NEWS | PROGRAMS

CULTIVATE Module 3
Participants Announcement

27 June 2026

In-tangible institute is pleased to announce the third cohort of CULTIVATE: A Professional Development Program for Curators and Arts Managers. Each module of CULTIVATE gathers world-renowned faculty to develop select arts professionals with skills and networks to distinguish themselves and their affiliates as leading facilitators of contemporary art in the region and beyond. Module 3 facilitates online mentorship from 1 July – 30 September, 2026, with an in-person intensive, attended by the full cohort and its Faculty, hosted by Bangkok Art and Culture Center, from 21 – 23 August, 2026.

This third cohort brings together 13 participants—curators, arts managers, researchers, funders, educators, and supporters—from across Southeast Asia and Taiwan. For this module, 7 guest faculty each work closely with 2 participants, offering extended conversation and guidance on the issues each participant is currently navigating within their various contexts. Module 3 takes a slightly differing format to prior iterations of CULTIVATE, its in-person 3-day intensive in August specifically addressing the queries, concerns and dilemmas of the participants (as opposed to Faculty giving explicit presentations on their own work). Such collective address aims to give in-depth and in-person focus on the diverse artistic realities across these regions, understanding that its leaders are predominantly time-poor and with little of such experienced supportive networks.

Module 3 focuses on ‘Leadership’, examining how to be leader-full in designing, directing, implementing, inspiring, and sustaining holistic structures of support in the Arts, with particular reflection on the financial, intellectual and ethical impact of its assumptions on the growth of an arts ecology. In a global landscape where the political instrumentalization of the arts is increasingly prevalent, where the corporatization of art has our artists also fearing loss of autonomy in livelihood, where institutional business models of museums and galleries lack the ability to be responsive, nimble and effective on social levels of cultural impact, how do we lead our creative communities towards growth with innovative honesty?

Crucial to this module is giving recognition to the methods and research of artists as essential to the core of our art ecologies—how can we better map, serve, and raise awareness of our makers with the infrastructures we lead? How can we better navigate the demands between the private and government sector with their differing expectations of artistic outputs and audience generation? What values and ethics are best practice in governing and liaising with creative producers and the various stakeholders in the arts in our locales? How can we better equip ourselves as leaders with effective and meaningful networks that raise awareness of the value of contemporary art in social life? As curators leading institutions, how can we balance our own personal research interests whilst also leading organizations for another? In landscapes of considerable unevenness in access to art, with variable ecologies that are too often fragile in education and opportunities, how can we best gear responsive institutions that nurture the growth of creative flair and competency? How can we effectively guide our institutions, communities, and collaborators to be resilient and responsive in seeking context-sensitive means of addressing critical global concerns? Our planet is increasingly precarious, hence we must shift and transform our houses of culture to meet the needs of our time.

Cultivate Module 3 Faculty

Alessio Antoniolli, Director, Triangle Network

Teesa Bahana, Director, 32° East

Zoe Butt, Founder/Director at Large, in-tangible institute / Artistic Director, deCentral

Kate Fowle, Director, Arts Programs, The Hearthland Foundation

LIR, Co-directors, Cemeti – Institute for Art and Society

Adeline Ooi, Curator, Art Advisor, and Board member of Asia Art Archive and Para Site, Hong Kong

Piergiorgio Pepe, Senior Ethics Practitioner, Scholar, and Contemporary Art Collector (https://kerenidispepe.art)

Read more detail on the expertise of this Faculty here.

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With gratitude to Bangkok Art and Culture Centre for their co-hosting of CULTIVATE Module 3. And to our CULTIVATE Program Partners, ATTA Gallery and SAC Gallery, whose patronage of this program helps sustain the necessary know-how and networks to elevate our arts infrastructure on an international stage. 

With additional thanks to the following individuals/organizations for their sponsorship of participants in Module 3: Natasha Sidharta, Valentine Willie, Elevations Laos.

CULTIVATE Module 3 Participants

(from left to right, top to bottom)

Bea Belen-Ferrer is an artist-researcher and strategist, based between Malabon City and Quezon City, with over sixteen years of experience in the visual arts, communications, and institutional museum practice. Her interdisciplinary practice examines the everyday and its social and ecological contexts as they become lived experiences that shape creative processes. She is also the co-founder of 2B Creatif, a startup design studio that bridges art, design, and curation across various creative disciplines.

Liza Ho is a Kuala Lumpur-based arts leader. She is the founder and director of The Back Room, an alternative gallery space established in 2019 that prioritizes artistic experimentation. She is also a co-founder and the manager of The Zhongshan Building, a multidisciplinary arts hub dedicated to creating a dynamic arts community.

