7th Asia-Europe Art Camp for Visual Arts 2009/2010 ｜ Moved, Mutated and Disturbed Identities, Application 何穎雅 ELAINE W. HO

As a national of none of the ASEM member countries, my motivation to participate in the Asia-Europe foundation’s 2009/2010 Art Camp is a flailing attempt. But it is call to response, for while the jury panel may notice immediately my lack of proper qualification to join the project, I would like to question the very mutation of identity that we bear by our claims/rights to citizenship, and how—while we would like to imagine the fluidity of identity within networked society—it is exactly the restrictions that we remain bound to (by way of the financial system, funding of the arts, national/international concerns, the ‘guise of cultural exchange’) that show the futility of identity as such. Can there be such a thing as a moved, mutated or disturbed identity? Is not the very nature of the stamp of identity (at border control or at tax time) such that it fixes us, holds us responsible to the laws, rights and privileges of whichever particular one we may be so lucky (or unlucky) to have? Those of us who evade and escape such identity formations (the expatriate, the refugee, the trickster) shatter the very notions of identity that most people take for granted; they leave identity, create ambiguity and garner suspicion. And thus fluidity very easily finds itself blocked in the real world. We are the stateless, the draft dodgers, the cynics. The neither here nor there.

[text taken from the letter of motivation for the 7th Asia-Europe Art Camp for Visual Arts 2009/2010]

Dear Elaine:

Greetings from the Asia-Europe Foundation and Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain.

We have received your application for the 7th Asia-Europe Art Camp-Art Workshop for Visual Arts 2009/2010. Thank you for your interest in the project.

The 7th Asia-Europe Art Camp-Art Workshop for Visual Arts 2009/2010, being organised by Casino Luxembourg, the University of Luxembourg and the Asia-Europe Foundation, is open to young visual artists from ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting) countries. As you currently hold a US passport, we are unable to accept your application for the 7th Art Camp.

Currently, ASEM member countries include Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Bulgaria, Cambodia, P.R. of China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mongolia, Malta, Myanmar, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, United Kingdom and Vietnam. Your country is not part of the ASEM process yet. Hence, we are presently unable to accept your application at present.

We, therefore, regret to inform you that you would not be eligible to apply for the 2009/2010 edition of the programme. However, if are interested in applying for the 2011 edition, please visit the website of Casino Luxembourg’s Art Workshop at www.ArtWorkshop.lu.

Best regards,
Anupama

There is only a You amidst all of this, and while paperwork may never allow us to get past it, shouldn’t that space between the You and the I be the most significant one?