Looking From Two Sides: Diaspora, Perspective & the Geopolitics of the Art Market

For some time now, I have been thinking about perspective. Not as a concept to be explained, but as something that is lived, carried, and negotiated over time.

In the middle of my Asia Society Gen A Fellowship, I sat in a roundtable that was framed as a conversation about contemporary art. What stayed with me, however, was not a discussion about art as such. It was a reflection on how we come to see in the first place.

From the left: Martina Froehlich, Community Manager · Asia Society Switzerland and Yasmin Naderi Afschar, Curator and Co-Director of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst

My favourite part of the conversation with Yasmin Naderi Afshar and Martina Froehlich, was how she described her own perspective. Growing up between Tehran, Vienna, Zurich, and other places, she spoke about learning to look at things from two sides at once. Not as a contradiction, and not as a fragmentation, but as a capacity.

On Perspective/Diaspora

There is something deeply precise in that formulation. To look from two sides is not simply to compare. It is to hold. It is to resist the instinct to immediately try to resolve. It is to understand that meaning is rarely singular, and that clarity does not always come from reduction, but from the ability to sit with complexity.

This way of seeing does not begin in art. It begins in life. It is shaped by movement, by exposure to different systems of meaning, by the experience of being both inside and outside at the same time. For those like Yasmin and myself, shaped by diaspora, this is not abstract. It is a daily practice. It is the subtle shift in language depending on who you are speaking to. The awareness that a gesture, a silence, or even humour can carry different meanings across contexts. It is growing up learning to read a room twice.

Once for what is said, and once for what is meant. In psychology, identity in diaspora contexts is often understood as relational and adaptive rather than fixed. In anthropology contrastingly, meaning is always situated, shaped by culture, history, and shared codes. To move between these worlds is to become aware of this construction. It is to realise that what feels natural in one place is learned in another. This does not create confusion. It creates range. And richness. A capacity to hold multiple perspectives at once without needing to resolve them into one. Accordingly, art becomes a place where this way of seeing can be expressed, tested, translated and shared.

On Art History

What struck me equally was her reflection on studying art history.

She spoke about how traditional art historical education was deeply anchored in a canon that left large parts of the world either peripheral or invisible. The anecdote she shared about wanting to write on the Casablanca School and being discouraged because it was considered too marginal, too difficult, or just not relevant, stayed with me. Not at all because it is surprising, but because it is all to familiar.

C.A.S.A. – Casablanca Art School Archives, by Zamân Books & Curating

It reflects a broader pattern of how knowledge is structured, validated, and passed on. What is considered central and what is considered secondary is rarely neutral. It is shaped by histories of power, access, and institutional continuity.

This is something I have experienced in a different but related way.

Studying Politics and International Relations in London, it made a tremendous difference to be taught by Iranian professors in modules such as Comparative Politics or US Foreign Policy. An ode to my all-time favourite professor, Ali. It stayed with me because it introduced a way of thinking that questioned what is often taken as given, and opened up perspectives I would not have encountered otherwise. It allowed for a different kind of learning. One that did not aim to replace one perspective with another, but rather to expand the field of vision.

This was further shaped by my time in different academic contexts. Exchanges in Hanoi, Taipei, and Kocaeli in Turkey, where learning did not happen in isolation, but alongside peers from different parts of the world, each bringing their own lived realities into the room.

What emerges in these environments is not agreement. It is awareness. And Empathy.

An understanding that how we interpret systems, policies, and histories is always situated. Always influenced by where we stand, and by what we have been exposed to.

In many ways, what Yasmin described in relation to art is deeply aligned with this.

The ability to look from two sides is not limited to cultural practice. It is a way of engaging with the world.

What the conversation further revealed more broadly, is that art is not simply or primarily about objects. It is also about the conditions under which objects come into being.

What we see on a wall or in a space is the visible outcome of a series of decisions that are often invisible. Institutional priorities. Funding structures. Political environments. Personal relationships. Each of these elements shapes what becomes possible, and therefore what becomes visible.

This introduces a different kind of question. Not what an artwork means, but what allowed it to exist. This is where governance enters the frame. Governance, understood here not as administration, but as the set of structures that define possibility. Who decides what is shown. Who frames the narrative around it. Who is responsible when something becomes contested. Who carries the risk when boundaries are approached or crossed.

These questions are not at all abstract. They are embedded in every exhibition, every curatorial process, every institutional context. To engage with art today is therefore to engage with a system. And within this system, the role of the curator has shifted in a way that reflects these broader dynamics.

The curator is no longer only a mediator between artwork and audience. The role has expanded into something more relational. More situational. More aware of the tensions that exist between different contexts. Yasmin said it beautifully. Somewhat like:

“The curator today is less a caretaker of objects and more a facilitator — building bridges between people, context, and time.”

Navigating between artist and institution. Between local meaning and global discourse. Between expression and consequence. To curate today she describes further, is to move within these tensions without collapsing them. It is to create a space where different readings can exist without forcing them into strict alignment. It is to recognise that meaning is not delivered, but constructed.

This aligns closely with the idea of looking from two sides. It is not about choosing one perspective over another. It is about creating the conditions in which both can be present.

