malay Performance Art [SEA]

“Kathy Foley, curator of Malay Theatre: Intangible Cultural Heritage and Islam, boasts decades of experience studying the art and theater of Indonesia and Southeast Asia. A trained performer in the art of wayang, traditional Indonesian mask and puppetry, Foley holds the distinction of being one of the first non-Indonesians to be invited to the prestigious

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Thailand’s Last Movie Billboard Painters

By Philip Jablon (650 words, 7-minute read) Over the past 20 or so years, Thailand’s movie exhibition industry – that is, the collection of businesses and activities involved in the commercial showing of films – has experienced sweeping change on multiple levels. The adoption of new technologies working in tandem with changes in movie consumption

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The cultural sector and the 4Ps [Vietnam]

There is no magic wand that can help the cultural institutions to work smoothly and force the audience to flock to theatres with just one touch. The cultural sector of Vietnam needs decades to mature and develop. The development of a country is measured not only by the number of luxury cars, the skyscrapers, shopping

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Review of “Every Brilliant Thing” by Bhumi Collective

By Akanksha Raja (870 words, 8-minute read) Every Brilliant Thing is a (primarily) one-person monologue of an unnamed narrator (Andrew Marko) coming to terms with his mother’s depression and suicidal tendencies. His effort to reconcile with his mother’s instability takes the form of a numbered list devised at the age of 6 – after her

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Review of “POP AYE”: A Soul Journey

By Yue Jie (870 words, 7-minute read) Spoiler alert! If you’ve not watched the movie yet, go see it before reading on. Few films deal with animals as a central character, and even fewer have an elephant as its protagonist. In Pop Aye, the feature debut of Singaporean film director Kirsten Tan, an elephant called

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The music festival that wants you to care about cultural preservation [Philippines]

“At the Malasimbo music and arts festival, there are 5,000 people of about 30 different nationalities. There are Europeans, Americans, Canadians, Japanese, among many others, and like them, I am a foreigner here. I am Filipino yet I do not belong to the community of Puerto Galera nor have I been to the other municipalities

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Phnom Penh’s White Building [Cambodia]

“When I heard Phnom Penh wasn’t a walking city, I bought a good pair of shoes. The evidence on my feet at the day’s end—after dodging motorbikes, piles of trash, street meat smoke, tuktuk offers—was par for the course. The joy of moving at my own pace offset the challenges, but could not have prepared

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An Indian Renaissance [Singapore]

“From storytelling to stage plays, feature films to fusion music, the works of Singapore’s Indian artists are taking a multi-faceted diaspora story to global audiences. Sixty years after she left India, Mrs Santha Bhaskar travelled back to her Motherland in 2015 to choreograph a dance commissioned by the Singapore International Festival of Arts. As part

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Sounds of the Hmong [Thailand]

“Chiang Mai archivist and musician Victoria Vorreiter published a book on tribal music, Songs Of Memory: Traditional Music Of The Golden Triangle, in 2009. Since then she has been busy travelling, researching and recording music from the tribal peoples of the mountains, and for the past six years her focus has been on Hmong music,

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Remembering the brutal battle that changed Manila forever [Philippines]

“If you’ve ever taken a class on Philippine history, you’d know about the Battle of Manila — but perhaps not well enough. While you might picture a day of fighting that led to the liberation of Manila in World War II, in truth, the battle lasted the duration of February 3, 1945 to March 3,

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A new generation finds its voice in protest theater [Philippines]

“They could have been staging Shakespeare. Instead, this year’s batch of theater students from the Philippine High School for the Arts, aged 12 to 18, take on the difficult task of protest in a post-truth world. “A lot of our students [were] troubled and they don’t know what to believe in,” explained their directing and

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Contributors

Akanksha Raja