Global Academy

Lectures and discussions

The project begun in 2016 with the Global Academy conference continues this year with five lectures, four of which deal with diverse art scenes on the vast continent of Asia, all having attracted increasing interest over recent years. Ghalya Saadawi talks about the scene in Lebanon, highly acclaimed since the 2000s, Virginia Whiles about Pakistan, Diana Campbell Betancourt about Bangladesch and Grace Samboh about Indonesia.

We are interested in the way art is taught and learned in those regions, and whether there are new initiatives which not only carry on the history of the colonial academies, but also strike out in innovative, independent directions. We would also like to know how regional scenes develop, what institutions (museums or off spaces) there are, what their history is, under what conditions art is produced, how the market works, and what kind of relationship exists between regional links and the global art world.

The focus on Asia resulted from the fact that a not inconsiderable proportion of the teaching staff comes from this continent – including Tony Chakar (Beirut), Aisha Khalid (Lahore), Diana Campbell Betancourt (Dhaka and Philippines) and Grace Samboh (Yogyakarta). In addition, Ruth Noack, one of the leading representatives of a universal curatorial approach, will talk about “global curating”.