The Japan Foundation Asia Center will present "Condition Report" in 2017, a collaborative art project by curators from Japan and Southeast Asian Countries.
"Condition Report" is composed two parts. The first phase of the project consists of 4 major collaborative exhibitions held in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Bangkok. The second phase consists of 14 local exhibitions.
"ESCAPE from the SEA" in Kuala Lumpur is the second collaborative exhibition of this project.

Event detail

[The brochure of "Condition Report" (PDF/4.48MB)]

[Curators' Message]

ESCAPE from the SEA is a contemporary art exhibition featuring artists from Japan, Malaysia and the Southeast Asia region.

The exhibition concept is to explore the complex layers of politics of the imagined community and the poetics and possibility of "drowning on dry land". It frames the sea as both real and fictional, representative of geo-political boundaries as well as a state of boundlessness.

Contemporary art, in this instance, becomes a visual cue for the parallel narratives, inviting the audience to imagine ways of questioning the idea of the real sea and imagined community of the SEA as fluid and flexible notions of politics and poetics.

Escape in this case is akin to identifying a gap, not in the manner of direct confrontation with the sea as an object, but to look out for a break. By "escape," we refer to contemporary practices of hacking and creating possibility of alternative. It is to differ and defer when escape becomes a line of flight, signifying a process rather than a definitive and singular act.

ESCAPE from the SEA is our attitude for the present world. Most of Southeast Asian countries and Japanese provinces are surrounded by the sea. The sea is sometimes used as the protection wall from the outside world, but on the other hand we sometimes feel agonized due to the sea. It is not necessary to consider the sea as an adversary, but neither do we affirm the sea as a blessing. We should keep certain distance from the sea as the creative attitude of ESCAPE.

ESCAPE not only means getting away, but also means becoming wild (wilderization). In the civilized and continuing disembodied society, can wilderization (making wild) make alternative routes? We would like to start this project from reading ESCAPE as "Wilderization." It is not about getting away, but getting wild in the city. Let's hack the system and find alternative (detour) routes with our own body. And survive by our creativity. This act must become the poetic political action.

Let's ESCAPE (Wilderizing!) with the physical/political and imaginary/poetic action. And survive in the dualistic world of conceptual and physical intertwinements.

(Yap Sau Bin & Hattori Hiroyuki)