Asia Serendipity

Curator: Fumio Nanjo
Nº of works: 95 photographs.
Contact: Ana Berruguete
Catalogue: published by La Fábrica.

Artists: Yuki Aoyama / Kana Honda / Miwako Iga / Yasushi Kohno / Kohei Koyama / Chiho Miyamoto / Kazem Mohammed / Pushpamala N / Sohei Nishino / Hiroshi Nomura / Hideyuki Ohba / Sherman Ong / Gina Osterloh / Koji Sekimoto / Lu Yao

Exhibition presented at PHotoEspaña 2012

A key feature in the transformation of the contemporary world is the breakdown of frontiers between genres and categories. The boundary between art and photography is becoming increasingly blurred. The false and the real, the real and the imaginary, are gradually merging into one. A number of young Asian artists are exploring new directions, steering away from tradition and from academic art. Their freedom of spirit is prompting new stories, shaping new outlooks often conveyed through photographic images; in the process, it is revealing new possibilities for photography as a medium.

Asia today is a major centre for artistic and cultural production. Its booming economy is being matched by equally remarkable social change, to which art and culture are by no means immune. Countless young artists are bringing to the creative industry a concern for challenges other than those that drive the western creators. Despite differences in background, education and lifestyle, they share the need to experiment with new forms of expression, wholly unburdened by the weight of the past. Among the challenges, they seek to illustrate a new, contemporary utopia, to fully express feelings, to explore the tensions between tradition and modernisation.

The work on show is drawn from China, the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, India, Japan and Singapore. This selection of artists, well known in their own countries but less familiar to the international scene, gives us an insight into exciting attempts to create alternative sensibilities for the future.