Asia Week 2024
Asian Dynamics Initiative invites you to a festival about Asia's art, culture and society. Join the kaleidoscope of Asia in Copenhagen, a week-long itinerary of cultural and intellectual encounters.
This year's Asia Week offers a wide range of events, including documentaries, a theater performance, symposium and music which gives you a glimpse of the great continent.
Registration
We have gathered all Asia Week events in one registration form, where you can pick and choose which events you would like to attend. You can attend as many as you would like. Register for the events.
Programme
Monday 23 September
| 17:00 - 18:00 |
Puden Collaboration with Aveny-T and Tofu Collective Place: Riises Landsted Allégade 5 Frederiksberg, 2000 Denmark. Get your tickets at the Aveny-T website.
Puden is a Danish-Chinese performance based on an old Chinese fable, translated from Chinese and dramatized for the occasion. The fable is about the poor student Lu who passes by an inn, goes inside and orders a portion of millet porridge. The innkeeper, old Mr. Ly, offers student Lu to rest his head on a porcelain pillow while the millet porridge is finished cooking. Student Lu falls asleep and has a dream, helped along by the pillow, where he looks into the future. Duration: 60 min. without no break Recomended age: 13+ Language: Chinese and English (with Danish subtitles)
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Tuesday 24 September
| 12:00-13:30 |
Exploring Japanese Film History: An introduction to Godzilla, Kurosawa and Satoshi Kon Talk by Katerina Goussarova This introduction will take you through the fascinating history of Japanese cinema, from its early beginnings to its global influence.
We will explore the visionary works of Akira Kurosawa, whose masterpieces like Seven Samurai and Rashomon revolutionized filmmaking with their innovative storytelling. Dive into the Godzilla phenomenon, which not only birthed the kaiju genre but also reflected post-war anxieties. Finally, experience the imaginative worlds of Satoshi Kon, whose films like Paprika and Perfect Blue blended reality and illusion, influencing both anime and Western filmmakers. Join us to discover how these iconic creations have shaped and influenced cinema both in Japan and around the world!
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| 15:00 - 17:00 |
Documentary Film Screening: Trolley Times (2023) + Q&A with the director
“Trolley Times” is a portrayal of the historic and the largest sit-in protest, perhaps ever staged in the world, primarily by the farmers of Punjab and Haryana on the borders of Delhi from November 2020 to December 2021 to protest the three new farm laws passed by the union government . The title itself is derived from the newsletter 'Trolley Times' that was started as a voice of the protest by a group of activists. The film is divided into four parts like chapters of a book, each distinct in its content and treatment. Watch the trailer. Duration: 153 minutes
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Wednesday 25 September
| 12:00 - 14:00 |
Inspire Asia Student driven talk with experts in Asiatic relations about their academic grounding in area-studies. With Camilla T. N. Sørensen (Royal Danish Defence College), Louise Nolle (Technical University of Denmark) and Karin Jakobsen (University of Copenhagen).
Louise Nolle is a Senior Executive Officer at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) where she works with the development of strategic partnerships with universities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. She oversees DTU’s strategic collaboration with India and has previously worked with human rights, social development and partnerships at International Labour Organization in Bangladesh and Geneva and a number of NGOs. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Anthropology from University of Copenhagen and a Master’s degree in South Asian Studies from Lund University in Sweden. Camilla T. N. Sørensen is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Strategy and War Studies at the Royal Danish Defense Academy, where she especially conducts research and teaching on China, East Asian politics and security as well as Arctic security. She holds a PhD (2008) in Political Science from Copenhagen University. She has lived and worked in China various times over the years and frequently travels to East Asia. Karin Jakobsen is an Associate Professor at Korea Studies at TORS, where she teaches Korean Language at BA-level. She holds a Master’s degree in East Asia Studies with a specialization in Korea from University of Copenhagen. She is very engaged in literary translation and in collaboration with former students and other colleagues she have translated three works from Korean into Danish.
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| 14:30 - 16:30 |
Speculative Cityscapes Collaborative performance lecture on the speculative landscapes of China’s urbanization with artist Yang Jialin (China) and researcher/curator Antonie Angerer (Germany)
We invite for a for a performance lecture on the speculative landscapes of China’s urbanization with artist Yang Jialin and curator/researcher Antonie Angerer. The immersive lecture lets the audience travel into one of China’s most prominent city-making projects, Xiongan New Area. Visual and audio material collected by Yang Jialin gets into dialogue with the research that Antonie Angerer has conducted on collective place-making through media in early urbanization processes. The lecture takes the perspective of the social worlds affected by a gigantic state-led project. Living through a phase of the yet to come invites different speculations on how an urban future may look like. Poetic reflections through sound and text are collaged with the spectacle produced in the public and digital space surrounding rapid transformation of a former rural and future urban landscape. The immersive lecture lets the audience travel into one of China’s most prominent city-making projects, Xiongan New Area. Visual and audio material collected by artist Yang Jialin gets into dialogue with the research that Antonie Angerer has conducted on collective place-making through media in early urbanization processes. Organizer: Elena Meyer-Clement
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| 17:00 |
Cosmic SINAWI: Traditional Korean Music Place: South Campus, room 21.0.54 (Multisalen).
