Art Worlds

Episode 36 features Tsiriniaina Hajatiana Irimboangy, an artist-designer and researcher based between Madagascar and France. From their background in graphic design, their practice uses digital creation technologies, including AI and 3D digitisation, to highlight, preserve and give a voice to Malagasy heritage and culture. Within this framework, Tsiriniaina often seeks out stories that have been overlooked and marginalised and uses their transmedia approach to refocus attention. Tsiriniaina was the winner of Fondation H’s Prix Pari-tana in 2024 and used the awarded residency, at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, to develop their project 'Ridô - Revealing memories'. Tsiriniaina joined me from Antananarivo in Madagascar where they were working on a new exhibition. 

Episode 35 features Joël Andrianomearisoa, an artist who straddles worlds working and living between Paris and Magnat-l’Étrange in France as well as Antananarivo in Madagascar. His work, which encompasses sculpture, installation, performance, craft and textiles, is influenced by the cultural diversity that characterises Madagascar yet it speaks beyond here. A piece like ‘The Five Continents Of All Our Desires’, made from suspended sheets of black silk paper, considers the architecture of feelings and the way emotional experiences, like desire, can be considered universal. Joël has exhibited across the globe and was the artist chosen to represent Madagascar when the country first participated in the Venice Biennale in 2019. Since then he has created exhibition opportunities for Malagasy artists through the platform Hakanto Contemporary. Set in a sprawling warehouse in Antananarivo, the initiative celebrates and supports Malagasy creativity. Joël joined me from his studio in Paris and explained the ways he likes to provoke and bring people together. 

Episode 34 speaks to Margaux Huille, director of Fondation H, a Malagasy organisation dedicated to contemporary art. Margaux has spent her career championing artists from Africa and its diaspora. Having helped launch the endowment fund African Artists for Development and worked with 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, she has been deeply embedded in the continent’s various art worlds. Fondation H, launched by patron Hassanein Hiridjee in 2017, operates in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo and France’s capital, Paris. From permanent spaces in both locations, the programming foregrounds the development and structuring of the Indian Ocean art scene. This is realised through supporting artists with exhibition opportunities, workshops and prizes as well as focusing on increasing public access to art. Margaux spoke to me from Antananarivo about the scope and value of these activities.

Episode 33 meets Xiaoyu Weng, a prolific and pioneering curator. From her early career working with Kadist to build their contemporary Asian art collection, to her time as an associate curator at the Guggenheim and then onto to leading the modern and contemporary art department at the Art Gallery of Ontario, she has developed interdisciplinary programming centred on new ways to conceive a globalised world and to consider its attendant challenges. Last year, Xiaoyu became the inaugural artistic director of the Tanoto Art Foundation. Based in Singapore and founded by Belinda Tanoto, the not for profit sees itself as a connector that will bring together Southeast Asia’s arts communities and nurture dialogues beyond. The Foundation has plans for a range of activities including exhibitions, international collaborations, research and publications. I spoke to Xiaoyu just after she had launched their first public symposium in a theatre at Singapore’s School of the Arts. 

Episode 32 features Dawn Ng, an artist preoccupied with time, memory, nostalgia and the ephemeral. This has led her to develop a unique sculpting technique that deploys ice and pigment to create beguiling images across a breadth of mediums, including photography, film and painting. When translated into moving image, like in ‘The Earth is an Hourglass’ currently showing at 11th Asia Pacific Triennial, Dawn’s icy sculptural form gradually collapses into a river of colour. The process is captivating. Dawn’s works are focused on encouraging this type of slow looking. From large-scale installations at the National Gallery Singapore to a commission for the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, her work is characteristically poetic and elegant in its execution. Dawn joined me from her studio in Singapore and told me more about her industrial size walk-in freezers and her scientific spreadsheets. 

Art Worlds returns for series 4! Joining me for episode 31 is Magnus Renfrew, the Co-Chairman and Global Director of The Art Assembly, an affiliation of three major international art fairs founded in the Asia Pacific region. This includes Singapore’s leading art fair, ART SG. Magnus launched the inaugural edition of ART SG in January 2023. He has deep expertise, he was founding director of Art Basel Hong Kong (2012-2014) - serving as one of three members of Art Basel’s global Executive Committee, and before that was founding director of the fair’s predecessor ART HK: Hong Kong International Art Fair (2007-2012). He is currently Chair of the Advisory Council for Para Site Art Space.In the run up to the fair opening its doors, Magnus spoke to me from his office in Taipei about the ins and outs of spearheading such an enterprise.