Coming from across Asia, they pry open the past to carve a way forward

Payal Uttam

From James T. Hong to Giang Lê: The artists rewriting history at Art Basel Hong Kong

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From a beauty queen-turned-revolutionary leader in Myanmar to exiled communist fighters in Malaysia, countless individuals have been overlooked in the official narratives of Asia’s history. This year, artists from the region participating in&nbsp;<a href="/hong-kong" target="_blank">Art Basel Hong Kong</a> across the Insights, Discoveries, and Galleries sectors are reflecting on their past and unearthing untold stories. Whether it’s through dismantling legacies of colonialism or building an archive of counter-histories, they are gazing back to forge bold new paths ahead. Here, we take a closer look at six of the strongest historically inspired presentations on view.

<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/15420/James-T-Hong">James T. Hong</a> <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/13611/Empty-Gallery">Empty Gallery</a>, Hong Kong The dual-channel video installation Three Arguments about the Opium War (2015) by the Taiwanese-American artist and filmmaker James T. Hong pits together opposing views on the infamous Opium Wars. On one channel Hong pans across photographs of empty military sites, bunkers and stone-faced warrior statues in China that pertain to the war. Superimposed upon the black and white images are historic texts by Chinese individuals opposing the British. Meanwhile the second channel slowly scrolls through recent footage of Hong Kong’s neon-lit skyline and the South China Sea. Overlaid upon these contemporary cityscape scenes are statements from the British justifying their cause. The searing statements from both sides include ‘The entire rise of the West depended on drug trafficking’ and ‘Primitive China was a nation in profound sleep just waiting to be awoken from the West.’ A monotonous, low-toned pulsing sound playing in the background evokes the tranquilizing effects of opium on users, creating an ominous mood. Watching the video is like witnessing opposing parties in a conflict indiscriminately firing at each other without attempting to listen or engage in a conversation. Deliberately avoiding taking sides or finding a resolution, it’s as if Hong wants to reopen an uncomfortable old wound and leave it to fester.

Giang Lê Vin Gallery, Ho Chi Minh City Delicately rendered with barely visible raised lines and indented grooves on white paper, the embossed prints by Hanoi-based Vietnamese artist Giang Lê evoke stubborn memories that refuse to fade. The series ‘D’eau et de verdure’ (2019) challenges the colonial mythologization of Indochina, a place deeply entrenched in the European imagination as a lush, exotic land. While the geographic entity no longer exists, the colonial nostalgia surrounding the idea of the region persists. Deliberately drained of color and vibrancy, Lê’s work resists the exoticized representation of her country, underscoring that this was in fact a bleak period in its history. Several works in the series center on a dinh (a communal Vietnamese village house) that was commissioned by the French government in 1905 in Vietnam and later moved to Europe for a colonial exhibition. After researching archives in France, Lê discovered that the structure was arbitrarily reused and its function changed for various purposes, including a teahouse and a memorial temple for soldiers in Europe. In Lê’s works, she erases major details and recreates faint, sketch-like images of the structure and individuals inside it, effectively dismantling and reimagining the original idealized colonial scenes. The prints are accompanied by a haunting sound piece: In the background, viewers will hear a rendition of La Petite Tonkinoise, an exuberant song about a French soldier and his Tonkinese lover, written and performed by armchair Orientalists who never visited Vietnam.

Sim Chi Yin <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2007/Fost-Gallery">Fost Gallery</a>, Singapore Former journalist Sim Chi Yin pries open her past and exposes a dark family secret in ‘One Day We’ll Understand’, an ongoing series of multimedia works she started in 2015. A few years ago, the Singaporean artist discovered that her grandfather was a revolutionary martyr. He was among thousands of Malaysian communist pro-independence fighters resisting British control who were forcibly deported to China during the Malayan Emergency, a guerrilla war that took place between 1948 and 1960. Sim’s grandfather was later executed in China and not mentioned by the family again for the next 60 years. Sim describes him as being part of a ‘forgotten or hidden army.’ Just as her grandfather’s story was suppressed in Sim’s family, it remains an unaddressed trauma that Malaysian people struggle to articulate today. For this series, she pushes to the surface the untold account of the leftist fighters and confronts the harrowing legacy of colonialism. Following her grandfather’s deportation trail, which spanned Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and southern Thailand, she created a series of ghostly, cinematic photographs of sites where the war occurred, bringing to life the army’s experiences. Whether it’s a nighttime scene of a forlorn baby elephant captured in motion or a ruined church tower now overgrown with foliage, the works on view at Fost Gallery’s booth have an almost hallucinatory quality, capturing the fleeting nature of memory.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/49557/Sawangwongse-Yawnghwe">Sawangwongse Yawnghwe</a> <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1453/TKG">TKG+</a>, Taipei ‘Painting is a way to understand the predicament I am in as well as that of my country,’ says the exiled Myanmar-born, Netherlands-based artist Sawangwongse Yawnghwe. Born in an army camp in the jungle, he is a member of the persecuted Shan ethnic minority. His grandfather was Burma’s first elected president, who was assassinated during a military coup in 1962, after which his family was forced to flee the country. 'Sawangwongse Yawnghwe/Selected Works' (2020–21), a new series of politically charged paintings being shown as part of TKG+’s presentation, are an ongoing exploration of state violence and the suppression of historical truths in the country. He describes each work as a piece of a growing archive of counter-histories. Inspired by old family photographs of friends and relatives, he captures individuals such as Louisa Benson Craig, a beauty pageant winner-turned-revolutionary freedom fighter active in the 1960s. Using rough, muted, gray brushstrokes, he paints Craig’s body in such a way that it appears to be on the brink of dissolving into the background. Meanwhile he sections off the right side of the canvas with a crisply painted block of blue. The fugitive nature of the portrait is a reflection of the military’s power to conceal horrific injustices against minorities while the abstract block that slices through the image represents a sense of violence of erasure. The work resonates strongly today as celebrities in present-day Myanmar disappear into the jungle to fight against the military, which has seized power again and unleashed a new reign of terror and violence.

