Australasian Network for Asian Art
2025 AN4AA Postgraduate Symposium | Asian Art Research Now
Re-(en)visioning the Past and Present of Asian Art
Keynote Speaker: Dr Grace Gassin
Symposium Date and Time: Friday 15 August 2025, 9.00-17.00 AEST
Please register via Humanitix.
Locations: A Zoom link will be provided once registered. If you are attending in person, please select one of the locations below when registering with us.
Adelaide: Collab, Police Barracks Building Level 1, South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000
Auckland: Humanities Building 206, Room 301, 14A Symonds Street, The University of Auckland, 10 Symonds Street, Auckland Central
Aotearoa New Zealand 1010
Melbourne: The Garden Building* 010.06.089, RMIT University, Bowen Lane, Melbourne VIC 3000
Sydney: F202, F Block**, UNSW Art & Design, Oxford St & Greens Rd, Paddington NSW 2021
Click to download booklet. ​
2025 marks the eighth year since the establishment of Asian Art Research Now, the annual postgraduate symposium organised by the Australasian Network for Asian Art (AN4AA). Over the years, this symposium has become a flagship event for the network, bringing together early-career Asian art researchers from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand (and beyond) to share their research-in-progress with their peers and experts in the field.
Building on last year’s symposium – which encouragingly received an ever-growing number of presentations and audiences, and was structured around four thematic panels – this year’s symposium adopts a broad thematic focus: Re-(en)visioning the Past and Present of Asian Art. To re-(en)vision suggests an act of looking back, holding the desired promise of restoration, reclamation, and resignification by bringing to light histories once obscured, misread, or confined within prescriptive frameworks. This process unfolds organically in both art research and artistic practice today, transforming the past and, at times, re-(en)visioning what can be remembered and imagined for the future – whether in nascent or altered forms.
The symposium will take place in a hybrid format, with in-person hubs in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand hosted at the Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide), RMIT (Melbourne), University of New South Wales (Sydney) and the first-time hub at The University of Auckland (Auckland). The day-long symposium aims to highlight and share the vitality and diversity of Asian art research undertaken by current and recent postgraduate students. It aims to foster supportive critique, feedback, and conversations across institutions and across the diverse geographies and temporalities of Asian art research.
The symposium serves as a platform for connecting with other scholars and emerging academics across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. It provides an opportunity to share research in progress among Asian art researchers from various backgrounds, including Masters (coursework or research) students and doctoral candidates in disciplines such as art history, creative practice, arts management, museum studies, and heritage studies.
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This year, we welcome Dr Grace Gassin, Curator Asian New Zealand Histories, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa to present the keynote speech!
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Dr Grace Gassin Lîm Sò͘-chin æž—ç´ çœŸ is Curator of Asian New Zealand Histories at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the former President of the Dragon Tails Association, which was set up to promote research into the histories and heritage of Chinese people (and their descendants and associates) in Australasia. Her wide-ranging interests encompass the historical and contemporary experiences of Asian diaspora communities in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. She co-convened both the Dragon Tails 2017 conference, held at the Golden Dragon Museum in Bendigo, Victoria, and the 2019 conference, held at the Victoria University of Wellington – the latter was the first, and remains the only, Dragon Tails conference ever held in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Over the past decade, Grace has led or been involved in several major collaborative initiatives combining the diverse strengths and aims of curators, historical researchers, activists, and artists in various ways. These projects include: Chinese Languages in Aotearoa, the Asian Mental Health project, The Pandemic Chronicles, and the We Are Kiwi Hong Kongers protest collection. She is also the editor of the forthcoming, multi-authored book, Between Dreams: Resistance and Representation in Asian Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2026).
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Keynote Abstract
Cultivating Hope: Art, activism and the memory of Asian protest in Aotearoa
As purveyors of public history, museums are frequently sites of contestation. Among the diverse range of people who regularly engage with museums are those who do so as part of wider efforts to bolster our collective memory of particular events and injustices to influence present and future politics. These actors, who include activists, artists and academics, are sometimes referred to by memory studies scholars as ‘memory activists’.
