Open Calls and Opportunities: Jan 2022 (Singapore/SEA)
Updated 20 January 2022 ArtsEquator Lobang is a list of available open calls, job postings and other opportunities open to people from Singapore and Southeast Asia. “Lobang”, a Malay word for “hole”, is used in Singlish as a shorthand for…
SEE WHAT SEE: SEA AT SGIFF 2021
By ants chua, Ruby Thiagarajan and Janiqueel (1,200 words, 4-minute read) In this edition of See What See, we review three films made by Southeast Asian directors and featuring Southeast Asia currently showing at the Singapore International Film Festival 2021…
ANCER Lab 03 Manila: How arts managers are surviving COVID-19
By Wennie Yang (1,200 words, 4-minute read) Pandemic restrictions have put arts and cultural workers and institutions in a bind: choosing between sustaining their missions at times of a global pandemic or ceasing operations altogether. How have Southeast Asian arts…
OPEN CALL: Southeast Asian Arts Censorship Documentation
<Deadline extended to 15 October 2021> ArtsEquator invites applications for the position of Researcher for a regional arts censorship documentation and publication project it is piloting. The programme runs from Jan 2022 – Dec 2023. There are six positions available,…
Can the arts solve community issues in the region? The SEA*5 think so.
Can the creative society in Southeast Asia support each other in finding solutions to problems in our communities, powered by compassion and empathy? That’s one of the questions at the heart of the existence of Project SEA*5. The group comprises…
Meeting Point 2021: The cultural worker in a time of social change
By Wennie Yang (2,000 words, 8-minute read) Laptop fully charged, professional Zoom background selected – Meeting Point 2021 organised by Mekong Cultural Hub and its partners took place virtually between 20 to 22 May 2021. Artists, cultural intermediaries, academics, and…
SEE WHAT SEE (May 2021): SOUTHEAST ASIAN DOCUMENTARIES
By Joel Tan To borrow and distort the title of David Shield’s lyrical manifesto against fiction: I’ve been HUNGRY for reality in the month of May. And so for this month’s edition of SEE WHAT SEE, I’m training my sights…
Mapping Asian Arts Media: Key Findings (Singapore, Malaysia and Cambodia)
By Kathy Rowland What is the state of the arts media landscape in Southeast Asia? Based on global trends, the answer seemed evident: the landscape has shrunk, and its impact on the arts ecosystem is a growing concern amongst arts…
ArtsEquator’s Hot List: March 2021
Every first Wednesday of the month, ArtsEquator releases our editor’s picks of shows/events/programmes that our readers can look out for in that month. This list in published in no particular order. 1. Little Mournings Physical show: 4-7 March, various…
Women making history: Snow Whitening Revisited
By Brian Toh (814 words, 4-minute read) Snow Whitening Revisited presents an allegory on being a female artist in Cambodia, playing with imagery that evokes visceral feelings of clinging, and a sense of embodied helplessness that pays tribute to both…
ArtsEquator, Deadline Now
by Kathy Rowland ArtsEquator sometimes feels like a mythical creature. Looking back over the past 4 years, it takes the shape of a unicorn, a joyful improbability. With Covid-19, it can weigh like an albatross, cash flow statements instead of…
The Space of/for Memory: ”Last Night I Saw You Smiling”
By Alfonse Chiu (2,078 words, 7-minute read) Every space tells a story: the empty prison cell speaks of redemptions, of wrongs that were righted, and to the cynical, more earthly, minds, of miscarriages of justice, and the irrevocability of tragedies…
8 Must-Visit Arts And Culture Festivals In Singapore In 2022
It has been a whirlwind 2 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This pesky virus has wreaked havoc on many Singaporeans’ travel plans, including ours. With uncertainty continuing to loom over the travel bubble agreements between the various Southeast Asian…
Asian Arts Media Roundtable 2019: When Asian Critics Meet
By Akanksha Raja and Ke Weiliang (1,444 words, 6-minute read) The inaugural Asian Arts Media Roundtable (AAMR) took place between 24 to 25 May 2019 at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. Organised by ArtsEquator, the two-day gathering of over…
Masked dance tradition rises from near extinction in Cambodia (via Reuters)
PHNOM PENH/BANGKOK (Reuters) – Cambodia’s centuries-old tradition of masked dance was nearly wiped out by the Khmer Rouge’s “Killing Fields” regime, but a handful of artists managed to keep it alive and are now working to pass it along to…
Eleven New Elements from the Asia-Pacific Region Inscribed on the List of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage
