Dr. Simon Soon Sien Yong

Biography

His research focuses primarily on 20th-century art and visual culture in Southeast Asia - specifically Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and to some extent, Thailand. I graduated with a BA (first class honours) in art history from the University of Melbourne. I then received my PhD from the University of Sydney under an Australian Postgraduate Award fellowship, where I wrote a dissertation on the spatio-visual practices of postwar left-leaning art movements in Singapore/Malaya, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines from the 1950s - 1970s. I characterise my research very broadly as social art history, which reflects an interest in approaching 'art history from below'. I also have a broader interest in Asian modernities (India, Japan and China) as a discursive method and in the broader field of art historiography (e.g. how is history being written? By whom and by what means?). Principally, questions about spatial-visual subjectivities and social formations, in relation to art and cultural history, animate the kind of research I do. I also have a strong interest in examining art or cultural phenomenon through understanding them as intersections of history, memory and mythology. 

Research Interest

Multicultural, Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Studies (Modernities in Asian Art, art historiography, comparative art history, third world aesthetics) Post and Colonial and Global Culture Studies (20th century art in Southeast Asia, social art history, colonial and postcolonial scopic and visual regimes)