Reflecting A&M’s six years of operation
By Nadya Wang

This article is a part of CHECK-IN 2024, our annual publication, which comes in at 313 pages this year. You can buy a limited-edition print copy at SGD38 here.

'My Own Words' is a monthly series which features personal essays by practitioners in the Southeast Asian art community. They deliberate on their locality's present circumstances, articulating observations and challenges in their respective roles.

Art & Market (A&M), at artandmarket.net, is a multimedia platform presenting specialist content on Southeast Asian art, with a focus on its community’s artistic, business and curatorial practices. I launched A&M in October 2018, following five years with Art Republik magazine as writer, then editor-at-large and eventually managing editor. The characteristics of A&M have been shaped by a combination of my training and aspirations. Incidentally (or maybe not!), I founded A&M when I began pursuing my PhD in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, while teaching full-time at LASALLE College of the Arts. Firstly, I wanted to create a platform that would bring together the best parts of journalistic and academic writing: the content would be both accessible and well-researched. This meant that the questions would come from a keen knowledge of art history and the art market, while being written in easily understood language, and more importantly, to be open-source and freely available. Secondly, I was determined to profile the work of Southeast Asian art practitioners, which were less known but no less important.

Many individuals who believe in the mission of A&M have come together to make it a success. The current core team consists of myself as Editor, Ian Tee as Associate Editor, Nabila Giovanna W as Content Manager and Sharrona Valezka as Designer. Ian has been a part of the team since its inception, and has played a key—and growing—role in brainstorming and implementing ideas, and establishing the standard of the stories that we produce. Everyone works part-time on A&M, and is engaged in other roles within the industry. Over the years, we have collaborated with well over 100 writers from Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. Some of them have been regular writers for a time, and others have come onboard to contribute a story or two. The plethora of voices have helped to diversify the content we have on A&M and enriched our understanding of the Southeast Asian art community.

A&M Readership, statistics as of June 2024. — *A&M* Readership, statistics as of June 2024.

On the strength of its content, A&M has built a steady readership. There is an average of 6,000 unique monthly readers, and 9,000 pageviews per month. We operate on several platforms, including Squarespace, which holds our website, Instagram, currently at 7,680 followers @artandmarket, and Facebook for social media, as well as Soundcloud for our podcast content and YouTube for our video content. We send fortnightly e-newsletters out via MailChimp, with over 1,500 subscribers on our mailing list.

In this essay, I will reflect on A&M’s nearly six years of operation, how we have sustained the platform, and kept its offerings interesting for our readers and for the team. I will reflect upon our content, both written and in other formats. I will also discuss other projects that we have undertaken, and what it takes to sustain our work through traditional and new sources of funding.

A&M Timeline (2019-2024). — *A&M* Timeline (2019-2024).

Editing and Mentorship

When A&M launched, it was modest in its output. The team aimed to write and publish two stories a week, with accompanying social media promotion. While I had built a network of contacts from my previous work, it was still slow going in the early days. I was aware that patience was key, and A&M would have to build up its archive of stories in order for its work to be recognised. Having a conservative readership had its perks, for we could carry on at our own pace, without the added pressure of answering to clients or keeping to strict deadlines.

Initially, I reached out to writers I had worked with but they were used to commanding higher fees, which I could no longer afford while working independently. While it was already a goal to work with younger writers, I found that I began to work almost exclusively with them. One way I could provide them with fair compensation was to provide a chance to publish, which they might not achieve at more established titles. More importantly, I decided to offer mentorship. I began to edit with the intent to offer notes of encouragement, and for improvement. To this day, I give detailed comments, including explanations of suggestions I am making, to help a writer refine not only a submitted article for A&M, but their writing skills in general. This has, to my understanding, been appreciated by most. In addition, I try to ask for pitches so that the stories are written from the writers’ existing research interests. If I commission, I see how the assignment can align with them as well.

Categories and Popular Series

A&M has a few categories of stories: “News”, “Reviews”, “Dialogues” and “Analysis”. “News” articles announce and preview exhibitions and other initiatives. “Reviews” are written of exhibitions and publications. “Dialogues” feature in-depth interviews with practitioners. “Analysis” articles consist of reflective reports on phenomena in the art community, and “Profiles” presents biographies and representative works of under-the-radar artists.

