The Sydney Asian Art Series invites leading researchers from across the world to share their work on a critical issue in early, modern and contemporary Asian art.
Entitled Cūra: collection, community, care, from 2023 to 2025, the annual series will gather leading scholars on collecting histories, object provenance, shifting notions of custodianship, and the role of researchers and curators as agents of care for artworks and their communities.
This year’s scholars will offer an expanded interpretation of care that goes beyond the traditional notion of preservation to consider several incisive questions: how can we care for marginalised collections and practices beyond concerns of authenticity and provenance? How can we define the ethics of care in the context of colonial archives? How can curatorial practices and strategies play a role in healing after natural disasters and displacement? What happens when care becomes a survival tactic, through which artists contribute to spaces and networks that keep alive alternative political and economic values? Bringing the concept of care into conversation with memory, identity, and community building, this year’s events engage with a wide variety of issues, from the politics of labour and collaboration to migration and environmental crises in geographies spanning across East, South, Southeast and West Asia.
The Sydney Asian Art Series is convened by art historians Dr Olivier Krischer and Dr Peyvand Firouzeh. The series is co-presented by The Power Institute and VisAsia, with support from the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
More information on this year’s series and scholars, and recordings of previous lectures are available on the Sydney Asian Art Series website.
Free, bookings required
Art Gallery Road Australia
