The Unsettled Dust - Asian Short Film Festival (Chiang Mai)

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Special Thanks to: Asian Culture Station

Featuring: Darae Baek Sarah Choo Anukul Chueamon Bei Chen Han Guo Yao Hong Supapong Laodheerasiri Hong Hu Lau Xiao Jun Li Rattakhate Puksuk Shubhangi Singh Jaxton Su Chi-Yu Wu

Curated by: Nien-Ting Chen Jaxton Su

SYPNOSIS The permutable phenomenon of the everyday life is usually inherited from the natives of the contemporary past as they attempted to change their “current� situation for a better future.

While encompassing many contradictions and conflicts through its evolution, there is also the flexibility and space for one to seek out a lifestyle that conforms to his/her needs, be it as an individual or as a community. The emergence of the everyday life can therefore be viewed as a kind of landscape – a spectacle that evokes contemplation.

Shifting the focus to the contemporary life in Asia, it is apparent that the landscape of the everyday life has been shaped by modernization, capitalism and postmodernism as a response to globalization, and at the same time, it also reflects the regional living gestures brought about by anti-globalization. The film festival will feature short films that narrate first-person accounts of various personal, regional and cultural phenomena occurring within Asian life, while presenting the social mentality that has been engendered by globalization and rapid economic development.

By portraying different fragments of the social landscape brought about by the inevitable aforementioned issues, a variety of observations such as cultural shifts, localization and segregation of social classes, can be made. Consequently, the festival attempts to seek out the possibilities of a varied regional dialogue exchange, which might offer a more intimate and comprehensive experience of the Asian perspective.

The film festival gathers works from 12 artists and filmmakers from various parts of Asia, including China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. While presenting a diversified discussion of the various simplified interpretations and representations of the living situations and experience, social issues and hidden mentalities of different localities in Asia, the festival aims to portray a honest and multifaceted perspective of Asian contemporary life that bring to the fore the daily lives of commoners under the influence of globalization and westernization.

the Unsettled Dust

FESTIVAL

Conceived by independent curators Nien-Ting Chen and Jaxton Su, the festival hopes to gather and celebrate short films from different parts of Asia by showcasing them to the world. The Unsettled Dust has its first run in Glasgow, UK at the Centre for Contemporary Arts and the curators hope to bring it to different countries around the globe, with Chiang Mai being its second stop.

PROGRAMME

I Bei Chen Han 2015 / 08:58 China (Mainland) This is a story about the life of an ordinary ‘I’. There is no judgment and no right or wrong.

Watching the story of ‘I’ is actually reviewing the living status of the viewer himself. Man’s life is like a circle. From a newborn baby, it constantly complicates until at last, the direction is still guided by the original voice of the small bell. Every time the ‘I’ goes towards the sound of bell until he finds out that life is a cycle, we will eventually return to the origin. hanbeichen@yahoo.com

To My Ancestor Rattakhate Puksu 2014 / 01:05 Thailand For this piece, I explore the concept of the space of imperceptible. It contains the story of my family with the Chinese belief in afterlife and the burning paper models to the ancestors.

My family does it once a year on Chinese New Year. I use the media of the communication between the living and the dead as a key. If the ancestors continue their afterlife in another planet in the universe, I guess I will need to use sunlight as a link. I use the glass of the television screen to reflect sunlight onto my paper models. www.gewabero.wixsite.com/artprojects

Miss In Flora Xiao Jun Li 2014 / 11:28 China (Mainland) The film is inspired by a classic song “Wang Chun Hui” and an ancient Chinese play “Mu Dan Ting”. “Wang Chun Hui” is the kind of tune for the singing of poetry. In Chinese history, this tune only appeared once. The story has no specific beginning and ending. Early spring, after a heavy rain, a lady is waiting in the yard for her husband. However, a passerby’s intrusion breaks up the silence.

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the Unsettled Dust

PROGRAMME

Tu-Di Temple Chi-Yu Wu 2013 / 07:30 Taiwan Tu-di Temple is a work film in Taoyuan, Guishan Township, Leshan Village; land expropriation from the major construction of “Airport MRT A7 Station” means the surface structures of the village is gradually disappearing, what is left are bizarre and strange imaginations. After all the village buildings have been removed, only the various Tu-di Temple (land temple) that is scattered around the village remained, becoming the land guardians that only guards the land, and left only with the land. In a land that has lost its residents, the surrounding areas around the Tu-di Temple retains the imagination of what it once used to be. www.wuchiyu.com

All That Glitters Is Not Gold Guo Yao Hong 2014 / 06:23 Singapore By mediating on the intersection between capitalism, consumption and conservation, All That Glitters Is Not Gold attempts to examine Man’s dialectic relationship with Nature.

