Asia in Independent Asia (AIA for short) started as a project aimed to promote the exchange of art spaces in Asia, currently participating spaces are from Taiwan, China, Korea, Hong Kong and Macau, five locations, total of six independent art spaces.
AIA is a continuous project starting with Taipei as its first stage, moving to different countries in the future presenting exhibitions and forums on different subject and issues. 2011 In Taipei, VT Artsalon (VT for short) released a publication “Creating Spaces”, an introductory book for Asian Independent Art Spaces. VT Lead the way for a new generation of young artists and curators from Taiwan to overseas development. Building connections and exchanges with independent art spaces around the world has always been one of the main objectives of VT, “Creating Spaces” was only the first step of this vision, and the AIA project provide the next step of realizing an actual connection in the form of exhibition and forums.
Different from Europe, many Asian countries are isolated islands or peninsulas, geographically separated; each region developed its own arts and culture context, providing a rich and diverse scene in Asia. However this also means that cultures, politics and values of life in the Asia region rarely interacts on a large or deep scale. Recently, there have been active discussions in the so-called "Asian-ness" concept in contemporary art; nevertheless specific results have never appeared within such a political charged and geographically limited reality. AIA member spaces decided to use regional politics as the curatorial direction for its first exhibition; artists in the exhibition discuss political and social issues within their works. “Asynchronous States”, emphasize on the differences in political and social realities between countries and the resulting strategies in arts.
“Asynchronous” highlights the disjoint and difference of the various regions, while “States” plays with the idea of physical countries and states of being. AIA aim to start a dialogue between the participating spaces not only with the Asynchronous States exhibition, but also through the sharing of the unique development path each space has taken in the official forum and through the process of working together in Taipei. From this exchange, further investigation of underlying common trait, potential for development, and strategy of these Asian alternative space / artist-run space can be made; forming an “Asian-ness” that is based on the experience of the project, finding a contemporary art discourse “in the name of Asia” intending to parallel the western-oriented art theory, and interpret Asia as a much clearer and precise entity. “Asynchronous States” will include five Asian cities, six spaces and show in two exhibition spaces in Taipei, with this opportunity AIA hope to create an ongoing momentum for Asian alternative spaces. Asynchronous States exhibition will be showing from June 29 to July 27, in VT Artsalon and FreeS Art Space.
