Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) has announced 2022 ASEAN Artists Residency Programme (AARP) awardees Saiful Razman and Eunice Sanchez, both from Southeast Asia, have begun their month-long residency at the Foundation. The 2022 ASEAN Artists Residency Programme (AARP), co-organised by Sharjah Art Foundation and Maybank Foundation, was launched on 10 January 2022.
The open call in November 2021 received more than 60 applications from young emerging artists based in 10 Southeast Asian nations. The selection panel included Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, as well as notable representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat, the ASEAN Foundation and Maybank Foundation.
The two artists were selected based on the strength of their proposals and the potential of the residency to support the growth of their careers. Sanchez, a visual artist and museum worker based in Manila, Philippines, works primarily with photography and alternative photographic processes. Her practice engages with themes relating to preservation and perception. Razman, an artist based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has explored various media, from pop-inspired collages to abstract oil paintings that play with colour and pattern. His current series engages with everyday objects and disposable items.
Sanchez and Razman engaged with local communities across Sharjah as a way to extend their practice beyond their own region. They used the rooftop, courtyard and rooms of Sharjah Art Foundation’s heritage house Bait Obaid Al Shamsi in Arts Square as studio spaces in the development and production of their works.
As part of the residency, Sanchez and Razman will conduct workshops at Bait Obaid Al Shamsi in Arts Square, as a way to engage with the local community. Razman’s workshop, titled ‘Temporary Place: An Experiment on Collaborative Collage’, takes place on Saturday, 5 February 2022 from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Participants in this collaborative collage-making workshop, conducted under the conceptual theme of ‘Imaginary Place’, will explore collaging techniques to create an artwork within the specific theme, alongside a discussion around the theme and ideas.
The second workshop, titled ‘Light, Foliage and Flora: A Cyanotype Printing Workshop’, is conducted by Eunice Sanchez and will take place on Sunday, 6 February 2022 from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm. In this workshop, participants will learn about the history of cyanotype printing and explore methods of cyanotype printing on paper while using foliage and flora as subjects.
Images and info courtesy of SAF