2024 is certainly a fruitful year for Carlos Quijon, Jr. His curatorial exhibition, Ahmad Fuad Osman: Archipelagic Alchemy, was held at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York, and he is about to start his research fellowship at C-MAP in MoMA. At the same time, he was also invited to curate the Philippine National Pavilion at this year’s Venice Art Biennale, making him the youngest curator in the history of the pavilion.
My interview with Quijon at a coffee shop near MoMA commenced with his early training. As someone who has been writing poetry since a young age, Quijon has harbored a deep interest in artistic expression. This inclination perhaps elucidates his decisive career shift: following his legal studies, he ventured into art criticism and review writing, subsequently enrolling at the University of the Philippines to pursue his passion for art. Under the mentorship of Patrick Flores, Quijon engaged in collaborative curatorial projects. He also actively participated in training sessions and events organized by the International Curators Association (ICI) and Para Site in Hong Kong. Additionally, he undertook research roles at MMCA in Seoul and the Transcuratorial Academy. It was here that his journey into curatorial work commenced.
Plural Southeast Asia(s): From Heterogeneity to Affinity
Given his background, Quijon’s primary curatorial focus centers on Southeast Asia. Three concepts recur within his curatorial practices: heterogeneity, plurality, and affinity. Southeast Asia exhibits heterogeneity not only geographically, encompassing diverse landscapes such as archipelagos, peninsulas, shoals, wetlands, mountains, and forests, but also in terms of its humanities, comprising numerous ethnic groups, languages, cultures, and religious beliefs. This heterogeneity is further compounded by centuries of global interactions among various civilizations, resulting in plural affinities with actors from East Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The term “Southeast Asia” was not coined due to its uniformity; rather, it denotes a region characterized by fragmented peripheries on the global map. Similarly, the affinity Quijon refers to does not arise from uniformity. Instead, it is a concept he employs to uncover diverse interactions with other regions and to reveal the heterogeneity and plurality of Southeast Asia.
Installation view of Ahmad Fuad Osman: Archipelagic Alchemy.
Quijon’s 2019 exhibition Courses of Action at the Goethe-Institut Hong Kong was a curatorial endeavor aimed at exploring the transnational affinity of Southeast Asia with Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan through three historical works/events. [1] Sanda Wong from 1955 was originally a Filipino film directed by Gerardo de León and spoken in Filipino. The original version of the film has been lost, and the circulating version was discovered by an art historian in a flea market in Hong Kong, dubbed into Cantonese. The second historical event is the 1960s’ labor movement organized by local unions in Hong Kong, in which the University of the Philippines also participated. Lastly, the 1994 film Once Upon a Time in Manila marked the debut performance of Japanese action actress Cynthia Luster, who was active in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. The exhibition also showcased the artwork The Glamorous Boys of Tang (1985, Qiu Gang-Jian) by Taiwanese artist Su Hui-yu, further connecting Taiwan and highlighting its role in the transnational film industry at that time.
The Afro-Southeast Asia Affinities project, [2] initiated in 2021, saw Quijon shift his focus towards the affinities between Southeast Asia and Africa. The project comprised three contemporary art exhibitions in Singapore, Manila, and Busan, along with an online seminar. Quijon believes that Southeast Asia’s role in recent discussions on Afro-Asian solidarity has often been overlooked. However the fact is, Southeast Asia can be considered one of the earliest proponents of Afro-Asian unity, because the first large-scale Afro-Asian conference after World War II was the Bandung Conference held in Indonesia in 1955. In Quijon’s research, this conference was also associated with the “Maphilindo” movement. This doctrine, centered on the imagined subject of “Pan-Malay,” not only included Taiwan but also extended to the African island of Madagascar, forming the core identity of the Maphilindo Confederation at the time. Against this backdrop, Quijon draws on the aspirations of Afro-Asian unity and proposes the possibility of “Afro-Southeast Asian solidarity,” thereby exploring more historical connections between the two regions. These include both regions’ nearly simultaneous processes of decolonization and independence in the 1960s and African American soldiers in the Vietnam War and their descendants.
This perspective also highlights the plurality of identity images. For example, the blackness encountered by Southeast Asian people during the Vietnam War is inevitably very different from the concept discussed in current Afro-futurism; the former may incorporate more foreign imaginings, while the latter is a positive identity image generated internally and rooted in the common history of enslavement. Similarly, the meaning of “Chineseness” is also plural, with both positive and negative aspects, due to the complex history of the Han ethnic group living in Southeast Asia. It may be the identity that the local Chinese community chooses to embrace when facing various discriminations in their daily life, or it may be a symbolic tool used by the Chinese government to promote Greater China ideology. From this view, Southeast Asia, characterized by its essence of diversity and heterogeneity, is like a kaleidoscope, where through multiple and complex contrasts, the objects of affinity are pluralized.
Installation View of Courses of Action.
Archipelagic Futurism
The plurality arising from heterogeneity and affinities is also evident in Quijon’s exploration of “archipelagic futurism.” While many recent discussions of futurism tend to focus on singular, specified utopian, or technological visions of the future, Quijon integrates the plural nature of Southeast Asia to further diversify “the future.” This “plural” future is multi-layered: not only do different regions, cultures, and ethnic groups project distinct visions of the future, but even within the same region and across different historical periods, there are varied future imaginaries. This diversity is exemplified by the existence of various futurisms, including Afro-futurism, Asian futurism, and golf futurism, among others.
The second characteristic of Quijon’s archipelagic futurism lies in its exploration of historical trajectories extending much further back, even two hundred years earlier than the inception of futurism in the 1900s, to the 17th century when imperialism began its global expansion. At this juncture, archipelagos, indigenous peoples, gunpowder, and navigational technology were interconnected through trade and colonization. Different future trajectories clashed until one side prevailed with more capital and a more enticing vision.
Installation View of Courses of Action.
Quijon’s exhibition at ISCP, Ahmad Fuad Osman: Archipelagic Alchemy, for instance, explores how different imperial future visions and value assessments manifested in the Western powers’ disposition of archipelagic ownership. Using the historical event in 1667 when the Dutch exchanged present-day Manhattan Island for a spice island in Indonesia with the British as a focal point, the exhibition showcases the diverse thinking and strategies of imperialist nations at that time. These visions of the future held by historical actors have had a profound impact on shaping our contemporary world. The concept of multiple futures implies a necessity to deliberate not only the paths we have taken but also the futures we should anticipate. “Archipelagic futurism” thus serves as a nexus linking futurism, colonialism, world history, geopolitics, indigenousness, and the multiple developments of modernity. These themes are also significant topics in global contemporary art, making it certainly worthwhile to anticipate Quijon’s further application of archipelagic futurism in his future curatorial projects. –[SCR]
[1] Exhibition Website: http://www.para-site.art/exhibitions/courses-of-action
[2] http://afrosoutheastasia.com/
* The articles in this editorial feature selected artists and curators interviewed by Taiwanese curator and researcher Feng-Yi Chu during his curatorial residency at ISCP in New York. His residency program, “Applications of Mysticism in Modern and Contemporary American Arts,” is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan.
