EXHIBITIONS
The ASEAN Bookstore group exhibition**
23 Nov 2023 – 28 Jan 2024
Venue: Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea
The ASEAN Bookstore showcase**
10 – 31 August 2023
Venue: Project Rent Old Town, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, South Korea
**Curated by Sungnil Noh (SOJANGGAK); supported by Korea Foundation & ASEAN Culture House. PLATES (Vol.1 – 4) by Dee May Tan was selected by the curator as one of Malaysia’s seven representatives for the exhibition
PLATES : Mise en Place Open Artist Studio
Event: Rimbun Dahan Open Day
Venue: Rimbun Dahan Artist Residency and Arboretum, Kuang, Selangor, Malaysia
Date: 17 Oct 2021
PUBLIC WORKSHOPS
Title: Food Writing With a Purpose
Role: Workshop designer and key facilitator
Workshop description: Learn the basics of food writing–with a purpose. Using analogies of seeds and gardening as an outline, Tan Dee May will share her thought process in beginning a conversation with food. Instead of clinging on to a thesaurus, repurposing adjectives and cliché phrases of romanticism and exoticism overheard in a TV food programme, by the end of this workshop, you will begin to ask, or perhaps dive deeper, into seemingly simple, yet profound questions.
Organiser: Singapore Book Council
Format: Live online pre-registered workshop
Date: 20 Nov 2021
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
Academic Conferences
Title: Picking Apart Food and Culture Narratives
Session: Rethinking “Traditions” of Representations
Role: Independent scholar/speaker
Event: The Makings of Art from Southeast Asia and the Problems of Colonial Legacies
Keynote delivered by: Prof. Marieke Bloembergen (Leiden University)
Conference summary: The three-day conference is a collaboration between the Faculty of Art and Design, Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and is organised in relation to the annual international conference on Aesthetics and the Sciences of Art in Bandung, Indonesia. The conference brings together artists, curators, and scholars from various disciplines to rethink artistic and curatorial practices and histories of framing and collecting objects from Southeast Asia; aiming to facilitate discussions about the continuing colonial legacies in knowledge production about art in the region as evidenced in the makings of exhibitions and the institutionalization of art historical narratives and collections.
Host/Venue: Center of Art and Design ITB (Institute Institut Teknologi Bandung) Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia
Date: 8-10 Nov 2022
Title: Microaggressions and the portrayal of “disgust” in food writing
Session: Networks of Food, Literary and Otherwise’
Role: Independent scholar/speaker
Event: Biennial Food Conference ‘Food Movements/Moving Food’
Keynote delivered by: Prof. Krishnendu Ray (New York University)
Conference summary: People, food and agricultural products are in constant movement, affecting landscapes, material practices, and cultural representations. This conference aims to address what happens when people and food products move through regional, national, and international networks. What are the effects of these movements on local, regional, national, and international communities and cultures? What additional actions and reactions do they precipitate? How has the Covid pandemic altered (or shaped) these movements?
In posing these questions, the conference seeks to understand continuities/discontinuities in current and past long-distance food exchanges, the relationships between “authentic” and diasporic foodways, the forced movement of agricultural workers and their crops in the face of climate change and a global pandemic, and the impact of economic and social disparities on current and future food movements.
Host/Venue: The Umbra Institute, Perugia, Italy
Date: 9-12 Jun 2022
Art Talks, Panel Discussions and Presentations
Food as a Conversation Starter: Panel Discussion by The Slow Press x PLATES Magazine
Description: At the Table with Further Reading Press (Indonesia), Petrikor Books (Indonesia), PLATES
Magazine (Malaysia) and The Slow Press (Singapore)
Event: Kuala Lumpur Art Book Fair 2024
Role: Co-moderator and panel organiser
Venue: Chinese Assembly Hall, Kuala Lumpur
Date: 7 Dec 2024
Book launch: PLATES, Vol.4: Seeds
Event: Malaysian Writers Festival 2023
Organiser: Malaysian Writers Society
Venue: Jetty35, George Town, Penang, Malaysia
Date: 28-29 Oct 2023
Sharing PLATES: Dee May in Conversation with Gareth Richards
Description: Books@Hikayat returns with another special event. Join Dee May Tan, the editor of PLATES, as she shares her reflections in an illustrated talk on the portrayal of ‘disgust’. In conversation with Gareth Richards, she also speaks about the possibilities of revisiting and reclaiming food culture narratives.
