Per°Form CoThink Lab Discursive Programme — A World of Lines: From Third World Solidarities to Postsocialist Globalism by Ho Rui An

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Synopsis

Organised and curated by artist, writer and Per°Form CoThink Lab Fellow Ho Rui An, A World of Lines: From Third World Solidarities to Postsocialist Globalism explores the shifting geopolitical imaginaries within what was known as the Third World during the historical period that began with the end of empire and culminated in the late seventies with the foreclosure of socialism as a mass political project. In pursuing this periodisation, this one-day discursive programme seeks to map a historical trajectory distinct from Eurocentric narratives that situate the neoliberal triumph over international socialism in the late eighties.

In this series of presentations, workshops, and focused conversations, the speakers share their research into this history while facilitating a collective process of thinking with the various visual and literary sources that they have gathered from both public archives and private collections. This source-based and open-ended format reflects the ongoing and speculative nature of the inquiry amidst the intensification of unresolved Cold War-era tensions, resurgent ethnonationalisms and widening socioeconomic inequalities that have come to disrupt the lines of labour, technology and capital in the prevailing global order.

A World of Lines: From Third World Solidarities to Postsocialist Globalism features speakers Zian Chen (writer, editor), Kathleen Ditzig (researcher, curator), Carlos Quizon, Jr. (art historian, critic, curator), Sooyoung Leam (curator, art historian), and Taomo Zhou (academic, researcher).

About Ho Rui An

Artist and writer, Ho Rui An works in the intersections of contemporary art, cinema, performance, and theory. Working primarily across the mediums of lecture, essay and film, he probes the ways images are produced, circulate, and disappear within contexts of globalism and governance. He has presented projects at the Bangkok Art Biennale; Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh; Gwangju Biennale; Jakarta Biennale; Sharjah Biennale; Kochi Muziris Biennale; Kunsthalle Wien; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhiven; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore; and Para Site, Hong Kong. In 2019, he was awarded the International Film Critics’ (FIPRESCI) Prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany.

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Factories, Tables, Revolution, Economy
Workshop with Ho Rui An and Zian Chen

Drawing upon their research into the political economy of Reform-era China, Ho Rui An and Zian Chen share a selection of historical material sourced from official archives, informal networks and popular culture with which they seek to map the emergence of “the economy” as a distinct subject of governance in China beginning in the 1970s.

To A Faraway Friend: Letters Written with Fire
Workshop with Kathleen Ditzig, Sooyoung Leam and Carlos Quijon, Jr.

Based on research that has grown out of the Afro-Southeast Asian Affinities exhibitionary project, participants explore the complex negotiation of neocolonial struggles for sovereignty under strongmen-led “democracies” across East and Southeast Asia during the Cold War.

Shekou, Jurong: Industrial Zone, Developmental State and Global Neoliberalism
Presentation by Taomo Zhou

In this presentation, Taomo Zhou, who grew up in Shekou and has spent the past seven years living and working in Jurong, share her memories and observations about the two industrial zones.