British East Asian Panel photo by Che-Min Hsieh
Together with Aurora Metro Publishing and Tara Arts, Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship organised the “Sight/Unseen: Asian Drama Conference” at Goldsmiths, University of London and Tara Arts on 26th and 27th of April 2018. Gerald Lidstone, Director of ICCE opened the conference that hosted more than 150 participants from UK/Europe, Southeast, and East Asia, including Aubrey Mellow and Adam Marple from LASALLE College of the Arts, Goldsmiths’ partner from Singapore.
Gerald Lidstone by Che-Min Hsieh
The conference was programmed by Cheryl Robson from Aurora Metro Publishing and Dr Aleksandar Brkić, Arts Management and Cultural Policy Lecturer at ICCE, and included a keynote talk by Dr Diana Yeoh (City, University of London), panels, debates, reading from the plays and the book launch (“British East Asian Plays”). Some of the most important playwrights from Southeast and East Asia, as well as British East Asian playwright were featured at the conference – Daniel York Loh, Stephen Hoo, Lucy Chau Lai-Tuen, Ann Lee, Joned Suryatmoko, Alfian Sa’at, Asa Palomera, Joel Tan.
A detailed programme and the trailer for the conference can be found on these links:
Dr Aleksandar Brkić by Che-Min Hsieh
Sight/Unseen, Goldsmiths
Sight/Unseen Drama Conference, Eventbrite
“Sight/Unseen” emphasised and made more visible the topics of challenging stereotypes in British theatre, problems with touring Southeast Asian performances, multicultural casting and cultural appropriation, taboo subjects in theatre in Singapore and Malaysia, questioning the idea of a British East Asian playwrights, etc.
These topics were discussed between academics, playwrights, actors, directors, theatre educators and arts managers and generated a significant public debate, that is evidenced through a number of articles published in some of the most influential journals and portals in the UK and Southeast Asia. You can read some of them on these links:
Alfian Saat as a guest on SOAS Radio
An article was written by Year 2 BA Arts Management student from Goldsmiths, University of London, Benedict Leong, published by ArtsEquator, one of the leading portals in SEA dedicated to art criticism.
“The Stage” covered the event:
https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2018/theatremakers-harmful-stereotyping-british-east-asian/