Meeting in Mauritius until 1 December, the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage inscribed eleven elements from the Asia-Pacific region on the Lists of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage. Among them, two elements have been added to…
Cambodia Town Film Festival presents perspectives beyond ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ (via Long Beach Post)
Kilong Ung was just a teenager when the Khmer Rouge overtook his hometown of Battambang in Cambodia. Under the new regime, he and his seven sisters, along with their parents, were forced into concentration camps, where they worked 13 hours…
Vietnamese Cultural Week opens in Cambodia (via Nhân Dân)
NDO – The Vietnamese Culture Week opened at Chaktomuk theatre, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on September 11. The opening ceremony was attended by the Cambodian Minister of Cults and Religion Him Chhem, Cambodian Minister of Culture and Fine Arts Phoeurng…
Cambodian FB users rage over dance ownership (via The Nation)
August 31, 2018 18:20 United Nations’ cultural agency Unesco’s Facebook page has hosted a heated debate between Cambodians and Thais over Bangkok’s proposal for the inclusion of “khon” masked dance on the agency’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Social network users…
“Between Tiny Cities (រវាងទីក្រុងតូច)”: De-cyphering Conversation
By Nah Dominic (1080 words, five-minute read) A white circle 10 metres in diameter greets us on entering the flexible performance space in Loft 29. I stand next to B-boy Erak Mith of Tiny Toones (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). He is…
AExGTF Chats: “Between Tiny Cities (រវាងទីក្រុងតូច)” at George Town Festival
Between Tiny Cities (រវាងទីក្រុងតូច), a two-hander dance performance dovetailing b-boy vocabulary with contemporary dance, was the result of a three-year cultural exchange between Tiny Toones in Cambodia and Darwin City Rockers in Australia. It was presented at George Town Festival…
Bonn Phum: Cambodian Village Festival
By Sunitha Janamohanan Bonn Phum, the Village Festival, now in its fifth year and attracting hordes of young Cambodians, took place from April 6 – 8 2018, in the grounds of the Kok Ampil pagoda. Founded by Lomorpich Rithy with…
Cambodia’s first contemporary dance company: ‘we were blacklisted for not being Cambodian enough’ (via SEA Globe)
April is hot in Cambodia, with temperatures regularly hitting the mid-30s. And in the tourist town of Siem Reap, performers at New Cambodia Artists (NCA), the country’s first contemporary dance company, lay down in their studio as they wait for…
An orphaned artist paints for support (via The Phnom Penh Post)
Self-taught artist Yi Kakada has spent the past six years demonstrating his skills by painting on walls, fences and other public areas, often without getting paid. Born in Battambang province, he lost both his parents at an early age. Now…
Famous photographer finds his old painting (via The Phnom Penh Post)
As alumni of the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA) returned to retrieve paintings they had made for their assignments, a well-known Cambodian photographer spotted one of his among the pile. In a picture posted on Facebook, Mak Remissa, who…
Modern dancers go toe-to-toe with Cambodian tradition (via the Christian Science Monitor)
Performing a dance in red stilettos is not allowed at Angkor Archaeological Park, but that’s not stopping Khun Sreynoch from working on it. As members of Cambodia’s first contemporary dance company, Ms. Sreynoch and her closest colleagues have known each…
The Legacy of Kak Channthy, Cambodia’s Rock and Roll Heroine (via Saigoneer)
For many Cambodian music fans, March 20 was a heartbreaking day because Kak Channthy – the 38-year-old female vocal of the band The Cambodian Space Project – passed away in an accident in Phnom Penh. Founded in 2009, The Cambodian Space…
Cambodian photographer’s image honoured as one of the best in the world (via SEA Globe)
Cambodian photographer Ly Min has been recognised in the 2018 Sony World Photography Awards, with his image Cave of Skulls being selected among the top 50 in the world in the Open Travel Category The Open competition rewards the best…
Inspiring Arts: Phal Saravuth (via AsiaLIFE Cambodia)
Cambodian Living Arts believes that arts and cultural expression are essential to a thriving future for Cambodia. This month, we tell the story of Phal Saravuth, leader of Yu Vek Selapak troupe, a group of young artists skilled in dancing,…
Seeking to Build Society Through Art: The Cambodian Circus, Phare (via Performing Arts Network Japan)
The Kingdom of Cambodia was established in 1993 after suffering the Vietnam War, the horrors of Pol Pot and his regime, civil war and countless rebellions. The reconstruction of this country has been supported by around 3,500 different international non-government…