ArtAsiaPacific - May - June 2021

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Photography is often described as a passive media—a recording of things that happen before the lens. But for many contemporary artists and photojournalists, it is a field of active investigation. In the cover Feature of AAP’s May/June issue, Cleo Roberts-Komireddi examines how a surge in majoritarian politics in South and Southeast Asia is driving photo-activism, archiving initiatives, and collaboration between collectives across the region.
Our second Feature spotlights Los Angeles-based multimedia artist Candice Lin, whose touring solo exhibition “Pigs and Poison” historicizes the Covid-19-heightened scapegoating of Asians during pandemics. Lin has long focused on “non-humans and the dehumanized, creating projects that cross past with present and future, self with other,” writes managing editor Chloe Chu.
In Up Close, the editors examine projects by Sarah Choo Jing, Mika Tajima, and Minouk Lim. For Inside Burger Collection, curator Marie Muracciole interviews Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal. Abdullah M. I. Syed, Agung Kurniawan, and Ayoung Kim appear in Profiles.
Elsewhere, deputy editor HG Masters surveys the nearly 12-year-long run of Beijing’s alternative space Arrow Factory; Chicago artist Aram Han Sifuentes discusses US voter suppression; and Haig Aivazian pens a One on One about 19th-century French painter Eugène Delacroix. In Dispatch, we hear about the intergenerational support between citizens and artists fighting for democracy in Myanmar. For Fine Print, lawyers Juyoun Han and Patrick K. Lin dissect how Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act allows social media platforms the freedom to decide how and what content to ban, and how it impacts artists online.
Lastly, for Where I Work, contributor Daphne Chu visited the Taipei studio of animator Zhang Xu Zhan, who utilizes folded joss paper, customarily burned as offerings to one’s ancestors, in his stop-motion videos.