06 July 2022, Seoul – Philippine Embassy Cultural Officer Anthony Cornista at the opening of the exhibition “To A Faraway Friend: Beyond Afro-Southeast Asian Affinities, co-organized by the Korea Foundation (KF) and the ASEAN Culture House (ACH), held from 02 to 03 July 2022, at the ACH in Busan City, Republic of Korea.

This is the third series of Afro-Southeast Asian Affinities exhibitions after Singapore and Manila. The event which was conceived as a long-term research exhibition highlighted the regional connection and exchanges between Africa and the Southeast Asia region, as well as their relation to the Republic of Korea. The exhibition was conceived to also offer opportunities to examine ASEAN’S regionalism and history re-interpreted from a geopolitical perspective along with the artworks and cultural context.

The contents and themes of the exhibition is the result of research by three (3) curators of the exhibition, namely; Mr. Carlos Quijon, Jr., (Philippines), Ms. Nayoung Jeong (Korea), and Mr. Jason Wee (Singapore).

Mr. Quijon’s Afro-Southeast Asian Affinities research covered the first large-scale Asian-African Conference, also known as the Bandung Conference which was a meeting of mostly newly independent Asian and African states held in April, 1955 in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia.

The visit of President Diosdado Macapagal to three African countries namely; Liberia, Monrovia, Tananarive in 1963 was cited along with the visit of US Attorney-General Robert F. Kennedy to Korea and through Southeast Asia in 1964.

The ASEAN Culture House in Busan has both permanent and special exhibits focusing on ASEAN, including Philippine content year-round and is open to the public. END