52 Artists 52 Actions
Published on the 31 Jan 2018
An ambitious new year-long international project titled 52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS initiated by Artspace and the Sydney Festival is now underway highlighting artistic practice across Asia.
As its name suggests this innovative new project will engage 52 artists and collectives to stage actions in unique, physical locations throughout the region and share them with global audiences on Instagram and online.
An action can be anything and everything that artists use to communicate and build awareness around important concerns locally and globally. The participating artists have total freedom in what issues they choose to address and what they decide to create for their action.
Each week for a year a different artist will drive the project, generating a continuously unfolding archive of creative responses to political and social issues central to each unique context. The participating artists represent a wide spectrum of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds across South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia and the Pacific – everywhere from Bangladesh to Korea, Cambodia to Turkey and the breadth of Australian communities.
Taking place online and off, 52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS is the first project of its kind staged in the region. It is an open and experimental platform for the creation of new work around critical contemporary issues.
UNSW Art & Design is among the key contributors to the project supporting 4 participating artists. The first of these is Pio Abad from Philipines. Taking over the @52ARTISTS52ACTIONS Instagram account for this (19 — 25 FEB) week, Abad is creating unique works exploring the biographies of objects that interrogate how political forces shape collective memory.
Follow @52ARTISTS52ACTIONS to see Abad’s work, along with more original works made for this exclusive year long project.
Artspace and Sydney Festival present 52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS throughout January 2018. Supported by the City of Sydney; Copyright Agency Cultural Fund; Fabio Ongarato Design; Public Office; Thames and Hudson Australia and all of the project's Kickstarter supporters.