Events

CHAIRPERSONS

Dr Jeremie Molho & Dr Dan Zhang, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

This webinar is part of the “Citizens and the City” series, which seeks to provide a platform for exchange between urban activists, academics, and citizens who share an interest in how people can get involved in cities. The Covid-19 pandemic has had multifaceted impacts on Asian cities’ cultural scenes. Border closures have put on hold the numerous transnational interactions that are at the centre of a number of cultural activities, and stopped international tourist flows that have an important role in the economics of culture. Social distancing measures pose a number of challenges for the production and the diffusion of cultural contents. Lockdown measures led to the cancellation of cultural events, the closure of museums, art venues, cinemas, and stalled the majority of art production and touristic visits. These disruptions have had great social and economic consequences for tourism professionals, cultural workers, and artists.

The objective of this webinar is to discuss and compare the responses of the cultural scenes of three Asian cities, Qingdao, Singapore, and Taipei to the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, from the point of view of civil society actors.

We will discuss three different aspects:

– First, we will compare the impacts of the Covid pandemic on these cities’ respective cultural scenes, as a result of measures such as border closures, social distancing, lockdowns. We will discuss their effects on artists, cultural institutions, as well as on foreign and domestic travellers.
– Second, we will explore the response of the cultural scene in each city. We will look at the initiatives launched by artists, cultural workers, and tourism professionals such as the creation of support groups to provide mutual help, as well as the public measures to alleviate the impact of the crisis on the cultural sector.
– Third, we will envision the future of culture in Post-Covid Asian cities. We will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of measures taken by each city, such as using digital technologies as an alternative mode of cultural diffusion. We will also reflect on the changes that long-term restrictions will have on cultural scenes.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Nicholas Chee is an award-winning photographer, film director, producer and consultant for film and media projects. He graduated from Temasek Design School majoring in Photography in 2003 and in September 2007, he co-founded Singapore’s first independent theatre; Sinema Old School. Nicholas was an Honouree in the prestigious Spirit of Enterprise Awards in 2009, and in 2011, he started The Flying Kick Asia, an original and branded content production company based in Singapore, Kaohsiung and Seoul. In 2015, Nicholas created *SCAPE’s National Youth Film Awards, a national platform to recognise and bridge emerging talent with the film industry and served as its Awards Director from 2015-2018. He is currently also the Festival Co-Director for SeaShorts Film Festival, a short film festival focusing on Southeast Asian short films based in Malaysia. In the wake of the Covid pandemic, Nicholas Chee has founded the SG COVID-19 Creative/Cultural Professionals & Freelancers Support Group, and has been active in bringing creative communities together, and engaging with the media and government bodies to raise awareness on their plight.

Ziying Wu is a curator, collector, and performance artist with an excellent reputation in Taipei’s artist community since she started to engage in cultural and art activities in the 1990s. In 2010, Ziying was appointed to manage the Liang Shih-Chiu House, a national heritage that dates back to the Japanese Occupation in Taiwan. To raise the locals’ cultural awareness, Ziying held a series of 100 lectures titled “Vision of Taipei City”. The lectures covered various topics on literature, traditional culture, modern art, environmental protection, and social issues. This made the house a platform of cultural exchange among artists, scholars, and the public. Due to her keen interest in heritage preservation, Ziying founded the Yu Dawei Cultural Society, a non-governmental organization for heritage conservation and cultural exchange in 2014. In response to the COVID 19 situation, she has worked with many curators to relocate indoor tours to outdoor spaces for the purpose of social distancing.

Kan Zhang is a freelance writer who was born in Qingdao. After graduating from the Electronics Engineering Department, Fudan University, Shanghai, in 2012, Kan became a globetrotter and started writing the travelogue that gained the attention of readers. As a famous blogger who visited 90 countries/regions, he was invited to be a writer at Qyer.com, one of the most prestigious travel websites in China in 2013, and made a contract with Lonely Planet to provide travel information in 2015. Kan is often invited to make speeches to share his traveling stories in well-known universities in China. Also, he represented Qingdao citizens in the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and made suggestions to Qingdao Municipal Government on heritage conservation and the revitalization of Qingdao’s historic district. Because of the border closures, Kan has rescheduled his plans to travel abroad to go to domestic cities, and prepared a draft proposal to guide the Qingdao government’s response to the pandemic.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this webinar has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to aritm@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the webinar.