Cooperation in Culture and Information
(COCI)

The Committee on Culture and Information's (COCI) activities embraced the Visual and Performing Arts, Literary Works ASEAN Studies land Communication Media. COCI held two meetings during the year, the Eleventh in Bali, Indonesia, 5 - 8 December, 1984 and the Twelfth in Pulau Pinang, Malaysia, 13 - 17 May 1985. COCI's multifarious activities during the year were as follows:


A. VISUAL ARTS

i) ASEAN Travelling Exhibitions of Painting and Photographs

The Fourth ASEAN Symposium on Painting and Photographs was hosted by Singapore from 13 -17 January 1985 and the Exhibition from 12 - 13 January 1985 in which Brunei Darussalam participated for the first time. The Exhibition was subsequently held in Malaysia and the Philippines. It was decided that the Fifth Symposium would include works of ASEAN women painters. The theme of the project will be "Vision and Value".

ii) ASEAN Exhibition of Children�s Arts

The Second ASEAN Exhibition was held in Manila, 6 - 21 October 1 984 and then moved to the other member countries ending in Malaysia. Exhibits were executed in various media and judged as of high standard.

iii) ASEAN Square Sculpture Symposium

Indonesia hosted the Third ASEAN Square Sculpture Symposium from 6 November to 21 December 1984, Thailand, which was country coordinator for the Second ASEAN Square Sculpture Symposium, has shipped to the ASEAN Secretariat a Sculpture in bronze by a Thai sculptor depicting the ASEAN Logo of about three metres high. It shall be mounted in the ASEAN Secretariat Compound in due course.

iv) ASEAN Youth Painting Workshop & Exhibition

This project was successfully implemented from 15 - 28 July 1984 at the School of Art and Design, MARA Institute of Technology, Malaysia.

Malaysia began compiling an evaluation report of the Project for member countries' future reference.


B. PERFORMING ARTS

i) ASEAN Festival of the Performing Arts

The Fourth Festival was successfully held in Manila, 23 - 30 July 1984 and included the following performances by member countries held in Manila with full capacity audience. 


 ASEAN/Opening Night:               25 July 1984
 Indonesia/Singapore Night:         26 July 1984
 Malaysia/Thailand Night            27 July 1984
 Philippines/Final Night:           28 July 1984


An audience reaction survey was conducted during the Festival and the feedback conveyed to the respective participating countries'.

ii) ASEAN Youth Music Workshop

The Third Workshop was held at the National Arts Centre in Mount Makiling, and at the University of Life in the Philippines from 9 - 22 July 1984.

A special concert of ASEAN Compositions, under the joint patronage of tutors/officials of the various country delegations was presented at the University of the Philippines on 20 July 1984 to a full audience.

The Fourth Workshop was successfully held in Singapore from 8 - 21 April 1985 at the National University of Singapore. It featured music tutorials and refiearsals with the youth musicians giving four public performances of two lunch-time chamber concerts, one public chamber recital and one public orchestral concert.

iii) ASEAN Song Festival

The Fourth ASEAN Song Festival was held in Manila from 25 November to 1 December 1984. For the first time, an ASEAN Songwriters Clinic/ Workshop was held in conjunction with the Festival. Records and cassette tapes of the performance were sent to member countries. Four countries have already used them for their broadcast programmes.


C. LITERARY WORKS

i) Anthology of ASEAN Literature

The Second Experts Meeting held in Kuala Lumpur, 17 - 18 October 1984 decided to launch volume 1 (A) to coincide with the ASEAN Day, 8 August 1985.


D. ASEAN STUDIES

i) ASEAN Children�s Source Materials in ASEAN Culture

The First Experts Meeting for this project, held in Bangkok, 26 - 29 November 1984 laid out the following objectives:

ii) Intra-ASEAN Archaelogical Excavation and Conservation

The first Intra-ASEAN Archaelogical Excavation and Conservation Project was held successfully at Dieng, Central Java, Indonesia, 8 - 28 April 1983. Because of the stimulating success of this first project, it was decided that Malaysia would be the next host country in the series with a project scheduled to be held from 30 September - 20 October 1985 at Bujang valley, Kedah Malaysia, encompassing an area of 1 64 square miles where evidence denotes it to be one of the earliest centres of civilized settlement in Peninsular Malaysia.

iii) Teaching/Research Fellowship Awards for ASEAN Scholars

This is one of the carried-over projects from 1983. The Preparatory Meeting was held from 28 31 October 1983 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The activities connected with its implementation, such as the issuing of publicity brochures, the processing of applications and other preparations for the final selection were undertaken. The award grantees had travelled to teach on research in different institutes in member countries since August 1984.

iv) Research on Forms of Courtesy

A Preparatory Meeting held in Bangkok, 24 to 27 January 1984, decided that each ASEAN member country would set up a national research team on the study of forms of courtesy practiced within the family and among ethnic groups. The project is in its final stage of completion.


