The Open Call for Leadership Camp: “(Im)material Ruins” is now closed.

Application Open: Tuesday, March 22, 2022
Application Due: Friday, April 22, 2022
First Session: Sunday, May 29, 2022 (5-8 pm); subsequent meetings in July, September, October 2022

“What ensued has been a separate history of ruins in China. Ruin images were legitimated; but what made them ‘modern’ … was their emphasis on the present, their fascination with violence and destruction, their embodiment of a critical gaze, and their mass circulation.” – Wu Hung, “Ruins, Fragmentation, and the Chinese Modern/Postmodern,” in Gao Minglu, ed., Inside Out: New Chinese Art (New York and San Francisco 1998), 60.

“(Im)material Ruins” is the theme of the fifth iteration of Asia Art Archive in America’s annual Leadership Camp. Organized and moderated by Don Hải Phú Daedalus with AAA-A’s Furen Dai, Leadership Camp’s intimate format interweaves four closed seminar discussions of selected texts with field trips and the diverse knowledge of participants. The goal is to use these readings and excursions as guideposts to think about ruins – how they exist as traces of the past and at the same time how they expand our imagination of the future.

To apply, please send all the below elements in ONE PDF FILE:

• a CV
• a narrative bio (max. 200 words)
• a proposal to lead one of the four sessions on the topic of “(Im)material Ruins”. Your proposal should include a short overview statement of the session, framing questions, and two primary readings you are planning to assign (with a 30-page total cap) that are in conversation with (or opposition to) each other. (max. 1 page)
• an artwork or writing sample (optional)

General requirements:
Applicants should be based in the New York metropolitan area, or are able to travel to New York for all four sessions.

Asia Art Archive in America’s 2022 Leadership Camp Participants:

Based in Queens, New York, Alchemyverse was founded in 2020 by artists Bicheng Liang (b.1994, China) and Yixuan Shao (b.1996, US/China). As a duo, they construct visual and aural assemblages, working across disciplines of installation, print, sound, sculpture, and photography. Focusing on research and experimentation, their hybrid practice resonates with macro-environmental concerns and human dislocation of space, leading them to places such as Oahu and Moa Kea in Hawaii, the American Southwest, the Hudson Highlands, and the Chilean desserts. Alchemyverse has exhibited at the School of Visual Arts (NY), Lenfest Center of the Arts (NY), Catherine Fosnot Art Gallery and Center (CT), and the Bishop Museum (HI, in collaboration with Michael Joo). A recent alumnus at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (NY), they were also a finalist of the 2022 Smack Mellon Artist in Residence Program. Currently, they are in residence at ISCP (NY) and La Wayaka Current (UK/Chile).

Junni Chen is a curator and writer based between New York and Singapore. Chen is currently an MA candidate at the Center of Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York, and holds a BA in Media Studies from the National University of Singapore. She is also the curator-in-residence at the Julia Stoschek Collection (Berlin/Düsseldorf), where she is working on an exhibition that is scheduled to open in fall 2022. Most recently, she curated the exhibition Lustrous like plastic (2022), which featured new commissions and recent works by Heman Chong, Christopher K. Ho, Bo Wang, and WangShui, at the Hessel Museum of Art/CCS Bard, New York. Her other recent projects include co-editing a critical monograph on the work of artist Anton Ginzburg, Blue Flame: Constructions and Initiatives(Hatje Cantz, December 2020). As part of a contemporary art program, Chen curated Anton Ginzburg: VIEWs (2019), Boedi Widjaja: Declaration of (2019), and Richard Fleischner: Witness Mark (2020) at Helwaser Gallery in New York.

Daniel Chew is a filmmaker and artist who works collaboratively with Micaela Durand and the collective CFGNY. With his practice, Chew envisions and enacts the conditions for creating a shared world by finding, creating, and nurturing moments of intimacy and kinship. Working in collaboration is one of the ways he achieves this. Believing that collaboration acknowledges the creative process as a constant dialogue between many and contrasts the idea of an artistic genius, which is accompanied by race, gender, and sexuality. Chew’s films and art have been exhibited at the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Auto Italia London, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, MOCA LA, and MoMA PS1. He has been in residence at Fogo Island Arts,the Macdowell Colony, and BiljmAIR in Amsterdam and has been awarded the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship and Queer Art Fellowship.

Kolleen Ku is a PhD candidate in Art History at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. Ku’s research focuses on global modern and contemporary art. She is interested in the history of migration, entanglements between modernist style and racialized representation, and interdisciplinary exchanges across visual practice, literature, and performance. Originally from Hong Kong, Kolleen received her B.A. from Columbia University in Art History and English in 2016. Ku is currently an adjunct instructor for the Department of Art History, NYU. She previously worked in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Z.T. Nguyen (he/they, b. 1997) is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Nguyen completed his BFA in painting at Rhode Island School of Design. From 2019-2020, he was an artist-in-residence at Textile Arts Center (NY) and conducted visual research on fast fashion in Southeast Asian tourism, culminating in a series of assemblages that imagined the economic, sexual, and spiritual hardships in the life of a [fictional] queer refugee who opens a clothing store. The assemblages referenced Nguyen’s own lived experiences, his family’s histories, and the visual cultures of various Vietnamese and Laotian religions. Today, Nguyen’s work uses commonplace household materials—such as bed sheets, painter’s tape, and kitchen twine—to address his interests in familiarity, improvisation, and the finality of in-betweenness. He has shown his work at Textile Arts Center, Transmitter Gallery, Kunstraum LLC, and the RISD Museum, among other venues. In late 2021, he was a Southeast Asian Artist Fellow at The Alternative Art School (TAAS); his fellowship was co-sponsored by TAAS and MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum (Chiang Mai, Thailand).

Xiaoxia Song is a professor at the School of Humanities, Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, China. Song teaches history, theory, and criticism of Chinese modern/contemporary art and pursues research on contemporary art in a global context. She received PhD in art history from CAFA (2008) and MA in Chinese classical literature from Peking University (1988). Song was the editor of the journal, Art Research, at CAFA (1988-2003) and has been the director of the Art Research Institute at CAFA since its founding (2003-present). Her curatorial projects include Liu Xiaodong: 1990-2000 (2000), Xia Xiaowan (2003), Lu Liang (2014), ZAOXING: Artworks from the Faculty of the School of Fine Arts at CAFA (2010), RELAY: Artworks from the Faculty of the CAFA (2015/2016), Hu Shih and Peking University (2016), and Hu Shih in the Intellectual History of the 20th Century China (2017).

Anne Wu is an artist from Queens, NY, who works primarily in sculpture and installation. Wu received a BFA from Cornell University and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University. Her work has been exhibited at EFA Studios Gallery (New York, NY), Real Art Ways (Hartford, CT), The Shed (New York, NY), NARS Foundation (Brooklyn ,NY), Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon (New Lebanon, NY), and the New York Public Library (New York, NY), among others. She was an artist-in-residence at the NARS Satellite Residency on Governors Island in 2020 and at the BHQFU Emerging Artist Residency in 2015. Currently, she is a 2021–22 Studio Artist at Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, NY.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.