Asian Avant-Garde Film Collection
The Asian Avant-Garde Film Collection (AAGFC) is a landmark initiative dedicated to preserving and promoting Asian experimental film and video art from the 1960s to the 1990s.
About the Initiative
The Asian Avant-Garde Film Collection (AAGFC) is a landmark initiative dedicated to preserving and promoting Asian experimental film and video art. Focused on single-channel artist films and videos from the 1960s to the 1990s, the project safeguards vital yet underrepresented works from the region’s moving image history. Unlike other parts of the world, the history of early moving image art in Asia remains relatively little known. M+ is now working to address this critical gap through curatorial research, restoration, and international circulation. Together these activities position the AAGFC as an important resource for artists, researchers, curators, and audiences worldwide.
The AAGFC was launched in July 2023 as part of a three-year partnership between M+ and CHANEL, which led to the acquisition of 60 works. Around half are from Hong Kong, laying the foundation for a collection rooted in the city where the museum is based. These acquisitions reflect our commitment to supporting local artistic practices and documenting Hong Kong’s rich moving image history—reviving, in some cases, works that have not been seen for half a century. At the same time, we have acquired significant works by artists and filmmakers from China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Macau, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam, with many more to come.
A core principle of the AAGFC is audience access. Many works are available in the museum’s Mediatheque, a play-on-demand facility for single-channel moving images in the M+ Collection. At the same time, AAGFC titles tour locally and internationally to festivals, museums, archives, and other cultural venues as part of M+-curated screening programmes. Guided by a transnational curatorial lens that brings together films and videos from across Asia, the collection responds to issues that shaped the region during this period, including decolonisation and nation-building, Cold War conflicts, ecological change, feminism, migration, and urbanisation. In doing so, the AAGFC seeks to reposition Asian experimental film and video art within a broader global narrative of moving image history.
If you are interested in booking a screening programme at your venue, please contact [email protected].
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