For a geopolitical bloc that has prevailed for more than five decades despite the many economic and political crossroads the populous region has faced, perhaps returning to the question of identity is not only long overdue but also more relevant than ever. Envisioning or imagining the future of the ASEAN region in an official communiqué adopted by the ten ASEAN member states in 1997, the statement ‘ASEAN Vision 2020’, arguably goes beyond mere aspirational talk; state leaders must understand the regional policy implications of this act and they must strive to deliver its promise. However, decades after the signing of this important agreement, literature and research on its community building efforts still lack compelling information and action. If the declaration is merely a signed agreement and not a letter of the law, who must be made accountable then? Is it too much to ask that perhaps ASEAN member citizens can take the initiative? In a way, the 1997 promise of 2020 is partially fulfilled by even just a handful of average Southeast Asians, at least one from each ASEAN member state.  

‘A Concert of Southeast Asian Nations:

We envision the ASEAN region to be, in 2020, in full reality, a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality, as envisaged in the Kuala Lumpur Declaration of 1971. ASEAN shall have, by the year 2020, established a peaceful and stable Southeast Asia where each nation is at peace with itself and where the causes for conflict have been eliminated, through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law and through the strengthening of national and regional resilience.’

(Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 1997)  

Several participants from ASEAN countries and the UK engaged in participatory photography to critically reflect on what it means to identify as Southeast Asian and a member citizen of the ASEAN in 2020 — the year of ‘ASEAN Vision 2020’ and, incidentally, the year totally locked down by the Covid-19 pandemic. Their main challenge was to analyse and even challenge the various ways Southeast Asians might see, recognise, and belong to the ASEAN using images of everyday life, almost stripping the grand narrative of geopolitics down to what can be imagined and observed using only their cameraphones and Zoom.

Apart from the face-to-face meetings and participatory photography workshops held as early as June 2019, the bimonthly Zoom meetings that the participants regularly attended from April until November 2020 altogether lead to this initiative. And from a select group of just four individuals personally connected to the researcher, two of whom were also involved in the ‘Manila Pilot Project’ conducted in 2017 – 2018 at the University of the Philippines Vargas Museum,  the participants grew to the current group size. It took about a whole year to invite participants from other countries because the participants’ networks are not unexpectedly ASEAN-wide. From the outset, this is easily one of the main challenges of the ASEAN integration project — unlike, for instance, the EU project which is arguably more logistically and politically feasible in spite of current issues such as ‘Brexit’ (talking about the EU, of course, is an entirely different debate). The meetings were not always held unanimously; not to be construed as a lack of regularity or rigidity, this relatively ‘open’ setting and schedule embraces the essence of participation. Thus, the consistent role of the researcher-facilitator is to relay and build on the key points made during prior conversations with participants to keep the conversations going. This is why image-making through photography serve an important function; photographic images (as in the case of any type of image, such as art) can act as records or texts that can either be suggestive or summative. 

Historically speaking, photography essentially describes the process of ‘tracing’ (graphing) with ‘light’ (photo), an image-making technique that produces a photographic image. Inspired by this artful technique’s analogue history, the use of digital photography in this research project accounts for a more contemporary and layman operationalisation instead. Here, the term ‘photography’ is broadly used to describe image-making through the use of convenient, innovative tools (e.g., digital camera and cameraphones) that resemble the function and output of analogue photographic media. Moreover,  ‘writing’ and ‘reading’ images (i.e., photo-elicitation) is an important method or tool that allows reciprocal communication. Through these means, the participants of this study were quite able to converse with each other — whether or not one is present in or absent from the ongoing focus group discussions. Therefore, the photographs produced for this study must be met with the same careful eye or critical lens as in any dialogue or text. The most important thing to consider is that these photographs must not serve as end goals or products. Photographs are not manifestos, solutions, or truths — images are insufficient substitutes to these. In reality, they pose even more questions that perhaps the ASEAN still must ask, or answer. To involve the ASEAN publics (and the international community in general) in the discourses the project participants have all touched upon, this study turns to various online means of sharing images and imaginations, hence the MADE IN ASEAN virtual exhibition.

Know more about the project background here.

The specific photographs included in the online exhibition were personally and collectively taken and selected by the participants themselves. Whilst in conversation with one another, each of the participants was personally involved in the captioning, curating, and editing of the photographs. They also personally translated the MADE IN ASEAN curatorial statement in the interest of explaining the essence of the project to a wider audience in Southeast Asia who, indeed, are able to read the pictures but find the English text alienating. Still, no project is wholly accessible and universal; this project may fall short of providing sufficient accessibility and resources but the team welcomes any feedback or request for support.

This is a developing project; for interested parties, please contact the researcher (below).