KYOTO Gathering for Asian Art Students 2025 (Asian Art University Student Conference) will be held from Wednesday, November 12 to Friday, November 14.
As part of the program, the keynote lectures will be live-streamed for online viewers.
On November 12 (Wed), Patrick Flores, Curator at the National Gallery Singapore, will speak about modern and contemporary Asian art histories in relation to Singapore.
On November 13 (Thu), Yee I-Lann, a Malaysia-born artist, will discuss how she built her artistic career in the years following graduation.
Both lectures will be available via Zoom Webinar. Please register and join online!

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Keynote Lecture 1

Patrick Flores (Chief Curator, National Gallery Singapore)
A Different Twentieth Century: Asian Art History in Singapore

We welcome internationally renowned curator and scholar Patrick Flores to speak on modern and contemporary Asian art histories in relation to Singapore.

Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2025, 1:00–3:00 PM (JST)
Interpreter: Miho Tsujii
Online registration for live streaming: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mPqGV9pGS_S8M6PtYTQTKg

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Keynote Lecture 2

Yee I-Lann (Artist)
The Art of Becoming: First Five Years After Graduation

Born in 1971 in Sabah, Malaysia, Yee I-Lann creates works using photography, video, and installation to explore historical and cultural memories in contemporary society. In this lecture, she will reflect on her experiences and discuss how she built her artistic career in the years following graduation.

Date: Thursday, November 13, 2025, 1:00–3:00 PM (JST)
Interpreter: Kyle Yamada
Online registration for live streaming: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zKMlMJX0QEmBBCQt4L5GLg

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Speakers’ Profiles

Patrick Flores

Patrick Flores is Chief Curator of National Gallery Singapore. He is concurrently Professor of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines and Director of the Philippine Contemporary Art Network. He has written significantly on Southeast Asian art, specifically its colonial and modernist formations, and has curated contemporary exhibitions on and through Southeast Asia. He was a Visiting Fellow at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1999 and a Guest Scholar of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles in 2014. Among his publications are Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art (1999); Past Peripheral: Curation in Southeast Asia (2008); Raymundo Albano: Texts (2017); and The Modern in Southeast Asian Art: A Reader (2023), which he co-edited with T. K. Sabapathy. He was a Curator (Position Papers) at the Gwangju Biennale in 2008, the Artistic Director of Singapore Biennale in 2019 and Curator of the Philippine Pavilion in 2015 and the Taiwan Pavilion in 2022 at the Venice Biennale.

Yee I-Lann

Yee I-Lann (b. 1971, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia; lives and works in Kota Kinabalu) is a leading contemporary artist known for her photomedia-based practice that explores the intersections of power, colonialism, and neo-colonialism in Southeast Asia. Her digital photo collages and collaborative projects often foreground counter-narratives and “histories from below,” engaging with both sea-based and land-based communities as well as indigenous mediums in Sabah.
She has exhibited widely across Asia, Europe, Australia, and the United States. Major retrospectives Yee I-Lann: 2005–2016 (Ayala Museum, Manila, 2016). Recent solo shows include Borneo Heart (Sabah International Convention Centre, 2021), Until We Hug Again (CHAT, Hong Kong, 2021), At the Roof of the Mouth (Silverlens New York, 2022) and Yee I-Lann: Mansau-Ansau (Kunstmuseum Thun, 2025).
Yee’s work has also featured in significant group exhibitions such as the Asia Pacific Triennial (1999, 2021), SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now (Tokyo, 2017), Aichi Triennale (2022), the Istanbul Biennial (2022), NGV Triennial, Victoria, Australia (2023); and The Spirits of Maritime Crossing, Venice, Italy (2024).

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About the KYOTO Gathering for Asian Art Students

KYOTO Gathering for Asian Art Students is a three-day conference with accommodation provided, bringing together students from Southeast and East Asia to deepen their mutual understanding and their region at large within the context of the contemporary art world.
The event aims to reexamine Western-centric narratives in art and provide opportunities for practical learning and meaningful connections through discussions on global art trends, individual research interests, and career pathways.

KYOTO Gathering for Asian Art Students 2025
Theme: Flipping Point: Looking Back at the World from Asia
Dates: Wed, November 12 – Fri, November 14, 2025
Venue: Kyoto University of the Arts (Keynote lectures will be live-streamed)
Program Details: The program will include Group Discussions, Keynote Talks by Guest Speakers, Kyoto Excursion, Networking Sessions.
Organized by: ICA Kyoto, Kyoto University of the Arts Graduate School
Supported by: The Japan Foundation

For more information, please visit this page.

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Contact

info-icakyoto@office.kyoto-art.ac.jp

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