Project Glocal is a social experiment that involves artists from four different cities—Bangkok, HongKong, Manila and Singapore. The idea is to subject these artists in situations or circumstances where they are to interact with and in their respective cities and participating cities with other Project Glocal artists. Interactions were in form of conversations (dubbed in this project as Small Talk, which connotes that in this conversation the agenda is to dissect “small” issues of artists in and with cities and not to create grand narratives), exhibit that featured existing works that correlate to other Project Glocal artists’ work or create new collaborative works, and a publication that catalogues experiences in engaging in and with arts, artists, cities, people, and all three of them together or separately. The main agenda is for the city artists to find interest in each other, to nurture sense of kinship and to encourage them to form a lasting bond beyond their geo-political boundaries.
Project Glocal was conceptualized and spearheaded in 2011 by independent curator DayangYraola. The first public project, entitled Conversation of Cities, was launched in 2012 through a small talk and exhibit at Tin-Aw Gallery in Manila. Two other small talks and exhibits were held in Manila in 2012—HabitForming at Artinformal in May; and Cityzening at U.P. Vargas Museum in October, which was also the major activity for Project Glocal 2012, where 21/29 of the Project Glocal artists were present. A string of small talk and art walks were held in HongKong (Baptist University of HongKong in March and September) and Bangkok (Silpakorn University and Artery Gallery in Bangkok in February and July). Final activity, titledDezipcoding, was another small talk and exhibit featuring collaborative works and on-going projects by Project Glocal artists, held at the Singapore Art Museum 8Q in November.