Saroot Supasuthivech <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/13451/Nova-Contemporary">Nova Contemporary</a>, Bangkok Thai artist Saroot Supasuthivech’s two-channel video installation River Kwai: This Memorial Service Was Held in the Memory of the Deceased (2021–22) is an imaginary memorial for thousands of forgotten Asian laborers who died building the Burma Railway in the province of Kanchanaburi during the Japanese occupation of Thailand during the Second World War. Exposing a gap in the country’s collective memory, Supasuthivech shows how history can be manipulated and falsities perpetuated over time. In one channel of the video, we see a rapt audience – which includes children – attending an annual festival held by the Thai government in 2021. A loud display, the event commemorates the Allied prisoners of war (POWs) who lost their lives working on the railway while glossing over local sacrifice. But Supasuthivech has digitally distorted the footage of the festivities, including a theatrical performance recounting the POW experience. By defacing the actors’ expressions and solarizing the film, he transforms a typically ebullient show into a dark, sinister narrative. Later the footage shifts to show empty seats, which he pairs in the second channel with poignant scenes of flowers left at graves in a nearby POW cemetery. The flowers, presumably left by locals, contrast sharply with the empty chairs, which signal a missing audience and lack of acknowledgement of the departed Asian workforce. Accompanying the video is a resin-cast sculpture replicating flowers that Supasuthivech found at the cemetery. By reappropriating the offering, he seeks to restore local agency and remind us of a buried past.

Etan Pavavalung <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2191/Asia-Art-Center">Asia Art Center</a>,&nbsp;Taipei, Beijing, and Shanghai Born in a village in the mountains of southern Taiwan, Etan Pavavalung is a member of the Tavadran tribe, part of the Paiwanese people, who make up the country’s second-largest Indigenous group. The son of a nose flute master, he grew up in a family of artisans, and his practice has long been fueled by a desire to preserve his people’s history, identity, and worldview. On show at Asia Art Center’s booth will be a series of recent works shaped by the ancient Paiwanese concept of vecik – images, patterns or writing used to express nature, whether they are forms found in forests, mountains, rivers, or wind. Pervasive in everyday life, the patterns are tattooed onto women’s hands, carved into wood and stone, and incorporated into headdresses and textiles. In I found a field in the mountain of my spirit I and II (2021), Pavavalung harnesses vecik to create a densely patterned abstract landscape composed of a whirlwind of repeated motifs that have been chiseled and painted onto wooden boards. The works conjure a sacred mountain adorned with swaying lilies, spirals and eyes, all potent Paiwanese spiritual symbols. They are a powerful record of oral histories from the elders of Pavavalung’s tribe, personal memories of conversations with his mother, and his relationship with nature. According to the Paiwanese, lilies depart the world when they die and return to heaven, where they transform into stars that shine bright for their relatives in the world below: In the same way, Pavavalung seeks to shine a light on his culture and keep it burning for generations to come.&nbsp;

Payal Uttam is an independent writer and editor who divides her time between Hong Kong and Singapore. She contributes to a range of publications including Artsy, The Art Newspaper, South China Morning Post and The Wall Street Journal.Top image:&nbsp;Saroot Supasuthivech, River Kwai: This Memorial Service Was Held in the Memory of the Deceased, 2021–22. Film still. Courtesy of the artist and Nova Contemporary, Bangkok.

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