The two-day public symposium, Transpacific Dialogues: Asian/American Art of Collaboration, will explore the transformative potential of aesthetic inquiry on how we make collaborative art. It will feature invited artists, scholars, and curators actively involved in creating, researching, and curating collaborative projects across Asia and the United States. Participants are dedicated to transcending national and identity-based boundaries that often constrain collective action in socially engaged art. Additionally, the symposium will address museum practices, with curators from regional institutions discussing their collaborative approaches to curating and collecting Asian/American art amidst diverse interests and perspectives.

Through this multidisciplinary gathering of artists, scholars, and curators, the symposium reimagines collaborative art making as a form of reparative worldmaking. Participants and audiences will explore how transpacific collaboration embodies the praxis of repair. Conceived during the Covid-19 outbreak and resonating profoundly in the face of escalating anti-Asian racism since the pandemic’s onset, the symposium examines how Asian and Asian American artists, navigating between Asia and North America, have organized and cultivated artistic spaces. These spaces foster new kinships and strengthen alliances, often independent of institutional support, aiming to mend racialized disconnections within and between North America and Asia.

For more information, the symposium schedule, and to register please visit the RISD Museum Website.