2024
EDITION
AECFest Supported Residency: ashleyho+domeniknaue for Last Portrait
In a world increasingly marked by uncertainty, loss and impermanence have become not just personal experiences, but collective conditions of living. For Singaporean artist Ashley Ho and German choreographer Domenik Naue, these themes became the starting point of a long-term artistic research.
Through AECFest Residency programme, Ashley and Domenik were able to embark on a multi-country journey of exploration and creation, bringing together text, sound, dance, and visual poetry into a performance-installation reflecting on grief, distance, and transformation. Their collaboration asked simple but profound questions: How do we live with loss, without being paralysed by it? How do we cradle what disappears, without nostalgia or fear?
Crucially, this project was not the work of only two artists, but the result of a larger ecosystem of care and collaboration. The residency was made possible thanks to the coming together of many organisations across Europe and Asia, all committed to supporting the artists’ process. Alongside ASEF’s facilitation of the AECFest residency, key partners included Over het IJ and Dansateliers in the Netherlands, Studio Plesungan in Indonesia, Oriente Occidente in Italy, and Dance Nucleus in Singapore — each providing time, space, and resources for different stages of the creation.
A key part of Ashley and Domenik’s process was the meeting with Pietro Marullo, an Italian director and theatre-maker, who accompanied their journey as an artistic coach. Working together over several months, both online and on-site, their exchanges shaped the dramaturgical direction of the piece and pushed the collaboration into new territories.
The residency framework supported by ASEF enabled Ashley and Domenik to spend two intensive weeks in Indonesia at Studio Plesungan, engaging with the local context while deepening their studio practice. Later, with the support of Oriente Occidente in Italy, they were able to gather for a week in Rovereto, presenting an intermediate stage of their performance Last Portrait as part of the AECFest programme in Europe. This phase offered them the opportunity to test their ideas with audiences, receive feedback, and refine their work further.
The final phase of their residency brought them to Singapore, with Dance Nucleus as a key partner. Here, the artists presented the final iteration of their performance-installation Last Portrait — a poetic, intimate reflection on the brutality and beauty of loss, and the possibilities of transformation that lie within it.
More than just an outcome-based residency, this project stood as a testament to what can happen when different organisations come together across borders to offer artists not only resources, but trust and time. It fostered a rare kind of intercultural dialogue — one that does not rush to answers but stays with the complexity of experience.
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