Screenshot of *A&M* homepage, showing the "A Day in the Life" series featuring Natasha Tontey, taken on 20 June 2024.

These categories have not changed in the past six years, though we have added new series within them. A key criterion for a story to be written in any category is that it contributes to the discourse on Southeast Asian art. This means that it should not be a rehash of a press release, for instance. As far as possible, it is to provide new information. This could be achieved through the participants’ responses to well-formed questions, usually on processes, and/or through the author’s reflection and analysis. While this may seem straightforward, it is not always practised in art journalism, and has been a way to set ourselves apart.

We have a few monthly series, such as “Fresh Faces”, which began in January 2020. It spotlights emerging artists through a combination of “Profiles” and “Dialogues” articles. This was conceived by an A&M alumnus, Ho See Wah, and has become a well-loved series. We try to rotate representation in the series across the countries in Southeast Asia, and generally with all the stories on the site. “My Own Words”, which began in May 2020, is another popular initiative. It gives practitioners a platform to deliberate on their locality’s present circumstances, as well as articulate observations and challenges in their respective roles, and sometimes to figure out a way forward.

The A&M team believes that “Fresh Faces” and “My Own Words” have been particularly well-received because they allow practitioners to speak for themselves. Anecdotally, we have been told by curators that they look through “Fresh Faces” to select new artists to work with. We have also received positive feedback from practitioners who have written for “My Own Words”, as it allows them to take a pause and reflect on their practice and where it is going. In these ways, the content has multiple benefits for both the producer and the reader, from the moment it is commissioned to when it is read.

Because our content is stored online, we have noticed that there are some older stories that show up in Google search results regularly, or when a particular practitioner or event is “trending”. We have been told by researchers too that our website often pops up on the first page of search results when they are looking for information on art in Southeast Asia, which we have loved to hear. In fact, 51% or about half of our site traffic comes from Google searches. It is heartening that the archive of information on Southeast Asian art that we have built is used, long after each story has been published. The second biggest source of traffic is direct site visits, which is equally encouraging, because it means that we have visitors who see the value in returning to the site regularly, to keep up to date with what is happening in the Southeast Asian art community. These two sources are followed by clicks via social media, and lastly through our e-newsletters.

Podcasts and Listenership

Aside from written content, we branched out into podcasts, starting with “A&M Conversations”, which ran for a single season from August 2019. We began this before the pandemic, and thus before the proliferation of Zoom usage. We met our interviewees in person, and spoke into a microphone. The first few episodes were heavily scripted, which did not quite work. Slowly but surely, we became more familiar with the format, more relaxed with recording episodes, and also more confident at editing them. After a long hiatus, we decided to try our hand at a vodcast-podcast series, “Pass the Mic”, where we interviewed artists about the influence that a more established artist has had on their practice. This was interesting for us to draw threads between generations of artists.

Since then, we have dabbled in two personality-led podcasts. One was “Ian’s Research Club”, which debuted at the end of 2021, where Ian spoke with guests whose practices intrigue him. Another was “From A to Zig-Zag”, which I hosted, to talk about creative practices in Southeast Asia, including in art. These series did not last long, but I like to think that our ability to start—and sometimes to halt—a project fairly quickly allows us to experiment freely, and see what sticks for the team and for the readers. I see it as a key ingredient to sustain our own interests, and thus to sustain the platform.

From COVID-19 to Conferences

Aside from producing articles and podcasts, the A&M team has worked on a number of projects. We conceptualised and executed the first online conference in the regional art community. Called “Pivot: The Southeast Asian Art World Beyond COVID-19”, it took place daily from 5pm to 6pm (GMT+8), from 15 to 19 June 2020. In this series of panel discussions, we invited stakeholders in the Southeast Asian art world to speak about how they were dealing with the myriad curveballs emerging from the pandemic, from immediate safeguards to long-term plans. It aimed to highlight the resilience, creativity and optimism of the community in navigating the complexities of an altered landscape.

There were five panel discussions that looked into various aspects of the Southeast Asian art community. We discussed how public art institutions were engaging with the audiences, how galleries were marketing and selling artworks, how artists were approaching their practices, how the art world would negotiate borders and be reformed, and how art collecting agendas would evolve. “Pivot” was a positive exercise for A&M, and helped us to gain new partners and audiences as we went into lengthy lockdowns and met with travel restrictions. A decision made for “Pivot” was to put together a summary of each talk, and we have since implemented this in all our talks. This allows readers to read key points in a matter of minutes, if they may not have the time—or would prefer not—to attend or watch the full talk.

