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Art of Expression: Make Yourself Heard,

Written byRianti Gautama
Published date 22 November 2022

Duong Thuy Nguyen and Rianti Gautama, MA Fine Art students from Central Saint Martins, are organizing a free workshop led by Andrei Nikolai Pamintuan, researcher, director, cultural producer, and student from MA Applied Imagination in the Creative Industries. Titled Art of Expression: Make Yourself Heard, this workshop aims to provide support, advice, or training for the LGBTQ+ artist community, particularly Southeast Asian young artists.

While some progress has been made on LGBTQ+ rights in Southeast Asia in recent years, artists and cultural practitioners from various fields still struggle to produce their work due to societal pressures. A lack of safe spaces and community can often leave young LGBTQ+ artists, particularly Southeast Asian young artists feeling vulnerable.

Addressing this issue, An.OtherAsian Collective is collaborating with Andrei Nikolai Pamintuan, a queer Filipino/x-American, artist, arts manager, and cultural producer. He is the founder of the Manila Fringe Festival, a multigenre international arts festival based in the Philippines, and Pineapple Lab, an artist-run creative hub dedicated to providing a platform for contemporary Filipino artistic expressions and interdisciplinary arts collaborations in the historic district of Poblacion, Makati City.

Here are some insights about the workshop, straight from Andrei himself :

What is this workshop is about and can you share some details of the workshop?

The workshop provides an environment for queer Southeast Asian artists to reflect on the issues and challenges they face as they navigate through the creative ecosystem in London. Participants will problematize solutions on how queer Southeast Asian artists can be empowered to take up space - reflecting on their intersectional identities, safe space-making as a practice, and responding to the world around them.

This will be conducted via a facilitated discussion, games, and an ad-hoc poster-making activity.

What are the things the participants should look forward to during the workshop?

Participants can look forward to meeting other ESEA artists and creatives as well as exploring the potential of how their creative expression can contribute to the conversation on diversity and inclusion in queer representation today.

This workshop is hosted under the name of An.OtherAsian Collective, founded by Duong and Rianti. The collective focuses on creating community and representation for Southeast Asian artists in London. Motivated by the feeling of invisibility as Southeast Asian themselves, Duong (Vietnam) and Rianti (Indonesia) derived their collective name from the ethnicity category that they must choose during filing administration forms in the UK. “Another Asian Background” or “Other Asian Background” are common categories identifying their ethnicity. The lack of recognition for their identity then inspired them to create a platform through this art collective that aims for Southeast Asian voices to be highlighted and heard.

The workshop will take place on Sunday 27^th November 2022, from 10 am – 12 pm at the Museum of the Home.

Free tickets are available to book via the Museum website.

The workshop will be held in the Museum of the Home's Pavillion, a herb garden normally not open to the public.

a single story glass building behind a herb garden — **Photo of The Pavillion by Hofton+Crow**

The workshop is funded by Mekong Cultural Hub as a part of the Bridge Building Exchange program and organised by An.OtherAsian collective and supported by the Museum of the Home. The Museum of the Home focuses on engaging with communities that are typically under-represented in the museum-going public or their Museum’s collection and displays including East and Southeast Asian communities (ESEA).

Art of Expression: Make Yourself Heard,

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