Category Archives: asia-pacific

Hélène Hoppenot

Following my research, collection acquisitions and exhibition on Southeast Asian photography while at the National Gallery of Australia, in 2014 I wrote a piece about Hélène Hoppenot and 1930s women modernist photographers in Southeast Asia. Till now this essay has been unpublished. It is now online — click here — more or less unchanged from the 2014 version with a few notes and links added.

 

camera chic

East West Chic

In 2017  The Asia Art Society of Australia (TAASA) hosted a seminar of East West Chic.
I presented a talk on Camera Chic based on a collection we had put together – with fun pictures from  Asian studio portraiture. The collection highlighted the fusion of East and West evident in dress, accessories, and studio backdrops. Click here for more

Make sure you see the link to the powerpoint slides with loads of photographs to enjoy.

Walter Woodbury

Entrepreneur, Inventor: Woodbury in Indonesia

I have uploaded a small essay I wrote in 2014 about Walter Woodbury in Indonesia. This essay was linked to the exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia — Garden of the East: photography in Indonesia 1850s-1940s. Click here for my essay online.

There’s also another small essay online that relates to a photograph — the one above — titled Serimpies, or dancing girls of the Sultano c.1858 . Click here for that essay.

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For the list of my essays (being updated) click here

 

Curatorland

Writing in the Rain, FX Harsono - Still from colour video 2011  Collection National Gallery of Australia

Following my leaving the National Gallery in September 2014, I was asked by the editor of the Journal of the Asian Arts Society Australia to write about my last decade at the gallery — the decade that saw the establishment of a survey collection of Asia-Pacific photography spanning from South Asia to the west coast of the Americas.

The new collection was largely based around major collections acquired from several major private collections of Asia-Pacific photography including one of some 5000 colonial-era Indonesian photographs.

Here’s that story — click here

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For the list of my other essays (being updated) click here

 

Thai photography

NUS Museum (Singapore) Rediscovering Forgotten Thai Masters of Photography: till 21 July 2018. Research by Manit…

Posted by The Art Museum on Friday, 23 March 2018

Japanese images

Sights and Scenes in Fair JapanSainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures

Posted by The Art Museum on Monday, 14 August 2017

Lee Fook Chee

Exhibition: Lee Fook CheeLee Fook Chee: Son of Singapore, Photographer of Hong KongThe Art House, Singapore, 3 Aug‑3 Sept 2017

Posted by The Art Museum on Thursday, 10 August 2017

National Gallery Singapore

CHARTING THOUGHTS: ESSAYS ON ART IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

A new research book has been published by the National Gallery of Singapore. It contains essays on Southeast Asian art by 25 scholars.

I was given the honour by the NGS of being one the contributing scholars.

The book is available from the NGS shop and through their website — click here.

Continue reading National Gallery Singapore

The curatorial crypt

Steve McCurry — Sharbat Gula

743ceafe-66bb-4f83-a4ae-ebf4bf9c9480-1360x2040A sad story indeed about the woman in the famous Steve McCurry/National Geographic photograph. The original photograph was a 1984 cover for National Geographic.

There’s a 2015 report that Sharbat Gula, the subject of the original photograph, is in trouble because she remains a refugee from Afghanistan, but was carrying a Pakistan identify card.

Please click on the image to the right for the link to the story.