In this presentation, I explore two instances of memory activism that has led to the collection of Asian New Zealand art and creative work at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The first, which involved New Zealand-based supporters of Hong Kong protests of 2019-20 in response to a proposed anti-extradition bill, led to the development of the museum’s Hong Kong and Aotearoa protest collection in 2021. The second, initiated by members of the Wellington-based Iranian Solidarity Group New Zealand, resulted in the recent acquisition of materials documenting local solidarity activism associated with the Women, Life, Freedom movement originating in Iran.
These cases present an exciting opportunity to explore the complex dynamics and processes that come into play when New Zealand-based memory activists (as defined by their objectives and activities) set their sights on the national museum as a platform for socio-political change at the domestic and international level.
Program Schedule
Opening remark: Russell Kelty, Curator, Asian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, AN4AA Co-ordinator
Alex Burchmore, Lecturer, Art History and Curatorial Studies, Australian National University, AN4AA Co-ordinator
Yuexiu Shen, Research Assistant, Asian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, AN4AA Postgraduate Representative
Panel 1: Re-configuring Identity and Narratives
Chaired by Akshatha Rangarajan, PhD candidate, Monash University, AN4AA Postgraduate Representative
Speaker 1: Maryam Attarbashi (RMIT University)
Speaker 2: Jiugeng Niu (The University of Auckland)
Speaker 3: Mita Chowdhury (RMIT University)
Panel 2: Re-constructing Memory: Archive as Method
Chaired by Mita Chowdhury, PhD candidate, RMIT University, AN4AA Postgraduate Representative
Speaker 4: Phuong Nguyen Le (RMIT University)
Speaker 5: Shinjita Roy (The University of Melbourne)
Speaker 6: Petrus Christologus Susanto Sidhi Vhisatya (The University of Technology Sydney)
Welcome back: Ruihan Ma, PhD candidate, University of Sydney, AN4AA Postgraduate Representative
Asep Topan, PhD candidate, University of Sydney, AN4AA Postgraduate Representative
Keynote speech: Chaired by Olivier Krischer, Lecturer, Arts, Design & Architecture, University of New South Wales, AN4AA Co-ordinator
Keynote Speaker: Dr Grace Gassin, Curator Asian New Zealand Histories, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Panel 3: Re-signifying Voices from the Periphery
Chaired by Pratyay Raha, PhD candidate, RMIT University, AN4AA Postgraduate Representative
Speaker 7: Zining Ke (The Australian National University)
Speaker 8: Ye Liu (RMIT University)
Speaker 9: Riyadhus Shalihin (Jakarta Art Institute)
Panel 4: Re-visioning Historical Canon and Cross-Cultural Exchange
Chaired by Aulia Yeru, Lecturer, Telkom University, AN4AA Postgraduate Representative
Speaker 10: Anna Stewart-Yates (The University of Oxford)
Speaker 11: Alexander Leslie Sutherland (The University of Canterbury)
Speaker 12: Audrey Newton (Sydney College of the Arts)
Closing remark: Michelle Antoinette, Associate Professor, Art History & Theory Programme, Monash University, AN4AA Co-ordinator
Tammy Wong Hulbert, Senior Lecturer, School of Art, RMIT University, AN4AA Co-ordinator
*Garden Building
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The RMIT University Garden Building (Level 6 - 010.06.089) is located on Bowen Lane (main lane through the city campus) two floors above the STREAT cafe. Take the stairs on the side of the building or the elevator behind STREAT up to level 6 (top floor).
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Closest toilets are in Building 8 (behind Building 10)
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​​​​​**F Block
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Room F202 is on Level 2 of the F Block, School of Art & Design, on the Paddington campus (not at UNSW main campus in Kensington). When you are standing in the courtyard of UNSW Paddington campus, the entrance to F Block is behind/alongside the Maker Space (see image).
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Also see the UNSW Paddington Campus map.