Other Experimental Projects

Opportunities to go beyond writing have presented themselves, and we have gamely taken them on. A few months after the conference, we began working on talks for Singapore Art Week (SAW) 2021, called “Reset”, in partnership with National Arts Council (NAC) Singapore. At the same time, we pitched a series called “See-SAW”, in an online-offline hybrid of videos that were filmed at select SAW activations, hosted by personalities. We worked with Third Street Studio for video production and produced two virtual trails that were pre-recorded onsite, and experienced in a special Zoom session to engage with both local and overseas visitors who could not travel to Singapore to experience SAW in person.

In line with our wish to experiment where possible, in March 2021, we had the chance to be the exclusive media partner of the Singapore Art Book Fair. It was one of the first major in-person events to take place in the local art community “post-pandemic”. We had a physical booth, and at the same time, one of the requirements, given that visitors were granted only an hour to visit the fair, was for them to still be able to purchase items online afterwards. This precipitated plans we already had to eventually create an online marketplace.

When we announced A&M Marketplace, we were approached by friends in the community to stock artist books and catalogues, and we were happy to do so. One of the first publications we stocked was Artist as Collector by Comma Space. With this project came a new set of learnings, from figuring out how to operate an e-commerce site embedded within the bigger A&M site, working out a commission structure, and establishing a system to receive and ship out orders locally and overseas.

Even as we tried out new activities, we remained tethered to our core “business” of writing. In 2021, we worked on the first edition of CHECK-IN, which would serve as an annual mid-year review of developments, shifts and trends in the Southeast Asian art scene.

Screenshot of *A&M* Instagram page, taken on 20 June 2024.

Another major project that we worked on was A&M Small Rooms, or AMSR. This was a project funded by the NAC Organisation Transformational Grant. Through an open call, we selected three emerging artists in Singapore: Jevon Chandra, Khor Ting Yan and Samuel Xun to present an existing body of their work both physically and digitally, which we supported through workshops on tasks like refining artist profiles and communicating with the press. Further, we sought nine emerging writers across Southeast Asia to respond to their works critically and/or creatively. We learnt as a team, which at the time included Vivyan Yeo and Woong Soak Teng, what we could comfortably do, such as conducting workshops and giving the artists and writers guidance, and what we were less familiar with and could improve upon, such as managing artists and curating.

Samuel Xun, ‘I’m Exhausted, Where is He’, 2022, installation view. Image courtesy of A&M. — Samuel Xun, ‘I’m Exhausted, Where is He’, 2022, installation view. Image courtesy of *A&M.*

Jevon Chandra, ‘The Faraway Nearby’, 2022, installation view. Image courtesy of A&M. — Jevon Chandra, ‘The Faraway Nearby’, 2022, installation view. Image courtesy of *A&M*.

Khor Ting Yan, ‘it is light and stackable’, 2022, installation view. Image courtesy of A&M. — Khor Ting Yan, ‘it is light and stackable’, 2022, installation view. Image courtesy of *A&M*.

And as we emerged from the pandemic and could firmly hold in-person events once more, we ran the interdisciplinary series A&M Salon, where we gathered with practitioners in other creative fields in person to speak about intersections between art and other creative fields, which have so far included literature, architecture, theatre and food. These gatherings have generated–and cemented–wonderful ideas and friendships, and we hope to resume them in the future.

Yen Phang, Adeline Kueh, Ivan Brehm and Clara Peh at Appetite for A&M Salon: Art X Food. Image courtesy of A&M. — Yen Phang, Adeline Kueh, Ivan Brehm and Clara Peh at Appetite for *A&M Salon*: Art X Food. Image courtesy of *A&M*.

Traditional and New Sources of Funding

There are a number of expenses to run A&M. We pay the core team, based both in Singapore and Jakarta, and freelance content contributors working from various locations in the region and elsewhere. We also pay for subscriptions, from the Squarespace platform where we host the website to the Mailchimp platform, from which we send out fortnightly newsletters.

A traditional source of funding is paid editorial campaigns, which we try to sell through a comprehensive A&M media kit that is updated quarterly, and via business development efforts that include but are not limited to attending openings and making time to interact with potential industry partners. A signature A&M campaign consists of an article of between 800 and 1,000 words with search engine optimisation, boosted social media posts, inclusion in the e-newsletter, a landscape banner ad and a statistics report on the campaign.

