Video by MONA productions; Produced by Monica Salazar. Filmed and edited by Peter Cairns and Paolo Simi // Feb. 08, 2019
This year Asia Contemporary Art Week (ACAW)’s acclaimed annual art forum, Field Meeting, premiered outside of its usual host city, New York, presenting for the first time in Asia. The 2019 event, which ran from January 25–26th alongside the regional Quoz Arts Festival, was hosted at ACAW Consortium Partner, Alserkal Avenue in Dubai. Significantly, the choice to launch the Field Meeting in Dubai – a city in the Middle East that is not always readily associated with the marker of ‘Asia’ – served to initiate a stronger dialogue between Asian countries and cultures, across different religions, political situations and visual identities. The aim of ACAW is to showcase the complexity and diversity of Asian contemporary art by bringing together leading Asia-based art institutions, museums and galleries with international audiences.
ACAW Director and curator of the 2019 Field Meeting Leeza Ahmady organized a series of pop-up exhibitions, performances, lecture-performances and discussions by noted multidisciplinary artists, thinkers and creative individuals from all regions of Asia (with a focus on East Asia). The theme of the 2019 Field Meeting was ‘Thinking Collections’, and the curator offered her expanded take on what it means to be a collector; not limiting the definition to wealthy art buyers, but also taking into account the collection of experiences and of people as well. She considers the artist as the first collector, gathering together all the elements that make up the work of art.
MONA Productions visited the 6th Field Meeting in Dubai. Watch our coverage of the event and our interview with Ahmady:
