Research, Process, and Discourse

6 – 13 January 2010 in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap

14 – 17 January 2010 in Singapore

Free admission

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The Flying Circus Project (FCP), conceived and curated by Ong Keng Sen, began with three editions that were a geographical survey of Asia, with artists coming from Burma, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Lao, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

 

The FCP started primarily with a group of urban Asian artists who were outside of the traditional arts of their countries/Asia but were interested in reinventing tradition, conceptualising its place in contemporary arts, looking at the parallels between the traditional cosmos and contemporary life.  

 

The first edition in 1996 began with much physical training.  1998 saw the moving away from the aesthetics of intercultural performance into the politics of intercultural performance.  There was the introduction of visual artists, artists crossing borders in traditional arts (such as women practising kathakali, young “masters” searching for new pathways, traditional musicians crossing over into pop idols).  2000 was the culmination of the geographical survey with 20 Tibetan monks (from Yunnan, China) joining contemporary artists in exploring rituals of spirituality and rituals of daily contemporary life (including club trance musicians).  

 

2002/3 was the final year of all Asian artists but it was also the first time that FCP moved out of Singapore.  It evolved into an 18-month project where one visiting artist a month worked and collaborated with the residents of the royal town, Luang Prabang in Laos.  

 

In 2004, Ong began to perceive Asia more as the site where artists would continue their conversations. The process started in 1996 had been achieved in part, i.e. to begin the collaborative processes between Asian artists, who due to the development of contemporary arts had often looked towards Europe and the US.  However after 8 years, there was the danger that a “ghetto” was developing, there was a need to make porous the new borders that were emerging. 

 

Hence the FCP in 2004 invited artists working in diverse cities in  Asia, Europe, as well as Beirut, Jerusalem, and New York: Benoit Lachambre, Bilal Kbeiz, Fanny & Alexander, Jan Ritsema, Jerome Bel, Jumana El Aboud,  la Ribot, Lina Saneh, Otobong Nkanga, Raeda Sadeh, Rabih Mroue, Tony Chakar and Walid Raad. This opened a new door. 

 

In the 6th lab, artists visited Vietnam under the Flying Circus Project 2007 — Travelogue.  This was a contextualised conversation in a specific site to explore the issues of memory, transformation, and the local. Brian Gothong Tan, Caden Manson, David Subal, DJ Spooky, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Koosil-Ja, Melati Suryodarmo, Meg Stuart, Michikazu Matsune, Nibroll, Rachid Ouramdane and Raqs Media Collective participated; travelling between Singapore and Vietnam.  In January 2010, FCP continues in Cambodia and Singapore.

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“Dear Airan, Ashok, Eszter, Filiz, Gurur, hafiz, Heman, Hu Fang, Janez, Janez, Jecko, Manuel, Mustafa, Nelisiwe, Tarek, Tim, Vlatka, Zul,

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AFTER PEACE, POST-RUPTURE

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welcome to Singapore and to the Cambodian ALTER U. I am so very happy that you could all join us in this programme.

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Perhaps it is time to give you some background information about this specific project. perhaps it is better to start with the experimental project in Cambodia as this is the first stage of our work together.

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I have been going back and forth between Cambodia and Singapore since 1992 when free elections were conducted by the united nations. in 2000, I revisited Phnom Penh to invite some artists to the flying circus project 2000. There I met several mature dancers who had been through the “concentration camps” of the Khmer Rouge regime led by pol pot. as you all know, pol pot wanted to bring Cambodia to year zero, to set the country back on the agrarian track of progress. this meant that all urban citizens of Cambodia were sent for reeducation. Special targets were artists; intellectuals; people who wore glasses, spoke french, who were married to intellectuals. they all became political prisoners. anybody related to the royal court was viewed as enemies of the people, this included the troupe of 300 some royal musicians and dancers. 1.6 mil people were alleged to have died from the Khmer Rouge regime during those four years of 1975 – 79. 

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The war crime trials of those four years are finally being held in Phnom Penh since last year. at the moment, the first accused duch who ran the infamous S-21, the Phnom Penh centre for political prisoners is ongoing (judgement will be given in march 2010).

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The artists that I met in 2000 and subsequently worked with to create a work ‘the continuum: beyond the killing fields’ were court dancers and artists sent to the killing fields. since then, we have collaborated with other artists in Cambodia such as Ly Daravuth from reyum gallery whom we invited with "seams of change" (an archive of Cambodia dress in everyday life) to Singapore and to a school of politics (the flying circus project special edition 2005) at the Yokohama Triennale. Through the arts network Asia – a peer group of Asian artists in different disciplines and cultural managers, workers who give out microgrants for cultural work and artistic processes across borders in Asia – Cambodian projects have also been funded such as the street kids and hip hop/rap project tiny toones (read more under http://www.artsnetworkasia.org). we have continued our research in Cambodia during this last decade and you will meet some of these cultural workers, researchers and artists during our stay in Cambodia.

