In a multi-part interview series, we provoke critical dialogue between contemporary, visual and fine-artists on their thoughts, experiences and practices. Watch recordings of their personal stories in artistry and originality while addressing the impact of social, political and economic influences in a global context.

Session 1: A conversation with Wang Gongyi interviewed by Jiao Tianlong [in Mandarin]

Wang Gongyi was born in Tianjin, China in 1946, and received her master’s degree from the Printmaking Department at Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1980. Her graduation project at the academy, a series of woodcut prints celebrating female revolutionary Qiu Jin, won the grand prize at China’s Second National Youth Art Exhibition in 1980, making her the first woman to gain such recognition. In 1986 she was invited by the French Ministry of Culture to study and exhibit in France. After participating in a printmaking exhbition at the Portland Museum of Art in 1997, she fell in love with the city and settled there in 2001. In recent years Wang Gongyi has become known for her ongoing series Windsor Blue, watercolor paintings that combine her love of literature and the natural world, all executed in her signature blue pigment.

Dr. Tianlong Jiao is the head curator at Hong Kong Palace Museum. He received his B.A. from Peking University in 1987 and Ph. D. from Harvard University in 2003. Prior to his appointment at the Hong Kong Palace Museum, he was the Curator of Asian Art at the Denver Art Museum, the Head and Curator of Chinese Art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Chief Curator of Hong Kong Maritime Museum, the Chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Bishop Museum. He also served as faculty or visiting professors at University of Hawaii-Manoa, Xiamen University, Chinese University of Science and Technology and Shandong University. His research specialty is early Chinese art and archaeology. He has curated many international traveling exhibitions in collaboration with major museums worldwide, including the Palace Museum. He also conducted archaeological projects in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Hawaii and Honduras. He has authored/co-authored seven books and more than ninety research papers both in Chinese and in English. His book The Neolithic of Southeast China (Cambria Press 2007) was the winner of the 2007 Philip and Eugenia Cho Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Asian Studies.

Session 2: A conversation with Xiaoze Xie interviewed by Michael Yong-Haron

Xiaoze Xie is an internationally recognized artist and the Paul L. & Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art at Stanford University. Xie received his Master of Fine Art degrees from the Central Academy of Arts & Design in Beijing and the University of North Texas. Xie has exhibited extensively in the US and internationally, his recent solo exhibitions include “Objects of Evidence” at the Asia Society Museum in New York City (2019-20) and “Eyes On” at the Denver Art Museum (2017-18). Xie’s work has garnered critical acclaim, his exhibitions have been reviewed in “The New York Times”, “Art in America” and “Artnews”, among others. His work is in the permanent collection of such institutions as the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Denver Art Museum, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, San Jose Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum of California. Xie received the Painters and Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2013), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2003), and artist awards from the Dallas Museum of Art and Phoenix Art Museum.

Michael Yong-Haron was born into a family of artists and designers. His upbringing has always been intertwined with the world of arts and culture. He is a grandson of Yong Mun Sen, a.k.a, the Father of Malaysian paintings. With a deep passion for the arts, he and his wife established the Michael & Saniza Collection that supports contemporary Chinese ink artists, women artists, game changing artists as well as the preservation of his family’s legacy.

He is a Founding Patron of the M+ Museum, a Founding Sponsor of the Malaysian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and Macau, Co-Founder of the KH-Asia Society Leadership series, and a regular community volunteer in the areas of helping disabled artists, children causes and education. He also supports the United World College art students in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Visual Arts programme.

Session 3: A conversation with Tayeba Begum Lipi  interviewed by Saniza Othman

Born at Gaibandha, Bangladesh Tayeba Begum Lipi did her MFA in 1993 at Institute of Fine Art, University of Dhaka. Tayeba is the Co-Founder and Trustee of Britto Arts Trust, Bangladesh. Tayeba has done a number of solo exhibitions and projects at Istanbul, London, Dhaka, NYC, Hong Kong and Delhi. Her major duo with artist Mahbubur Rahman are ‘Artist as Activist’ at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, USA in 2016 curated by Caitlin Doherty and ‘Faces of Intimate Strangers’ at the Modern Art Museum, Shanghai curated by Sandy Hsiuchic Lo.

Saniza Othman is a co-Founder of the Michael & Saniza Collection that supports game changing artists, contemporary Chinese ink artists, women artists, disabled artists and the preservation of a family legacy. Growing up in a diplomatic family, she understands the importance of using dialogue to achieve harmony and sees arts as one of these channels.

