Experimentations in Art Journalism Vivyan Yeo
The past year has been a time of introspection and innovation in the art world. Artists turned inwards to make sense of the global situation, and gallerists honed their digital skills to create online viewing rooms for international audiences, for example. Art journalism has played a role in this period of transformation, presenting news and projects to the industry and to the wider public. We check in with our own practices, as well as with other Singapore-based digital art journalism platforms ArtsEquator, Object Lessons Space and Plural Art Mag to take stock of how we have stayed afloat while giving support to the art community in Southeast Asia.
Funding As we focus on producing meaningful content, we are also constantly seeking financial sustainability. A source of income for A&M is from advertising campaigns with galleries and institutions. With the uncertainties of the pandemic, spending became conservative. In its stead, institutional partnership served as a crucial source of funding. We worked with the National Arts Council (NAC) for the first time to hold two events for Singapore Art Week (SAW) 2021. One was ‘RESET’, a series of five panel discussions on critical issues such as international collaboration, digitisation and diversity in a pandemic-stricken art world. The other was ‘See-SAW’, two virtual trails of SAW projects led by well-known personalities. Held live on Zoom, ‘See-SAW’ adopted an unconventional format. For example, when featuring the SAW exhibition, ‘Maybe We Read
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