Weaving in elements of video and performative art, the artwork provokes the viewer to ponder Man’s existence and co-dependence with the natural world. Gold, a symbol of material wealth and industrial progress, takes on a shade of ambiguity here by doubling up as ochre, the earthy colour of nature. www.guo-yao.com

Gambut Lau Hong Hu 2016 / 08:22 Malaysia ‘Gambut’ is a meditation on the co-existence of man and environment. Entrapped in a vicious cycle of accusations, efforts in resolving the decades-long haze issues in Riau, Indonesia are becoming alarmingly futile. This film is a juxtaposition of thoughts, anecdotes, opinions and images from affected locations. www.studio-1914.com

Dawn to Dust Shubhangi Singh 2016 / 05:02 India Dawn to Dust examines the position of man in relation to his environment while contemplating the impact on the personal & collective human existence. Set in an ethos of geo-political displacement, mass exodus, invasions and lost resistance, this piece is intended as an elegy to the present. Lamenting this cataclysmic involvement of mankind, the piece calls upon a moment of collective mourning. www.vimeo.com/shubhangisingh

the Unsettled Dust

PROGRAMME

Thai Red Chicken Curry with Jasmine Rice Supapong Laodheerasiri 2011 / 04:00 Thailand Thai Red Chicken Curry with Jasmine Rice is readymade food from the supermarket in UK. It indicates a form of transformation or reinterpretation of the original Thai food to become Western Thai food. The taste and the ingredients of the original of Thai Red Curry are applied to suit the tastes of western people; it becomes hybrid food, which also reflects the urban contemporary life style. www.supapong.mono.net

The universe of bitterness Anukul Chueamon 2016 / 07:11 Thailand Objects in memory will be stored in the house to create an atmosphere of intimacy within the family. The feeling of incomplete presence causes us to daydream and imagine the missing parts. www.vimeo.com/user44965969

Wear you all night Sarah Choo 2017 / 04:38 Singapore Although separated by the dividing frame of the split screen, the characters inhabit the same symbolic space of solitude. They live together, but are isolated from each other, mirroring the alienated urban experience in densely populated megalopolis such as Singapore —where Choo is from— which are characterized by a neoliberal ethos of radical individualism. This new urban subjectivity is motivated by perpetual self-improvement and personal success, while a sense of community, empathy and even real human connection, so it seems, have become secondary or only based on the production and sharing of virtual images in social networks. www.sarahchoojing.com

The Memories Darae Baek 2016 / 08:13 South Korea I am now sailing in the sea called memories. Being lost in memories that began and have not finished yet. If I could forcibly stop this memory, this nausea can also disappear, however, I cannot stop memories from surfacing. Therefore, all I can do is to wait until this huge wave of memories become gentle and slowly drifts away. www.daraebaek.com

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PROGRAMME

Reprise Jaxton Su 2018 / 10:09 Singapore A girl who witnesses a killer litter incident chases after the suspect, only to uncover a shocking revelation at the end. www.jaxtonsu.net

Anywhere But Here Shubhangi Singh 2014 / 13:34 India Anywhere But Here explores the meaning of home while attempting to break away from the romantic nostalgia that nests within it’s traditional definitions. In this process, the piece attempts to arrive at newer understandings of an abode; in relation with one’s own forever-in-transition identity. The film also questions chronic cycles of accumulation and the burden of choices www.vimeo.com/shubhangisingh

CURATORS

Nien-Ting Chen Taiwan

Jaxton Su Singapore

Nien-Ting Chen graduated from the BFA Department of Material Arts and Design in Tainan National University of Arts.

Thereafter, she works between London and Taipei for visual art and curatorial projects.

Her works include organising galleries in Taiwan, planning artists’ exhibition and art fair in the UK and handling overseas artists stay in Taiwan.

Jaxton Su (b. 1988, Singapore) is a multidisciplinary visual artist who is also actively involved in curatorial, community, collaborative and educational projects. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communication from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and a Master of Fine Art from The Glasgow School of Art, UK.

She has recently graduated with a MFA from the Glasgow school of art. Her research position is about seeking opportunities to cohere and integrate artists and artworks from different background, cultures and education. In a nutshell, her research is about re-discussng the universality of arts in the contemporary world and thinking about contemporary art’s possibilities of becoming universal. In addition, she would use the concept of “China’s spirit in the west”, in which she utilizes Western methodology in her research and artistic development, while integrating contexts from her origins and personal cultural experiences. www.nientingchen.com

Some of his notable projects include ‘Colours in Motion’ - a cross-disciplinary visual art and dance project in Singapore, contemporary art exhibitions, ‘Fishes out of water’ and ‘Last Futures’ in Glasgow and ‘Our Nano World’ at the Edinburgh International Science Festival. Through his various ventures, he strives to create engaging and immersive experiences that would encourage enthusiasm in the arts for the masses. His works and projects have been featured in Singapore, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Iceland and United Kingdom. www.jaxtonsu.net

the Unsettled Dust