The Asian Cultural Council is excited to welcome our newest cohort of five New York Fellows to New York City: visual artists Elico SUZUKI (suzueri) and WU Jiaru, musicians Li-Chin LI and Gardika Gigih PRADIPTA, and curator ĐỖ Tường Linh. This cohort was awarded fellowships between 2021 and 2022, and ACC is thrilled to support the next phase of their respective artistic practices, research, and discovery.

These five grantees will experience New York City and the US through ACC’s unique grantee program, expanding on their individual projects through open-ended exploration, participation in workshops or training programs, and focused research. ACC’s grantee enrichment program will bring these artists together with renowned arts and culture institutions and individuals throughout New York City, and an alumni connections program will pair current grantees with ACC alumni to maintain and build ACC’s ever-growing artistic network of exceptional artists and scholars. Finally, each grantee will have the opportunity to discover New York City’s diverse arts scene through ACC’s city exploration program, while also taking advantage of ACC’s program office hours to receive individualized support and connectivity from ACC’s staff. 

January 2023 New York Fellows from left to right: WU Jiaru, Gardika Gigih PRADIPTA, Elico SUZUKI (suzueri), Li-Chin LI, ĐỖ Tường Linh

Ultimately, ACC’s New York Fellowship fosters cultural exchange and connection between grantees and artistic communities of New York City while providing structure and professional support for grantees during their grant. Read more about ACC’s Spring 2023 New York Fellowship grantees below.

 

 

ĐỖ Tường Linh | Curation | Vietnam → United States Photo by Le Thi Hong An

Grant: To explore the representation of Asian and Asian American identity in New York City’s contemporary art scene from the diverse perspectives of institutions, artists, and networks.

Đỗ hopes to organize talks, discussions, and workshops to connect various Asian communities, both domestically and internationally within the United States. Her proposed research and work during her Fellowship will utilize various forms of archive – such as libraries, museums, universities, and oral histories – to create an online open-resource network for Asian art and cultural worker communities to exist and operate in solidarity with one another.   

ĐỖ Tường Linh is a curator and art researcher from Hanoi, Vietnam with a BA in art history and theoretical criticism from Vietnam University of Fine Arts, and an MA in Contemporary Art and Art Theory of Asia and Africa from SOAS (University of London). She has participated in many international cultural arts programs such as the Ljubljana Graphic Art Biennial (2019), CIMAM International Museum Workshop (2018), and Tate Intensive (2018). Some of her notable curated exhibitions include Citizen Earth (Hanoi, Vietnam) 2020;, No War, No Vietnam (Galerie Nord, Berlin, Germany) 2018; and SEAcurrents (London, UK) 2017. Đỗ’s research and curatorial  practice spans art, politics, conceptualism, and post-colonial studies. 

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Li-Chin LI | Music | Taiwan → United States

Grant: To improve and explore Taiwan's music environment on an international level from the perspective of a musician by observing and studying the integration of instrumental concerts with other performing art forms.

During Li’s New York Fellowship she will look to broaden, inspire, and expand her performance art experiences in the United States.

Li-Chin LI is a Taiwanese Sheng soloist, composer, and performer devoted to integrating her traditional instrument into the modern international performing arts space. Traditionally trained and educated in Chinese music from Tainan National University of the Arts, Li is known for her ability to apply Sheng (the traditional Chinese free reed wind instrument usually consisting of 17 bamboo pipes) to various art forms, including different music genres and physical movement, etc. Li was recruited by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra as a Sheng performer and has participated in various events, workshops, and concerts with artists across the globe, observing the power of technology in expanding interactive experiences between performers and audiences. Recently, she was selected as a member of IRCAM concert de l'atelier d'improvisation, ManiFeste-2022. Regarding her own creation, Li is committed to exploring a musicians' subjective and diverse roles in performing arts spaces. 

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Gardika Gigih PRADIPTA | Music | Indonesia → United States

Grant: To study the diverse musical cultures, ecosystems and multicultural collaborations in New York City.

Pradipta seeks to inspire his own future creative projects and endeavors while developing a musical composition about his field study in New York, accompanied by a published volume with educational materials accessible for Indonesian audiences.

Gardika Gigih PRADIPTA is a Sragen-based pianist, composer and soundscape researcher interested in the intersection of music, society, and culture. After studying music composition at the Indonesian Institute of Arts Yogyakarta, Pradipta’s interest in the intersection of music, society and culture led him to pursue a Master’s Degree in Cultural Anthropology. Pradipta’s works have been performed in Japan, the United States, the Netherlands, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and span numerous genres including concert music, contemporary improvisation, film scoring, and sound ethnography. His debut album Nyala (2017), released by Indonesian independent label Sorge Records, received widespread acclaim and was named a top album of the year by The Jakarta Post. In 2019, Gardika received a fellowship to conduct soundscape research from the Japan Foundation Asia Center. Currently, he is continuing to develop new electro acoustic works inspired by his global research. His musical style is a mixture between his western classical music education, experience in Indonesian independent music scenes, work with electronic sounds and soundscape textures, and his Javanese roots. 

Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify

 

Elico SUZUKI (suzueri) | Visual Art | Japan → United States

Grant: To continue research on the history and culture of US sound art through libraries, museums, and collaboration with like-minded artists and researchers, as well as conduct analysis on scores by John Cage and David Tudor.

suzueri will focus on the history of DIY/hacking/circuit-bending instruments in media and sound art based on the works of the Sonic Arts Union (a collective of experimental musicians) in the US. She will also work to further understand the genres of prepared piano and kinetic arts, alongside the dawn of early computers and automatic musical instruments of the early 20th century.

Elico SUZUKI (suzueri) is a Japanese maker, designer, DIY hacker, visual artist, and musical improviser making artworks and pieces related to sounds. Born in Yokohama, Japan, suzueri studied Fine Art at Musashino Art University. After ten years of working in gaming, she studied media/sound art at the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS). Since 2018 she has been a part-time lecturer at Musashino Art University. Interested in exploring the narrative aspects and gaps of musical apparatuses interacting with forms of human embodiment, suzueri seeks to interrogate the concepts of ‘clumsiness’, ‘habit’, and ‘wrongness’ through various forms of mechanical dissonance. In highlighting the incongruities between cognition, embodiment, and technology, suzueri makes complicated and clumsy structures using pianos combined with self-made instruments. 

Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

 

WU Jiaru | Visual Art | Hong Kong → United States

Grant: To investigate how immigrant artists find their creative identity and context in a new community, particularly in the new cold war, pandemic, and virtual reality 2.0 era, and to bring these reflections into her own art practice.

During Wu’s New York Fellowship, she will research immigrant histories as a project and examine her own social existence as a new immigrant artist from Hong Kong living in New York City. As more than a sole observer of local communities, contexts, and habits, Wu will contribute evidence, opinions, and discourse to the conversation and within the context of mass immigration waves surrounding modern Hong Kong.

WU Jiaru is a Hong Kong-based artist, historian, and researcher experimenting with imagined spaces and social norms through forms of installation, moving images, sculpture, painting, and image synthesis. She obtained her BA in Fine Arts and English Language from Tsinghua University and her MFA from the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong. Wu’s practice covers topics including mythology, identity politics, technology, and aesthetic. 

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