In the vast universe, countless stars are constantly being created and destroyed. Imagination of an unknown realm that transcends time and space begins to resonate. Tradition is a mirror that looks at the future and a world that contains the universe. Now our lives have become a part of this vast universe. Cosmic SINAWI seeks to penetrate the past, present, and future through music. Programme
Ensemble SINAWISinawi means improvisation in Korean music. Ensemble Sinawi is a group that creates music based on Korean traditional music with the goal of reaching the world stage. Improvisation of traditional Korean rhythms is a characteristic of Ensemble Sinawi. Their music contains the elegance and depth of traditional Korean music, while communicating with the contemporary sensibilities of modern listeners. The melodies of various traditional genres (Sanjo, Shaman, Pansori, etc.) are borrowed, maximized, and woven into Sinawi. Ensemble Sinawi seeks to expand the success of improvisational music and the potential of future Korean music based on Korean traditional music. Members
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| 18:30 | Reception |
Thursday 26 September
| 10:00 - 12:00 |
Spaces Beyond Belief: A Spatial Exploration of Korean Buddhist Architecture With Maya Stiller (Associate Professor of Korean Art History & Visual Culture, University of Kansas)
Spaces Beyond Belief calls for a considerable expansion of commonly accepted historical narratives about sacred space in pre-modern East Asia. This project challenges the conventional understanding of Buddhist temple halls as purely Buddhist spaces. Wall paintings as well as literary source material show that these halls functioned as transmitters of hegemonic cultural discourse, which resonates with contemporary discussions about the social and cultural influence of religious institutions. Focusing on late Chosŏn Buddhist temples as a case study, this study proposes an expanded understanding of religious space, highlighting the roles of artisan-monks actively engaged with elite artistic trends. These artisans used their creativity to express moral lessons that resonated with the aspirations of a diverse local population. This engagement served a dual purpose: demonstrating the artists’ cultural cachet and offering a creative response to the dominant cultural and social pressures of the time. This book thus offers crucial insights into the potential of artist-monks, previously considered as suppressed, marginalized social groups, to contribute to and shape cultural narratives. It contributes to the field of architecture as the first academic book in the Anglophone world on Korean Buddhist architecture, and the first book on Chosŏn period (1392-1910) Buddhist art.
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| 10:00 - 14:30 |
Arts of Worldmaking I – Symposium
The end of globalization is not the end of global connections. These continue albeit in new incarnations. While some flows remain intact, even bolstered, others are restricted more than ever. What sets the contemporary historical condition apart is the visible hand of the nation-state, strong and rejuvenated, that increasingly steers these global ebbs and flows. It is not just the renewal of nation and nationalism that defines the current moment but also the simultaneous return of the civilizational discourse, fresh calls for decolonization, and the looming crisis of climate change. In short, the world continues to be redrawn in ever-new ways. Or shall we say, the many worlds – from geopolitical to anthropological life-worlds – we experience and etch all at once. This symposium delves into the new and old arts of worldmaking that seek to draw forth futures. The notion of arts covers a broad spectrum of practices, imaginaries, and discourses deployed to rearrange the ways of being in the world. We invite interventions from across the humanities and social sciences that reflect, even speculate, on historical and contemporary discords and affinities reshaping the multiple worlds we inhabit. Speakers
FormatThe symposium is designed as an open conversation prompted by a range of interventions (25-30 min + 20 min discussion) and panel discussions (more to follow).
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| 15:00 - 18:00 |
Documentary Film Screening: All That Breathes (2022) + Q&A with the director
In one of the world’s most populated cities, two brothers — Nadeem and Saud — devote their lives to the quixotic effort of protecting the black kite, a majestic bird of prey essential to the ecosystem of New Delhi that has been falling from the sky at alarming rates. Amid environmental toxicity and social unrest, the ‘kite brothers’ spend day and night caring for the creatures in their makeshift avian basement hospital. Director Shaunak Sen (Cities of Sleep) explores the connection between the kites and the brothers who help them return to the skies, offering a mesmerizing chronicle of inter-species coexistence.
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| 15:00 - 18:00 |
Community Based Art Practices in China and Europe: Resilience through Friendships Panel discussion with artists Yang Jialin, Chen Yifei, and Maj Horn, and curators Martin Wendelbo Rasmussen, Regen Li (Tofu Collective, Copenhagen) and Antonie Angerer (Berlin/Würzburg). Place: Tofu Space, Læderstræde 15, kld, 1201 København K
In contested spaces, networks and communities become structures of solidarity and creativity. Created through encounters and conversation, they create the possibility to produce stories outside of the political mainstream. Each of them engaged in worlds that may seem distant from each other, the invited artists and cultural practitioners create projects that bring people together. They use the freedom of artistic practice to analyze social, political and ecological issues in collaboration with local and international communities; they experiment with publishing and in printmaking as modes of alternative knowledge production, asking the question of how to live together better. Organizers: Elena Meyer-Clement and Antonie Angerer
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Friday 27 September
| 9:30 - 13:00 |
Arts of Worldmaking II – Symposium
The end of globalization is not the end of global connections. These continue albeit in new incarnations. While some flows remain intact, even bolstered, others are restricted more than ever. What sets the contemporary historical condition apart is the visible hand of the nation-state, strong and rejuvenated, that increasingly steers these global ebbs and flows. It is not just the renewal of nation and nationalism that defines the current moment but also the simultaneous return of the civilizational discourse, fresh calls for decolonization, and the looming crisis of climate change. In short, the world continues to be redrawn in ever-new ways. Or shall we say, the many worlds – from geopolitical to anthropological life-worlds – we experience and etch all at once. This symposium delves into the new and old arts of worldmaking that seek to draw forth futures. The notion of arts covers a broad spectrum of practices, imaginaries, and discourses deployed to rearrange the ways of being in the world. We invite interventions from across the humanities and social sciences that reflect, even speculate, on historical and contemporary discords and affinities reshaping the multiple worlds we inhabit. Speakers
FormatThe symposium is designed as an open conversation prompted by a range of interventions (25-30 min + 20 min discussion) and panel discussions (more to follow).
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