R
E
V N
E
X
T
ArtAsiaPacific is pleased to announce the results of our fourth Young Writer’s Contest. This year’s contestants were invited to submit a 1,000-word essay on either art and failure or digital possibilities.
Susan Htoo clinched the top prize with her essay examining the virtual exhibition “:\Screensaver”—organized by Yangon-based MATTER audiovisual-lab—and other digital means used by artists in Myanmar to imagine the country’s future and respond to the military coup d’etat on February 1. Born in Myanmar and raised in Singapore, Htoo graduated from Durham University with a degree in History of Art and Business in 2018, followed by a master’s in History of Art at University College London in 2019. Upon returning to Singapore after her studies, she was a trainee at the NTU Centre of Contemporary Art, where she facilitated public programs and liaised with international and local artists-in-residence. She currently holds marketing positions at the Hong Kong-based hospitality group Common Abode and the global art advisory Metis Art Education.
In second place, Elisabetta Cuccaro interrogated notions of failure and uselessness in the practice of Tianyi Zheng, who frequently incorporates obsolete second-hand objects in her installations as a means of resisting society’s narrow definitions of functionality and worth. Cuccaro is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and writer based between the Netherlands and Italy. She co-founded the artist-run initiative SuperEgo and curated an exhibition series, “The Trilogy” (2018), featuring works by ten women artists. She is currently pursuing a master’s in Arts, Cognition and Criticism at the University of Groningen, and working on her book, After-Taste of Self-Help. Towards a Possible Theory of Exhibition, which considers exhibition-making as an art form.
Minji Chun’s third-place essay details how emerging Korean artists Sungsil Ryu and Dew Kim explore the fluidity of online personas and navigate popular culture at large. Currently based between Seoul and Oxford, Chun is an art critic and curator focused on foregrounding hidden narratives and spaces. She researches, writes, and translates texts on contemporary art.
Htoo’s first-place essay will appear in the September/October issue of AAP. The second- and third-place texts will be published online in the coming weeks.
Previous winners of AAP’s Young Writers Contest include researcher Cheng Mun Chang, art historian Harry C. H. Choi, and curator Joyce Wong.
To read more of ArtAsiaPacific’s articles, visit our Digital Library.
