Navigating disruption in the Southeast Asian arts and cultural sectors: the ANCER Conference, 17 to 19 September 2020 (online)

This paper reviews The ANCER Conference 2020: Disruption as Opportunity organised by Lasalle College of the Arts in Singapore. The conference focussed on how the arts and cultural sectors in Southeast Asia have been navigating the challenges caused by Covid-19. By showcasing a wide range of ongoing art projects in different parts of Southeast and East Asia, the event offered a fresh perspective on the meanings of (making) local-regional-global nexuses which have been both challenged and given new impetus by the current crisis. The Southeast Asian perspectives highlighted in the conference also provided new opportunities to scrutinise the crisis not just in geographical but also in temporal terms, questioning the relationship between the past, present and future state of the arts. The presentations provided inspiring cases to examine the political relevance of artists and the potential and limitations of the emergence of cultural policy entrepreneurs in different Southeast Asian societies.