CREAM CO-DIRECTOR ON ARTREVIEW’S POWER 100 LIST

CREAM Co-director May Adadol lngawanij, Professor of Cinematic Arts, is included in ArtReview’s Power 100 list of the most influential people in art. ArtReview’s 2021 ranking recognises her contribution to Southeast Asian cinema and artists’ moving image practices “through crucial theorisation and contextualisation of such image-makers via text, exhibitions and other collaborations. She has written on Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Lav Diaz and Nguyen Trinh Thi through the lens of postcoloniality and local avant-garde movements, contributing to important de-Westernised histories of cinema.” Also mentioned is her British-Academy funded curatorial research project Animistic Apparatus (with CREAM Associate Julian Ross and multiple collaborators), a flagship research project within CREAM’s Film & Media area and its Art & Ecology theme. 

“I’m honoured by this recognition of my work on decolonial approaches to Southeast Asian cinema and artists’ moving image practices,” said Professor Ingawanij. “My inclusion on this year’s list is an indication that the cinematic works of Southeast Asian contemporary artists are now commanding the global attention they so richly deserve. I’m especially delighted by the recognition of my project Animistic Apparatus, whose development owes much to CREAM’s pioneering tradition of practice-based research, and to the thriving culture of art and design research and teaching within the University of Westminster.” 

The Power 100 list is shaped by the input of over 30 anonymous panellists around the world. Each year, ArtReview invites panellists to use three criteria to evaluate who is shaping the development of art in their locality: “that the people in question have been active over the past 12 months; that whatever it is that they do is shaping the kind of art currently being produced; and that their impact can be considered global rather than purely local.”

Fellow 2021 entries include Anna Tsing, ruangrupa, Fred Moten, Theaster Gates, Asia Art Archive, Forensic Architecture, and the non-fungible tokens.