In the period from 1565 to 1815, enormous ships carried luxury goods and other products from Asia across the Pacific Ocean to the Americas. These Spanish galleons sailed annually from the port of Manila in the Philippines and, after a long and dangerous journey across the Pacific, arrived at Acapulco on the west coast of Mexico, then called New Spain. From there, goods made their way to the rest of Mexico, to the Americas, and to Spain.

Artists in Manila and Mexico City made goods for both local and foreign buyers. By borrowing and adapting elements from different cultures, they created new, hybrid works. This process could be extremely complex, involving artists from one culture living in another land, using precious materials from another continent. Moreover, many objects were destined for a faraway, colonising culture and its possessions in between. Though they may look Chinese, Japanese, or Indian, these objects are the product of networks that connected port cities across the world. How do we look at some of these cross-cultural art that were circulated along the galleon trade? How and why is this narrative still relevant to us today? This talk covers the curation process of the ACM’s current special exhibition, Manila Galleon: From Asia to the Americas.


About the Speaker

Clement Onn is the Deputy Director of Curatorial & Research and Principal Curator of Asian Export Art and Peranakan at the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore. His research interest lies in exchanges between Asia and Europe in the 16th and 18th centuries. His primary focus is on trading networks and the spread of the Christian faith in Asia, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, Japan, China, and the Philippines. He has co-curated the exhibitions Christianity in Asia: Sacred Art and Visual Splendour (2016), Port Cities: Multicultural Emporiums of Asia 1500 – 1900 (2016), Life in Edo x Russel Wong in Kyoto (2021), and the current Manila Galleon: From Asia to the Americas (2023).

_{Image: John the Evangelist (detail). Image courtesy of Daniel Liebsohn Collection.}

Organised by the Friends of the Museums (FOM) with support from ACM