Womanifesto Movements: A History of an Evolving Artist-Organized Biennial by John Tain
Talk
This presentation surveys the history of Womanifesto, a perennial event that took place in Thailand between 1997 and 2008. Organized by the artists Nitaya Ueareewarokul, Varsha Nair, and others, the more or less biannual events for women artists over the course of its life variously took the form of exhibitions, workshops, publications, and residencies. As such, it emerged from the globalization that was to sweep across various parts of Asia in the 1990s, but also differentiated itself from more conventional and consistently-formatted events. As such, Womanifesto provides an occasion to review the different purposes of such events.
John Tain is Head of Research at Asia Art Archive. Recent projects include an exhibition at the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa (2018), and MAHASSA, a scholarly program co-organized by the Dhaka Art Summit, Cornell University, and AAA in 2019-2020. His writings on Rirkrit Tiravanija, Wu Tsang, Charles Gaines and Kara Walker, among others, have appeared in leading publications, and he is a series editor for Afterall Exhibition Histories. He was previously a curator at the Getty Research Institute in LA, during which he curated exhibitions for the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time and the Terra Foundation for American Art. He received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.
Location: National College of Arts, Mall Road
Date: February 28, 2020
To view the complete talk, please visit: John Tain on Womanifesto Movements