Whether you are from Southeast Asia or elsewhere, my project colleagues and I thank you for your interest in the ASEAN Vision Project. This ASEAN-wide participatory photography exhibition is a product of my ongoing PhD research at Manchester School of Art as well as my previous studies about Southeast Asia’s cultural integration efforts when I was still starting as a communication research student in Hong Kong.

The online exhibition MADE IN ASEAN  actually coincided with the 37^th ASEAN Summit | 2020 which was virtually held in Ha Noi, Viet Nam (from 12^th to 15^th November 2020).  Similar to the annual ASEAN summits, our much anticipated exhibition project was supposed to be staged as a physical, on-site international event in Southeast Asia (while simultaneously/virtually being launched in Manchester). However, because of the many restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, we eventually decided to launch it online — reminiscent of ‘web art’ — hence, still making it happen in the year 2020. This is also to make our timely response to the bloc’s ASEAN 2020 Vision statement (which the regional organisation initially envisioned in November 1997), and duly signed by the ten member states on 15 December 1997 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  

‘We pledge to our peoples our determination and commitment to bringing
this ASEAN Vision for the Year 2020 into reality.’

^{ASEAN Vision 2020 via www.asean.org}

I believe that such a rhetoric of vision is a question of seeing, recognising, and belonging; this is made more vivid by the ASEAN Motto: One Vision, One Identity, One Community.  Hence visual communication and visual culture studies need not be excluded from the ASEAN discourse especially at a time when photographic media and streaming video prove to be the most effective means to convey the purpose of the ASEAN. And now that 2020 is not only upon us but also almost past us, Southeast Asians have yet to witness the promise made by the ASEAN in 1997 to take shape, despite the online meetings and webinars held by state leaders of Southeast Asian countries. To instigate the making of this vision into a reality, I gathered some of my fellow ASEAN member citizens to participate in this collective imagination of the future of Southeast Asia. Thus, we begin with an image-making project that is MADE IN ASEAN.

Apart from the current and previous project participants, I would like to thank many individuals who contributed to the development of this project.

Working on my thesis under the immense pressure of a global pandemic made me realise that the people who have imparted their brilliance with me throughout my PhD life deserve more accolades than what I have accomplished in the last several years. Humbly, I dedicate this extensive piece of work to each and every one of them.

With fond memories, I acknowledge the teaching and research faculty at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and Manchester School of Art, and especially thank my PhD supervisors, Dr Beccy Kennedy, Dr Sian Bonnell, and Ms Jane Brake, for their invaluable mentorship in the last three years, most especially during our virtual meetings despite the challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. My deepest gratitude goes to my PhD thesis examiners Professor Steve Miles and Dr Danielle Child (MMU), and Reuben Keehan (Curator, Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art QAGOMA), for their invaluable feedback and continued guidance. I also thank Professor Andrew Hunt, Dr Fionna Barber, Dr Myna Trustram, Mr Alnoor Mitha, Dr Nikolai Duffy, Dr Cathy Coombs, and Ms Anne-Marie Walsh for their unwavering support outside my supervisory team. I am grateful to the Office of the Vice Chancellor of MMU for the full three-year scholarship awarded to me for the duration of my PhD studies in the UK. I also thank the Postgraduate Arts and Humanities Centre (PAHC) and the Graduate School, especially the GS Research Support Awards Panel for generously sponsoring my participation in various conferences from 2019 until 2022. I also acknowledge and thank the International Communication Association (ICA), International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), and the Nordic Summer University (NSU), as well as the brilliant fellow academics who had generously given me their feedback during the conferences where I presented in the last three years.

I must thank Dr Amy Matthewson and Yen Ooi for the creative ideas and curatorial contributions they both lent this project (especially during our ASEAN Manifesto collaboration); Beverly Lumbera for her painstaking assistance in the cataloguing of the participants’ photographs since 2017; my overall co-curator Martin Vidanes and our graphic design collective People Are Visual for patiently assisting me in building and designing the project website (I could not have done it alone); the research participants who helped in the careful translations of the curatorial statements in various ASEAN languages/dialects; our translation contributors, Noor Hamizah Mohamad Basir and Crall Marck Bait (Bahasa), Olida Inthavong (Lao), Phacharaphon Katanyukun (Thai), and Dr Wendy Wing Lam Chan (Cantonese) for their additional translations; my colleagues at the Nordic Summer University (NSU) Circle 7 for helping me reflect on key aspects of the project in 2019; Clara Cheung, Kit Hung, Ross Lap-kin Cheung, and Alice Thickett for contributing to my literature search; Dr Jason Cabañes, Dr Cecilia Uy-Tioco, Dr Wendy Chan Wing Lam, Dr Angela Wang Dan, and Ms Florisa Norina Carada for strongly encouraging me to never give up (and, of course, for their varied theoretical and practical insights); and my former colleagues at the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) School of Communication, Academy of Film (HKBU AF), and Academy of Visual Arts (HKBU AVA), at the European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School – ECREA (Milan 2017), at the Vargas Museum of the University of the Philippines-Diliman (UPD), and at PhotoVoice UK (especially Matt Daw and Liz Orton) for all their valuable critique and feedback when I was still conceptualising this research project. I am also ever grateful for the generous travel grants I had received from the Metrobank Foundation and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) of the Philippines. Thank you all very much.

Special thanks to Freya Chow-Paul and Joe Rivera for lending their crystal clear, winsome voices for the audio recordings of the MADE IN ASEAN curatorial statement and the MEDI ^AT ^ISATION audio guide.

I would also like to acknowledge and thank the Transcultural Leadership Summit (TLS) 2021 organisers and Zeppelin Universität Germany, the host university, for granting me the opportunity and sponsorship to expand the curatorial contributions of this project in Europe. Thank you very much to the TLS 2021 team led by Tobias Grünfelder (Project Manager), Svana Liv Burger, Elena Paß, Jessica Schwengber, and, again, Ross Lap-kin Cheung for making this collaborative endeavour possible.

This research project would not have been possible without the contributions of the first participants and volunteers from the first workshops leading to the ‘Manila Pilot Project’ held from 2017 until 2018 at the UP Vargas Museum: Beverly Lumbera, Dempster Samarista, Detsy Uy, Earl Paulo Diaz, Erick Divina, Ginelle Petterson, Jeffrey Noel Agustin, Jessica Buen, Joe Rivera, Kevin Ross Nera, Khalelha Añouevo, Martin Vidanes, Maxin Laurel, Patrick Jacobe, Randel Urbano, Ryan Reyes, Shekinah Pensica, Veronica Fuentes, and Zionelle Vargas. Thank you for your creative ideas, imaginations, and images. (View some photos here and also here.) 

Lastly, with deep admiration, I thank my previous professors for their mentorship: Prof Patrick Flores, Prof Cherian George, Prof Emilie Yueh Yu Yeh, Prof Colin Sparks, Prof Nico Carpentier, Prof Marquard Smith, and Prof Harriet Evans for inspiring and guiding me since I first imagined this ambitious research work. 

Very best,

Kristian Jeff Cortez Agustin
Project Lead & Curator