Ong Kar Jin is an independent researcher and curator based in Kuala Lumpur. His work navigates the intersections of history and technology to uncover transnational narratives in Southeast Asia. He is the founder and lead researcher of cloud projects, a Kuala Lumpur-based publishing and curatorial collective that produces research-driven books and exhibitions focused on overlooked Southeast Asian narratives.

Fiesta Ramadanti is a Jakarta-based arts professional and Co-Founder of ara contemporary, a gallery dedicated to elevating Southeast Asian voices globally. With over a decade of experience in the Indonesian art ecosystem—including tenures experience at ROH Projects and five years as Exhibitors Manager at Art Jakarta—she possesses deep expertise in gallery relations and institutional building.

Manithip Vongphachanh is a Vientiane-based cultural professional with experience that spans fashion design, cultural programme management, and applied research. She is the Managing Director of The XYZ Art and Culture Center and Lead Coordinator of Lao Art Week. Her work focuses on the intersection of creative practice, research, and sustainable cultural development.

Nguyen Ngoc Lien is the Associate Curator and Gallery Manager at Dogma Collection, a private collection and exhibition space in Ho Chi Minh City specializing in Vietnamese art and propaganda from 1945–1985. Locally rooted and driven, Lien is interested in fostering communities in and through the arts, while accessible exhibitions for visual arts in Vietnam.

Momoko Sum Yuet San is an arts ecosystem connector, artist, and educator based in Kuala Lumpur. Currently serving as the Senior Manager for the Art & Public Spaces Grant at Yayasan Hasanah, she oversees the implementation of grant frameworks and contributes to strategic initiatives to support Malaysia’s arts and heritage sector. With a background in Developmental Psychology (MSc) and over a decade of experience in education and programme leadership, Momoko’s work focuses on bridging creative practice with systemic support. She strives to balance care and clarity in her leadership, identifying impactful approaches that foster sustainability for artists and practitioners.

Liang-Pin Tsao is a Taiwanese artist and cultural organizer working at the intersection of artistic practice, institution-building, and public cultural service. In 2016, he founded Lightbox Photo Library in Taipei, dedicated to preserving, researching, and promoting Taiwanese photography. Over the past decade, he has developed and directed multi-layered cultural initiatives that strengthen photography infrastructure in Taiwan while positioning it within broader regional and international dialogues. His leadership focuses on building resilient, publicly accountable, and artist-centered platforms within structurally fragile cultural environments.

Ibrahim Soetomo is a curator, critic, art program manager and researcher based in Jakarta, Indonesia. In his recent curatorial practice, Ibrahim accompanies artists through the exploration of new formal territories. By prioritising listening, he adopts an ecological framework that situates artistic practice as an entangled phenomenon connected to the currents of art history.

Thanchanok Mar Benjajinda is an arts professional based in Bangkok, currently serving as the Assistant Curator of Public Programs at Bangkok Kunsthalle. In this role, she develops and implements diverse public activities, including lectures, workshops, and university outreach, designed to bridge international dialogue with local engagement

Krittathat Taveetanathada is an art professional working at the intersection of ethics and economics in contemporary art. His practice interrogates how value accrues and circulates; the viability of artistic careers; collecting practices across private and institutional paradigms; conservation logics as frameworks for what endures; the currencies that animate and exhaust art’s infrastructures. He serves as Advisor at Bangkok CityCity Gallery.

Atinuj Tantivit (aka Atty) is the founder of ATTA, a Bangkok-based platform that began as Thailand’s first gallery dedicated to contemporary art jewellery and has since evolved into a broader initiative focused on cultivating meaningful relationships between people and art. Her work centers on developing audiences, collectors, and future patrons through exhibitions, conversations, mentorship, and educational programs. Since the beginning of 2026, she has been focusing on ATTArak, an initiative that explores collecting as a form of self-cultivation, cultural participation, and community-building. Through conversations, shared experiences, and mentorship, ATTArak encourages people to develop their own taste, build meaningful relationships with art, and become active participants in sustaining the cultural ecosystem. Through this and related projects, Atinuj seeks to create spaces where art can enrich everyday life and where collecting becomes a lifelong journey of discovery, connection, and growth.

Jongsuwat Angsuvarnsiri is a former director at SAC Gallery, based in Bangkok. His focuses are in emerging young artists, art residency, and cultural exchanges. Jongsuwat regularly lectures at universities for gallery entrepreneurship.

For further information on how you can support CULTIVATE, please contact us.