Institutions and galleries with a media budget take up campaigns with us if it makes sense for a particular exhibition, or event, that they wish to promote. It has been incredible to work with clients who believe in our work, and our platform’s reach, and we appreciate their trust. However, these contracts are not easy to come by. This could be because of potential clients’ media strategies that focus on earned media as opposed to paid media, whether brokered through in-house marketing teams or public relations agencies. Where we have worked with art fairs, this is almost exclusively through a barter relationship for exposure for both parties.

In fact, while our core “business” is in content creation to build the A&M archive, our most significant source of revenue comes from projects that typically run for a few months, such as when we worked on “Reset”, or SAW Dialogues 2022, or when we received a grant for AMSR. The funding model for CHECK-IN is something that we are keen to pursue moving forward, where we seek patronage, and ask for contributions in tiers, from Friends, to Champions, to Patrons. We explain that contributors’ generosity goes towards the making of CHECK-IN as well as for running the platform for the rest of the year, including paying writers a fair fee for their work.

For the past two years, we have been the consultant for the VIP programme for S.E.A. Focus, a leading showcase and art market hub dedicated to Southeast Asian contemporary art. In this capacity, the team has conceptualised, organised and executed over 20 events each time, together with the S.E.A. Focus team. Last year, we also worked on SEAspotlight Talks, a series of panel discussions and talks to speak dialogues around Southeast Asian contemporary art and the art market. Our working relationship with S.E.A. Focus is a cherished one, as it has allowed us to interact with art practitioners and enthusiasts in person. It has also effectively extended our work beyond journalistic pursuits and related talks and conferences into VIP events management.

Part of the revenue we earn from large-scale projects goes towards supporting our aim to collaborate with artist-run spaces and the like, which have limited to no budget to afford paid media. In these situations, we choose to write about an exhibition or project if we believe in its intrinsic value to the art historical discourse. If the lead time is too short, or we do not have a suitable writer who is able to visit and write, we sometimes ask if they have a curatorial essay from which we could republish an excerpt, to increase visibility for their endeavours.

A&M Birthdays

When we celebrated A&M’s 4th birthday, we launched A&M Education, starting with "Art Journalism 101" in October 2022. This was conceived to share what we had learnt with a new generation of aspiring writers, and hopefully to recruit them as freelance contributors of A&M after they complete the course. This has been the premise for a yearly contest, “Fresh Take”, which we run with prizes sponsored by our partners in the industry, to identify emerging writers who could contribute to the platform. We are currently preparing to run the fifth edition.

First A&M Education Art Journalism 101 short course, held in October 2022. — First *A&M* Education Art Journalism 101 short course, held in October 2022.

For each birthday, we send a questionnaire to our partners and readers. It is a chance for us to understand what they find valuable from our site, and where we can make improvements to better serve their interests. We have felt buoyed by their encouraging words, and taken their suggestions to heart. A couple of series spurred by feedback has been “Midpoint”, to feature more mid-career artists. It invites established Southeast Asian contemporary artists to take stock of their career thus far, reflect upon generational shifts and consider advantages and challenges working in the present day. Another one is “A Day in the Life”, for more light-hearted content, where we invite artists to share a day in their life through images accompanied by brief descriptions.

A new project we have taken up in the past year is to consult with Pathlight School for its Artist Development Programme as it celebrated its first decade of operation, to see how we could add value to the initiative. We connect the students with younger art practitioners in Singapore, and recommend pathways for them within the industry beyond becoming fine artists.

In October this year, A&M will turn six years old. One of the most gratifying aspects of running A&M is to see the team thrive and try new things individually, and as a team. It has also been a joy to grow an archive that highlights all the wonderful work that our fellow practitioners are doing in the regional art community and beyond.

To celebrate our sixth birthday, we are planning a rebrand to refresh the experience of interacting with A&M, and we look forward to sharing this with all our readers. Thank you for your support so far!

An earlier version of the paper was presented at the ANCER Conference in December 2022. It has been updated to capture the work that has been done since then.

This article is a part of CHECK-IN 2024, our annual publication, which comes in at 313 pages this year. You can buy a limited-edition print copy at SGD38 here.