She is a Founding Sponsor and Vice Chairlady of the Malaysian Chamber of Commerce, the Chairlady of the University of Hong Kong LL.M ADR Alumni Association, a Founding Patron of M+ Museum and a Member of Asia Society HK Arts and Culture Council. She regularly volunteers in causes for disabled artists, children and education.

Session 4: An in-studio interview with Erez Nevi Pana

A vegan and passionate animal rights activist, Erez Nevi Pana’s practice is based on investigating natural phenomena and environmental processes through material exploration. Born in Bnei Brak, Israel in 1983, Nevi Pana earned his Bachelor of Arts in Design from the Holon Institute of Technology in 2011 and Master of Arts from the Design Academy of Eindhoven in 2014, where his thesis focused on the recrystallization of salt. After graduation, Nevi Pana formed La Terrasse in Eindhoven as a platform for designers, artists, writers, and thinkers in 2015.

Nevi Pana’s investigations of salt has developed into a long-term research project; he has been working with salt in the Dead Sea for the past eight years—investigating the devastating imbalance of an over-abundance of salt caused by the industrialization and mineral extraction of the region. His works have been exhibited at museums worldwide, and have been acquired in the permanent collections such as The Design Museum Holon in Israel, and the FRAC Grand Large - Hauts-de-France in Dunkerque. In 2020, Nevi Pana created Crystalline, the world’s first commissioned work of salt-based architecture, which will debut in the National Gallery of Victoria’s NGV Triennial (2020-2021) in Melbourne and enter the museum’s permanent collection.

He is currently researching the topic of Vegan Design as a doctoral candidate at the University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria. Nevi Pana is based in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Session 5: A conversation with Vibha Galhotra interviewed by Georgina Maddox

Vibha Galhotra is a New Delhi-based conceptual artist, who works across various mediums, including sculpture, photography, printmaking, video, drawing and text. Her work is influenced by nature, climate change and the anthropogenic issues of our time. Her large-scale sculptural works explore the shifting topography of the world, delving into the impacts of globalization, urbanisation and growth, particularly in the city of New Delhi, India, her home for over a decade. Her work revolves around the ideas of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of culture, society and geography.

She has shown extensively in India, New York as well as internationally, with several projects involving local communities and their sites, leading to a range of in-situ works. 

Galhotra is currently a fellow at the Jerusalem International Fellow Program, 2020. She was the recipient of the Asia Arts Future Award in 2019, the Asian Cultural Council fellow in the USA in 2017, and was the recipient of the prestigious Rockefeller Grant in 2016.

Galhotra spent her formative years doing her In Bachelor in Fine Arts from the Government College of Arts, Chandigarh, followed by a Masters in Fine Arts at Kala Bhavan Centre for Visual Art, Santiniketan. 

Georgina Maddox is an independent critic-curator with 19-years-experience in the field of Indian Art and Culture. She blurs the lines of documentation, theory and praxis by operating as a critic/curator and involving herself in visual art projects. She has engaged in the act of curating, collaborating and writing about art practices that examine and speak about issues of gender/sexuality/marginalization and the juxtaposition of social hierarchy with acts of agency and defiance, over the years. Maddox is currently working as an independent critic-curator and art consultant based in New Delhi.

Maddox was working as a curator-consultant (July 2018 to August 2019) with director Tunty Chauhan at Threshold Art Gallery. She worked as gallery manager and in-house curator at Surrendra Paul Art Gallery, Sangeet Shyamala headed by Vasundhara Tewari Broota. She set up and worked as Chief Curator at Art Explore an online art portal with a physical space in Hauz Khas alongside photographer Vikram Singh. In 2017 She was the content curator for sahapedia.org, a pioneering arts and culture encyclopedia and online resource.

During her full-term in the media, she was Assistant Editor at India Today’s Mail Today and senior feature writer for the Indian Express and the Times of India. She is currently working in media as an independent critic for various publications and has published articles in Open Magazine, India Today, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and Elle Magazine, Hindu Business Line’s Sunday Magazine BLINK and the US based E-magazine, Studio International. She has critical essays in books like, Articulating Resistance: Art and Activism; edited by Deeptha Achar and Shivaji K. Panikkar and The Phobic and Erotic edited by Brinda Bose and Subhabrata Bhattacharyya.