Angela YT Chan 
“The ESEA Artists’ Futures research project arose from artists’ intervention and whistleblowing in 2020 about the systemic failures in the visual arts, in particular the failures of the ESEA visual arts landscape.”
I arranged and facilitated a closed roundtable with a selected network of East and Southeast Asian art sector workers, from institutional to freelancer, who work in the Midlands, England, to bring insights to reflect what the needs are for ESEA arts workers in the region.
The roundtable focused on the theme of ORGANISING, asking, “How can we organise this new ecology?”
“The event is part of a series of online Roundtables taking place throughout the Autumn from a range of location focuses including Birmingham, London, Manchester, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Rotterdam. The overall question being asked at each event is, What kinds of spaces and support do we need to create a new arts ecology for ESEA artists? Each Roundtable discussion will explore a different theme such as:
SPACE: What kind of physical and/or hybrid spaces do we need?
CARE: What is a safe space for ESEA people and how do we create them?
VISION: What would an ESEA arts ecology look & feel like in 10-years time?
ORGANISING: How can we organise this new ecology?
IDENTITY: How do we define ESEA as an emergent category?
CURATING: How could ESEA artists be curated/programmed better?
ARCHIVE: How could our practices be written about, documented & archived better?
Our session will consider themes and questions that answer to ORGANISING: How can we organise this new ecology?.
The Roundtables - that are part funded by Arts Council England with additional support from Necessity - will inform a set of motions that will be tabled at a public Town Hall, on which ESEA artists and arts workers will be invited to vote upon. The results will be shared in a report, outlining a set of recommendations that will be presented to the UK arts sector and beyond. The Town Hall is currently planned as a blended online/in person event in Manchester for March next year.”
Find out more here