On Shifting Powers

At the same time, the language of a global art world continues to expand.

New centres are emerging. New voices are entering, or rather, being amplified. New narratives are being articulated and are gaining more prominence. There is movement, and it is visible.

As of April 2026, this shift is not only discursive but increasingly material. It can be traced in the scale of institutional expansion in Saudi Arabia, where biennales and museum infrastructures are being developed at speed, positioning culture as part of a broader national transformation (more here). It is visible in the continued evolution of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in India, where local context and decolonial discourse shape the agenda from within rather than being imported (read more).

It can also be observed in places like Hong Kong, where the role of institutions is being renegotiated under new political conditions, affecting not only what is shown but how it is framed. Yet this movement does not unfold in isolation. It is deeply entangled with what we increasingly understand as the geopolitics of the art market.

Cultural production, exhibition, and circulation mirror broader shifts in economic and political power. Investment flows shape where institutions are built. Strategic positioning influences which regions gain visibility. What appears as cultural expansion is often also a reflection of soft power, of states and private actors situating themselves within a global narrative of relevance and influence.

In this sense, the art world does not sit outside geopolitics. It is one of its more subtle expressions. A theme I have been engaging with more directly through conversations around The Geopolitics of the Art Market, where questions of access, infrastructure, and influence come into sharper focus.

And yet, while new centres gain prominence, the underlying architectures of validation, pricing, and institutional authority often remain anchored in older systems. This creates a layered condition. One in which the map appears to change, while parts of the compass remain the same. From where I sit, to read the contemporary art world today is therefore to read it geopolitically. Not only in terms of where art is produced, but in terms of how it is circulated, who legitimises it, and which narratives are free and allowed to travel.

Yet beneath this movement lies a more complex reality.

Visibility is shifting faster than power.

The structures that underpin decision making, funding, and institutional authority do not transform at the same pace as the discourse surrounding them. The presence of new voices does not automatically translate into a redistribution of influence. This creates a layered condition. One in which change is real, but uneven. One in which progress and continuity exist simultaneously. To acknowledge this is not to diminish what is happening. But rather, to understand its structure more clearly.

On Censorship

Another dimension that emerged through the conversation is the nature of censorship.

Censorship is often imagined as an external force. A visible restriction. A clear line that is imposed from outside. Yet in many contexts, it operates in quieter ways.

It appears as anticipation. As self regulation. As the internalisation of limits before they are explicitly defined. Institutions adjust their behaviour. Individuals recalibrate their language. Topics are approached with caution, or avoided altogether.

This form of censorship does not announce itself. It does not require constant enforcement. It becomes part of the system.

And it shapes what becomes visible just as much as any formal restriction.

Despite these structural constraints, there is something else that remains. People continue to gather. They enter spaces that do not offer immediate clarity. They engage with ideas that resist simplification. They listen to perspectives that do not resolve into sanitized agreement.

In a broader environment that often prioritises speed, clarity, and reduction, this act of gathering carries a different weight. It becomes a deliberate engagement with complexity.

I have encountered this across different contexts. From the immediacy and market-driven dynamics of VOLTA Art Fair to the institutional depth of Kunsthaus Zürich, the formats differ, but the underlying questions remain consistent.

Who is seen. Who is heard. Who decides.

And increasingly, how we create spaces that allow us to REMAIN with these questions rather than move past them too quickly.

In parallel, there are formats emerging that extend beyond the moment of viewing. Spaces that invite reflection after the fact. That encourage us to remain with what we have experienced, rather than translating it immediately into opinion.

This practice of remaining is not passive. It is active engagement with what is not yet resolved. If one follows this line of thinking further, art begins to take on a different function.

It is not only a form of expression. It is not only commentary. It becomes a form of infrastructure.

On Holding Space

A space where people, views and different societies can process and reflect themselves. Where tensions can be explored without immediate resolution. Where different perspectives can coexist without being forced into coherence.

 Photo: © Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst. Under the canopy at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, part of Disobedience Archive (Canopy for Broken Time) in dialogue with Raqs Media Collective, a shared space of encounter emerges—where perspectives meet, tensions unfold, and complexity is held rather than resolved.

From this perspective, the value of art cannot be reduced to price or visibility. It lies in its capacity to hold complexity. To create a shared space for reflection.

This positions cultural institutions not at the margins, but at the centre of how societies navigate change.

Within the context of the Gen A fellowship, this realisation feels strongly present.

To move between regions, disciplines, and institutional frameworks is to encounter different versions of the same underlying dynamics. Different expressions of power. Different configurations of visibility. Different ways of negotiating what can be said and what remains implicit. And as I continue to deepen and sharpen my own engagement with Asia through this fellowship, I find that this way of seeing becomes even more essential.

Not as a theoretical ideal, but as a practice.

A way of remaining attentive to difference without reducing it.A way of engaging across contexts without flattening them.A way of learning that is continuous, relational, and situated.

Perhaps that is the quiet thread running through it all.

Not the search for a singular perspective. But the ability to hold and nurture more than one.

To understand that what we see is never the whole story. And that behind every visible layer, there is a system that shaped it.

Grateful to be in spaces where this way of seeing is not only possible, but continuously unfolding. <3 Tallulah