2023 Asia TOPA Artist Lab returns ahead of 2025 festival

Asia TOPA’s series of creative artist labs make a welcome return as a way of continuing to seed and develop new works ahead of the 2025 festival.

Asia TOPA Creative Director Jeff Khan says that inviting international artists from the Asia Pacific region to explore potential collaborations with artists from Australia is hugely important as programming decisions start to take place.

Khan:

Artist labs are one of the biggest creative development engines for Asia TOPA. This June we will be gathering leading artists from Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Australia and beyond for an inspiring period of creative dreaming and on-the-ground research in Melbourne. We will work together to develop bold new artistic ideas and kickstart the creative process as we look toward the creation of extraordinary new work for the 2025 Asia TOPA festival.

In response to the fluctuating global environment, many artists across the Asia Pacific are developing inventive and ingenious ways to sustain, grow and present their practices on their own terms, often independently of institutional frameworks.

These practices create new conditions for contemporary performance that are challenging the existing power dynamics of the sector and creating new connections with audiences.

On Saturday 17 June, as part of the official Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM) Exchange Program, the Artist-Built Independence conversation will dive into some inspiring examples of this artist-led approach, exploring the potential of artists’ agency in an era of constant crisis and in shaping a nurturing ecosystem for contemporary performance practices.

That evening, Khan and his team – Asia TOPA Executive Producer Naomi Velaphi and Asia TOPA Creative Associate Tam Nguyen – will host a cohort of leading Asia Pacific artists for a one-off party at the RISING Artist Bar. This celebratory event includes an introduction to Asia TOPA and its 2023 Lab artists who will all be in Melbourne for a 10-day creative development intensive. There will also be a special performance by Rainbow Chanand tunes by DJ Smallfry.

The 2023 Asia TOPA Artist Lab will be facilitated by Jeff Khan (Creative Director, Asia TOPA) and Ophelia Huang (International Program Director, Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre).

Partners for the 2023 Asia TOPA Artist Lab include APAM, RISING, Abbotsford Convent, Taipei Performing Arts Center and Performing Arts Market Seoul.

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Photo Credit: Jason Lau