Host/Venue: Hikayat @ Gerakbudaya Bookstore, George Town, Penang, Malaysia
Date: 6 Oct 2023
Forgotten Plates
Event: Nowhere Kitchen #12 – ‘Celebrating forgotten Malaysian cultural food – food that has cultural significance for customs, traditions and celebrations’
Role: Guest speaker
Organiser: Nowhere Kitchen
Venue: temu House art space, Selangor, Malaysia
Date: 22 Jul 2023
Reclaiming Food Narratives
Description: Food writing, when plated up insensitively, and peppered with sensationalised microaggressions, has the potential to (further) drive a divide between societies and cultures through the reinforcement of stereotypes. From ridiculed and feared to being celebrated and capitalised, Dee May looks at the portrayals of two of Southeast Asia’s most iconic fruits, durian and jackfruit.
In this presentation, Dee May will present a variation of her ongoing independent research that looks into microaggressions in Eurocentric food writing and the portrayal of “disgust.”
Beyond the Plate: Reclaiming Food Narratives
Event: ‘BAKUL, everyday baskets’ Exhibition Talk
Description: Whether recognition of a native dish is in the form of an internationally acclaimed street food guide or headlines in Eurocentric media, a surge of pride and renewed interest in an otherwise everyday ingredient is likely to take place amongst its native makers and consumers. Why entertain, or worse—regurgitate, labels such as “disgusting,” “ethnic” and “exotic,” particularly when those narratives refer to the foods dear to our cultural identities? In this talk, Dee May will explore the alternatives to mainstream Eurocentric narratives—particularly those related to the food culture stories of Southeast Asian delicacies—by looking at arguably the most vilified of all: durian.
Venue: The Godown Arts Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Date: 28 Jan 2023
Lonely Vectors reading group (live online)
Role: Feature discussant
Organiser: Singapore Art Museum
Oct 2021
Plates: in conversation with Bilqis Hijjas
Event: Rimbun Dahan Open Day
Venue: Rimbun Dahan Artist Residency and Arboretum, Kuang, Selangor, Malaysia
Date: 17 Oct 2021
Community Voices: Research and Publication as Cultural Activism
Role: Panel speaker
Event: Bor(neo): The Project, Sharing Sessions #4
Format: Live online, moderated panel presentation and discussion
Organiser: Borneo Bengkel
Date: 19 Jun 2021
The Art of Zine Making
Event: Singapore Writers Festival 2019
Role: Panel speaker
Venue: The Arts House, Singapore
Date: 3 Nov 2019
Responding to Religious Differences Among Young People
Role: Panel speaker and Cumberland Lodge fellow representative
Event: AMAR Foundation Annual Conference 2017
Venue: Windsor Castle, Windsor, United Kingdom
Sep 2017
New Media VS Traditional Media (Headline Event)
Role: Panel speaker
Event: Runway 2.0 Asia Pacific, supported by BMW
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Jun 2015
ART BOOK FAIRS
Brand: Wander and Wonder Creative
Exhibitor (main hall, feature wall)
Kuala Lumpur Art Book Fair 2025
Chinese Assembly Hall, Kuala Lumpur
28-30 Nov 2025
Brand: PLATES Magazine
Exhibitor (booth 66)
Kuala Lumpur Art Book Fair 2024
Chinese Assembly Hall, Kuala Lumpur
6-8 Dec 2024
International Exhibitor (booth A65)
Singapore Art Book Fair 2023
Singapore Art Museum, Tanjong Pagar Distripark
14-16 Apr 2023
Exhibitor (B15 with Sherwan Rozan)
Kuala Lumpur Art Book Fair 2022
The Godown Event and Art Space, Kuala Lumpur
2-4 Dec 2024