E. COMMUNICATION MEDIA

i) ASEAN Film Festival

The Fourteenth ASEAN Film Festival was held in Jakarta, 12 - 17 September 1984. Concurrently held were the Working Group on Film, the Eleventh Meeting of the ASEAN Motion Picture Producers' Association (AMPPA), a Technical Seminar for the Purpose of Improving Film Production and the ASEAN Film Promotion Week.

The Technical Seminar for the purpose of improving film production was a very useful component to tire Film Festival. Likewise the ASEAN Film Promotion Week, which was initiated for the first time by AMPPA, contributed to the promotion of ASEAN films and opened new opportunities for their marketing in member countries.

ii) ASEAN Film Week

The Fourth ASEAN Film Week coordinated by Thailand, started in Indonesia in March 1984 with Films on ASEAN screened in Jakarta and in South Sulawesi (Ujung Pandang & Pare-Pare) and then in Kuala Lumpur and in Kuching, Sarawak. The Philippines as the third country in the circuit staged the Film Week in Manila and in Baguio City ending in Thailand in October - November 1984. The results of an audience survey undertaken indicated that the people were appreciative of such films from ASEAN countries.

iii) Training of News Agency Journalists/Related News Organization Programme

The Second Training of News Agency Journalists/Related News Organization Programme was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 29 October - 24 November 1984.

All participants felt the course contributed to their appreciation and knowledge of news agency professional standards and helped in increasing awareness of the requirements and problems of the ASEAN News Exchange.

The Preparatory Meeting for the Third Training of ASEAN News Agency and Related News Organization Journalists Programme was held in Jakarta, Indonesia, in June 1985.

iv) ASEAN Documentary Films

The three film projects which were originally agreed on at the 5th Meeting of COCI in 1981 are at various stages of completion, They are:

v) ASEAN Radio Cultural Programme Exchange

This programme is an on-going project since 1 98 1. I t was scheduled that the 1 983 programmes should be completed by the end of February 1985 and the 1984 programmes by the end of June 1 985. For the 1 984 phase, Thailand and Singapore had completed 12 programmes. The other countries were in various stages of completing their programmes with some of the completed programmes forwarded to member countries for local broadcasting.

vi) ASEAN Television Cultural Programme Exchange

This programme is an on-going project since 198l. All member countries are scheduled to complete their programmes by October 1985 for telecasting by March 1986.

vii) ASEAN Kinship Through Music

This project had been completed in 1 984 and the 11th COCI Meeting had agreed to its extension to 1985 with the Philippines continuing to be the project coordinator. For the 1985 project, all ASEAN member countries would send audio tapes of 50 -selected traditional or modern songs, with accompanying annotations to the Philippines, for packaging into a series of 50 programme packages, before the end of July 1985.

viii) ASEAN Music Interludes

The 1982 programme had been completed. For the 1983 programme, member countries were in the process of completing filmlets,

The Eleventh COCI Meeting, agreed to continue the project for the 1985 ASEAN Music Interludes.

ix). Training of ASEAN Broadcasters in the production of Cultural Programmes for Radio and Television

The implementation of the first year course, hosted by Malaysia, was completed in 1983. Following the success of the project, the Ninth COCI Meeting approved the Philippines' offer to host the second stage of the Radio/TV Training Course and Malaysia would again coordinate the project for implementation in the third year.

The Second Radio Training Course is scheduled from 18 August to 7 September 1985 and the Television Training Course from 12 October to 9 November 1985. Brunei Darussalam would also participate in these activities.

x) Study and Documentation of Cultural Traditional Media

The Editorial Meeting of the Study and Documentation of ASEAN Cultural Traditional Media was held in Manila, 28 March 1985. Brunei Darussalam has indicated that it would participate in the exchange of video tape programmes on cultural media forms and would also provide material for inclusion in the proposed publication.

xi) ASEAN Cultural Exchange of Radio/TV Artistes

The project, whose primary aim is to promote ASEAN cultural development through songs and dances and social inter-action among ASEAN radio/tv artistes, will be Held annually in each ASEAN capital city on a rotational basis. The Preparatory Meeting for this project is scheduled to be held from 28 to 30 July 1 985, and implementation from 25 November to 2 December 1985.

For more information, please refer to project details