Cultural Remittance Pawnshoppe Episode 2: The Exhibition and The Hamlet — With Ming Lin and Renan Laru-an

Page Not Found presents “Cultural Remittance Pawnshoppe”, a cycle of events curated by Clara Balaguer and Meenakshi Thirukode (Instituting Otherwise). The second episode of the cycle welcomes artists Ming Lin and Renan Laru-an for an online gathering.

(^-)≡☆ SYNOPSIS (^-)≡☆

Artist, publisher, curator, and researcher Ming Lin (aka Canal Street Research/Shanzhai Lyric) presents her work through the archetype of The Hamlet, upending notions of authorship, borders, and property as constructed categories, not only from the lens of Shakespeare’s legendary play—a script that may have been bootlegged by an “author” who may not even have existed at all. Curator Renan Laru-an presents his work through the archetype of The Exhibition, thinking through what exhibitions could be without art history, without artists and curators, as artistic experiments or curatorial correctives, as transmissions of heritage outside of the exhibitionary complex, as miracles.

(つ≧▽≦)つ ABOUT THE PAWNSHOPPE (つ≧▽≦)つ

To Be Determined (Primary Cell: Meenakshi Thirukode and Clara Balaguer) build a series of long distance remittance sessions at Page Not Found, featuring people who are intimate with migratory realities as a lifestyle that begets archetypes for a practice. Whether by fleeing further South, draining towards the North, or exiting contested “centers” and “canons,” their work explores what exists on the margins, not because it lacks value but because it has been grossly misclassified—by empire, patriarchy, casteism, or any other intersectional oppressions—as unremarkable.

Balaguer and Thirukode have proposed a series of conversational alchemies between India and the Philippines. They ask each guest pairing to present their work in light of an archetype they are practicing, researching, or becoming. A publication will be printed and pawned at the close of these conversations.

(^_<)~☆ GRATITUDE (^_<)~☆

Cultural Remittance Pawnshoppe is made possible by a generous institutional consortium between Page Not Found, the Collecting Otherwise research group at Het Nieuwe Instituut and PrintRoom.

┬┴┬┴┤·ω·)ノ BIO’S ┬┴┬┴┤·ω·)ノ

Renan Laru-an is a researcher and curator working from the Philippines and in Southeast Asia. He is the Public Engagement and Artistic Formation Coordinator at the Philippine Contemporary Art Network (PCAN). He studies ‘insufficient’ and ‘subtracted’ images and subjects at the juncture of development and integration through long-term projects, such as Promising Arrivals, Violent Departures, Lightning Studies: Centre for the Translation of Constraints, Conflicts and Contaminations (CTCCCs) (2016); among others. Laru-an (co-)curated the 6th Singapore Biennale: Every Step in the Right Direction, Singapore (2019); Motions of this Kind, SOAS, London (2019); A Tripoli Agreement, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2018); the 8th OK. Video – Indonesia Media Arts Festival, Jakarta (2017) with ruangrupa; among others.

Ming Lin uses both Canal Street Research Association and Shanzhai Lyric as her professional aliases. Canal Street Research Association is a temporary center of operations for itinerant research unit Shanzhai Lyric. Bringing their roving investigation of bootleg goods to the epicenter of counterfeit culture in New York City, Shanzhai Lyric repurposes 327 Canal Street, a branch of Wallplay’s On Canal, as space for gathering ephemeral histories, mapping the major thoroughfare’s lore, past and present, and tracing the flows and fissures of global capital. The project is the first phase of a larger body of work examining counterfeit culture in relation to contemporary notions of property. 

Meenakshi Thirukode is a writer, researcher, educator and feminist killjoy based in NewDelhi, India. Her areas of research include the role of culture, collectivity and micro-politics from the POV of a queer femme subjectivity, located within the realm of a trans-nomadic, transient network of individuals and institutions. She runs ‘School of IO’, which is a space of unlearning, dedicated to navigating ‘study’, as a radical tool of political agency.

Clara Balaguer is a cultural worker and grey literature circulator. Frequently, she operates under collective or individual aliases that disclose her stewardship in any given project, the latest of which is To Be Determined.

To Be Determined is a loosely organized structure for leaking access to cultural capital, recently migrated to Rotterdam from Parañaque City. TBD is a network of sleeper cells curious about models of non-extractive research, diasporic remittance flows, rehabilitating the body public/published body, mutual industry, and secretarial agency.

ε=ε=┌(; ̄▽ ̄)┘PRACTICAL ε=ε=┌(; ̄▽ ̄)┘

This event takes place online. Join the livestream here.

Starts at 15:00 The Hague time, 9:00 New York time, 21:00 Manila time.

Image credit: Window view of the temporary space of Canal Street Research Association on 327 Canal Street, New York City, November 4th – December 31st, 2020