It is our pleasure to announce that John Tain has been appointed as the curator for LB03, scheduled for February 2024.
The Lahore Biennale Foundation hosted a conversation with Tain on the next Lahore Biennale (LB03) at Alhamra Dated April 17th, 2023.
Climate, human and non-human ecologies have been key focuses for the foundation since its inception. The past year has seen calamitous floods and a degraded environment, aggravated by agricultural disasters, urban pollution, and social inequality. LB03’s convening of emerging and established artists, scholars, and researchers will address these concerns by suggesting aesthetic, sensorial, conceptual, and collective ways to address such challenges, while also underscoring resonances between the histories of Lahore and Pakistan with other parts of the world that face similar issues.
The third edition of the Biennale has been slowly percolating within the foundation through its diverse programming. We are currently at the forefront of addressing climate consequences, and with the addition of John Tain, a prominent and highly regarded researcher collaborating with us, I believe that the time to act is now.
– Qudsia Rahim
Tain, joined Asia Art Archive (AAA, Hong Kong) as Head of Research in 2017, and prior to that, served as a curator for modern and contemporary collections at the Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles). Exhibitions that he has curated or co-curated include Translations, Expansions, AAA’s contribution to documenta fifteen (2022); Crafting Communities (2020), on the social practice of the Womanifesto collective; and Out of Turn, Serendipity Arts Festival (2018). Research projects that he initiated include Independent Art Spaces of Taiwan (2022-present); the Art Schools of Asia (2021-22) seminar and accompanying symposium; and MAHASSA (Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, and South and Southeast Asia) (Hong Kong and Dhaka, 2019-20). He has lectured and published widely, and has served as a series editor for Afterall’s Exhibition Histories. Since 2021, he has served as an advisor to Asia Forum.