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Since 2005, we have encountered the next generation of artists born AFTER the war, who have graduated from the University of Phnom Penh in different arts and creative fields, the twenty-somethings. they are not interested in the ongoing trials and they want to move forward from the war. They have a desire to make contemporary work but have not been much exposed to creative strategies from artists who work organically, naturally in communities and environments of contemporary art. their narrative is very different from the generation of mature artists who were directly affected during the war and targeted for their artistry. These twenty-something artists studied preservation and conservation of the arts that were almost lost, now preciously guarded and reinstalled back in Cambodian culture. there is hence a fundamental disconnect from art and daily life as the focus has been on classical and traditional (folk) Cambodian culture in their training. 

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But the generations of young artists often want more than the classical or the traditional. they are curious and are inevitably drawn to contemporary expressions in dance (the concentrated amrita group of participants) and for the bophana lab participants there is a desire to express themselves through the tools of the everyday which they are immersed in. this second loose group of participants are mostly emerging in their practices. They comprise journalists, filmmakers, visual artists, fashion designers, writers, architects and anthropologists. Cambodia today is a lively mix of expats, diaspora returnees from the US and France (often escaping from the civil war in Cambodia as young children and after studies abroad, coming back to experience Cambodia) and young Cambodians who are growing up in a complete context from their parents’ generation.

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ALTERU is a test project of alternative universities which situates itself in the multiple gaps in Cambodia today. it was prompted by the hunger and the need expressed by many young Cambodians. it is a study project created by artists for artists. it is aimed at sharing experiences in contemporary making, including our responses to dance, memory and archive in our personal work.

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Thus far, we have done two pilot programmes with the amrita lab and the bophana lab in November 2009. we brought together Singapore choreographer Joavien Ng, manila choreographer donna Miranda and Istanbul filmmaker/contemporary artist Kutlug Ataman to work with amrita. Singapore filmmaker Jasmine Ng and myself conducted an intense workshop for the bophana lab where we worked directly with the archives of bophana. i personally experienced a lot from my direct exposure to the bophana participants.

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Perhaps some websites maybe relevant here and the wonderful work they do:
http://www.amritaperformingarts.org
http://www.bophana.org

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See u tonight at 72-13 where we will talk more about the planning of the ALTERU.

 

hug, Keng Sen"

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- Ong Keng Sen, Curator FCP 2010

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FCP 2010: Phnom Penh and Siem Reap Programme

Wednesday, 6 January 2010

• Arrival and visit to Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center initiated by Rithy Pan.

 

Thursday, 7 January 2010

• Alter U begins at Amrita Performing Arts initiated by Fred Frumberg.

• Reyum Institute of Arts and Culture led by Daravuth Ly.

 

Friday, 8 January 2010

• Visit to Tiny Toones initiated by KK — hip-hop and getting vulnerable kids off the streets, away from drugs, exploitation, HIV, violence and gangs.  

• Alter U programme continues at Amrita and Bophana

 

Saturday, 9 January 2010

• Visit to Khmer Arts Academy led by Sophiline Cheam.

• Alter U programme continues at Amrita and Bophana

 

Sunday, 10 January 2010

• Alter U programme continues at Amrita and Bophana

 

Monday, 11 – Wednesday, 13 January 2010

• Alter U travels together with Cambodian participants from Amrita and Bophana to Siem Reap/Angkor Wat

• Cambodia Living Arts led by Phloeun Prim — programme with masters artists

• Tea Tables — closure of Alter U

 

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FCP 2010: Singapore Programme

Saturday, 16 January 2010

11am till late

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Superintense is a marathon of personal strategies of creativity in the urban context, in our worlds. From one morning to the next, all the FCP artists will have an hour each to present their work. their practice to themselves and a public audience. A table, a projector, a microphone, an audience; which can all be reconstructed into an open space — the same conditions are given to each artist. They are invited to share their practice with the audience; past work, present work, future work. It can take the form of a talk, a lecture-demonstration. a performance, slides, a video, a DJ session, a workshop, a discussion. Without a break, all the artists relentlessly articulate their practice, communicating an insight to the myriad ways of inhabiting, dissolving, thinking, making, living, destroying, rejuvenating. An actor, an audience, a shared space. Take a cigarette pause on the run. 

 

Artists for the Flying Circus Project 2010 

Airan Berg 

Ashok Sukumaran

Eszter Salamon
Filiz Sizanli

Gurur Ertem

Hafiz Dhaou

Heman Chong

Hu Fang

Janez Jansa (Davide Grassi and Emil Hryatin)

Jecko Siompo

Manuel Pelmus

Mustafa Kaplan

Nelisiwe Xaba

Ong Keng Sen

Tarek Atoui
Tim Etchells
Vlatka Horvat

Zulkifle Mahmod

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To learn more about the artists, click here.

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Click here to access the FCP 2010 blog.

 

Main funding from The Ford Foundation, Asian Cultural Council with special funds from The Rockefeller Foundation. With support from National Arts Council, The French Embassy, Lee Foundation, Arts Fund and Goethe-institut Singapore. With additional support from Double Six Press Pte Ltd, Perfectus AV Pte Ltd and Webvisions. Official Hotel: Copthorne King's Hotel Singapore.