Alexa Samantha R.

Hernandez November 13, 2019

ARTS 1 – H4

ASEAN Aesthetics: The Struggle of Cultural Identity

Southeast Asian countries namely Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines,
Singapore, and Indonesia have all fallen victim under Western colonizers. These colonizers have brought
their culture and traditions along with the interest of adding these countries to their conquests. But though
these conquistadors wished to colonize every single one of these countries, it was the concept of freedom
that eventually won their independence from colonizers. The hubris-humility relation of these West-East
countries are what produced visual arts in ASEAN aesthetic related to the different regions.

Although these said countries have already broken free from their colonizers, very Southeast Asian
countries have different styles and traditions that are prevalent in their artworks, but they all had a common
struggle in one thing: finding their true identity. As what Zafaralla emphasized: these countries have faced
cultural hegemony since the 16th century, and this is mainly caused by the cultural influences and beliefs
of the colonizers that were passed onto them. As these countries attained freedom one by one as they ousted
their colonizers, the scars of colonization still remained, and is still remaining up until now, especially in
aesthetics.

Since gaining their independence, artists of these countries have continuously developed their
country’s visual arts aesthetic and have given their countries a sense of individuality when it comes to this
concept. They continuously try to find their own versions of what the western influences have introduced,
such as the many “-isms” that gave birth to most of the western artworks. This struggle is unsurprisingly
common since western colonizers have integrated their educational system to their colonized countries
letting them believe that “their kind” of visual arts is more competent. As a result, most of the artists had
gone abroad to receive training, and later coming back full of potential to further their countries’ art, just
like in the cases of Brunei Darussalam, Singapore and Malaysia that were colonized by the British people.

However, as for the Philippines and Vietnam that were colonized by several western countries, it
gave birth to different periods in which they had experienced drastic shifts of what to focus on since they
have carried on many influences from the countries that had colonized them. The Philippines went through
four different periods; the Asian Period, the Hispanic Period, the American Period, and the Republic Period,
which is in the present. Throughout the Asian Period, the Philippines had direct contacts with other Asian
countries such as China, India and Indonesia. These contacts were made through the business of trade.
Throughout the 333 years of being under Hispanic influence, majority of the country had turned to
Christianity. After this came the Americans, instead of focusing more on visual arts they turned the Filipinos
more onto scholastic pursuits such as reading, writing and basic maths. Vietnam, on the other hand, has
been colonized by the Chinese and not long after, the French. This country’s checkered history gave birth
to the first, second and present generations of contemporary Vietnamese art and aesthetics.

Lastly, Thailand, who has been safe from colonizers because of their Constitutional monarchy since
1000 AD. Thailand’s case is different among others, since they weren’t colonized by the western people;
rather, they obtained self-colonization through the Thai court and nobility importing Italian art and artists
in the 1890s and the 1910s. For me, even though they weren’t colonized, their decision of self-colonizing
is an indirect effect of the western colonization of their neighbouring countries. This, too, is a struggle of
identity, since they were pressured to keep up with the western influences that their neighbouring countries
have attained, and felt like they were left out.

Although these countries have tried to integrate their countries’ identities in their different artworks,
it is still evident that the western colonization still had some influences on said aesthetics, like the inclusion
of indigenous aspects to their works, especially nowadays, just so that it would remind them that before
their training abroad, they still used to do abstract art. Overall, ASEAN aesthetics lean more toward
diversity that comes together through shared experiences and common humanity given that they have
become multicultural due to their rich histories.