Exhibition tour and artist talk by Nguyen Phuong Linh
-
08 September 2025
RELATED:
A presentation by Annie Jael Kwan
With over 27,000 digital items already indexed including performance documentation (photographs, videos, audio recordings), artwork (photographs and videos), marketing materials, supporting literature and written interviews with the artists, and newer items awaiting the next phase of sorting, the Southeast Asia Performance Collection (SAPC) is currently the largest digital collection in Europe dedicated to performance-based practices within Southeast Asian contemporary art. Representing more than 50 artists from Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines, the collection not only gathers an extensive body of materials, but also reflects a sustained process of archival labour built through trust, collaboration, and long-term research. Since its launch in 2017, SAPC underwent multiple discursive, performative, and archival iterations across research residencies, exhibitions, symposia, and publications, becoming an influential reference point for conversations around performance-based practices and their historiography in Southeast Asia and beyond.
Collated and launched in the UK in 2017 by Something Human (directed by Annie Jael Kwan and Alessandra Cianetti, 2014–18) at the Live Art Development Agency (London), SAPC grew out of extensive field research residencies, interviews with artists and curators across Southeast Asia, and the donation of personal archives, including the extensive digital archive of Singaporean performance pioneer Lee Wen. The collection was later exhibited at Haus der Kunst (Munich) in 2019 alongside the symposium Pathways of Performativity in Contemporary Southeast Asian Art, and was further extended through a special issue of Southeast of Now Volume 6 (2022), which explored “performativity” across and beyond the region.
In addition to the artists featured in this exhibition and performance programme at Haus der Kunst (2019) – Anida Yoeu Ali, Ho Rui An, Le Brothers, Amy Lee Sanford, New World Disorder, Tuấn Mami, Judy Sibayan, Nicholas Tee, Lee Wen, Tith Kanitha, Svay Sareth and Noel Ed De Leon – other artists, collectives and festivals in the SAPC include: Leang Seckon, Boedi Widjaja, Richard Streitmatter-Tran, Khvay Samnang, Kelvin Atmadibrata, Lại Diệu Hà, The Appendix Group (Phụ Lục), Nguyễn Quốc Thành, Trần Tuấn, Nerisa Guevara, Roberto Chabet, Tupada Action Media Art (TAMA), Yuan MorO Ocampo, Future of Imagination 2, 3, 8, and 10, Amanda Heng, Ray Langenbach, Loo Zi Han, Lynn Lu, Bo Rithy and others.
While shaped by the contributions of many Southeast Asian artists, curators, and researchers, SAPC has not previously been formally presented within the region itself. This presentation by Annie Jael Kwan, held within the framework of Phụ Lục Project, marks a symbolic homecoming of the collection and re-situates it within the lived conditions from which it emerged. In the presentation, Annie Jael Kwan will reflect on the ethos behind the archive, its formation, exhibition history, and its broader implications for thinking about visibility, performativity, and network-building in Southeast Asian art.