Collecting Photography in Southeast Asian Museums

Roundtable Convenor(s)

• AS

  Alexander Supartono

  Edinburgh Napier University, United Kingdom
• AM

  Alexandra Moschovi

  University of Sunderland, United Kingdom

Roundtable Chair(s)

• AM

  Alexandra Moschovi

  University of Sunderland, United Kingdom

Roundtable Participant(s)

• AS

  Alexander Supartono

  Edinburgh Napier University, United Kingdom
• BD

  Budi Dharmawan

  Programme Director of Jogja Fotografis Festival 2023, Indonesia
• SG

  Sze Ying Goh

  National Gallery Singapore, Singapore
• PL

  Peter Lee

  Independent, Singapore
• SS

  Simon Soon

  University of Melbourne, Australia

Roundtable Abstract: The ubiquity, multifaceted uses, and vast volume of photographs that exist in physical and online worlds complicate the accommodation of photography in 21st-century museums. Indeed, what is museum photography and its cultural value now that "we are all photographers" and online platforms question the function of the traditional museum? How can museums strategically collect analogue and digital-born photography to create relevant and sustainable photographic collections for the future?
Photography as an independent contemporary art was fully institutionalized in North America and Europe by the late twentieth century. Yet, its official accommodation in Southeast Asian museums has been slower, starting at the dawn of the millennium. Recent large-scale curatorial initiatives, such as “Amek Gambar: Peranakan and Photography” at the Peranakan Museum, Singapore (May 2018-February 2019), “Bayangan Timbul Tenggelam” at Ilham Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (May-July 2021), and “Living Pictures: Photography in Southeast Asia” at the National Gallery Singapore (December 2022-August 2023)—arguably the most comprehensive survey of photographic practice in Southeast Asia to date—confirm the institutional legitimization of the medium in the region.
The collecting activities of historical photographs and contemporary photographic works in Southeast Asia are closely interconnected between museums, galleries, and private initiatives. The accommodation of photographs as historical artifacts and contemporary art, as well as artists’ responses to varying photographic cultures (particularly colonial photographic materials), take place simultaneously in regional museums and galleries. This relatively new and vibrant dynamic creates a unique ecosystem of photography in Southeast Asia, in which accommodating photographs in museums does not merely signify the changing status of photography in art, culture, and society, nor is it singularly a rebranding exercise of institutions as cultural and societal sites. More importantly, it is the process of defining cultural and national/regional identities.
This panel seeks to explore issues pertinent to collecting photographic works in Southeast Asian institutions, not just in terms of acquisition, conservation, documentation, and dissemination but also in relation to the ways photography can be used as a vehicle to consider broader social and political issues and processes, including identity, postcoloniality, decolonization processes, nation-ness, and economic and social injustice.