Asia Pacific Triennial 9

The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT9) at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) features more than 400 artworks by over 80 individuals, collectives and groups from Asia, the Pacific and Australia until 28 April 2019. Founded in 1993, the Triennial is known as a pivotal platform to discover some of the most important contemporary art created in the region, and includes major new commissions for the Gallery spaces and collection. In addition to the main exhibition, APT9 also includes a film programme and APT9 Kids, featuring eight interactive hands-on and multimedia projects created by exhibiting artists, offering a participatory experience for children and families.

Here below, ASIA features some of the new and commissioned artworks at APT9.

Monira Al Qadiri — DIVER (2018)

Berlin-based Monira Al Qadiri (b. 1983, Dakar, Senegal) grew up in Kuwait, on the Persian Gulf, where pearling coexists alongisde the oil industry. Pearls were a central driver of the Persian Gulf region’s economy in the 1800s, until pearling was supplanted by the oil industry in the mid-1900s, and disappeared by the 1980s, with traces of its history relegated to museums. Al Qadiri has thus been surrounded by monuments to the pearling industry, while oil has become the major component of the economy, but has yet to have any monuments dedicated to it. In her scultpure and video work, the artist explores the historical and aesthetic connections between oil and pearls, and attempts to imagine how we might look back on oil once it declines. Her public artwork in Dubai, Alien Technology (2014), is shaped like a giant oil drill covered in a dark paint reminiscent of an oil slick, featuring a dichroic surface that reflects multiple colours at once, just like a pearl.

Her newly commissioned DIVER is a four-sided video installation that conjures a large-scale aquarium. A contemporary remix of Kuwaiti pearling songs accompanies swimmers performing in a dichroic body of water, their synchronised choreographies mimicking the repetitive movements of the pearl diver. The work also carries a personal significance for the artist, as her grandfather was once a singer on a pearling boat in Kuwait. According to Al Qadiri’s family legend, her grandfather was one of the pearling singers mentioned in Sons of Sinbad (1940), by Australian maritime writer Alan Villiers, who travelled with Arab sailors on dhow boats – including a Kuwaiti pearling ship – and documented his observations in the book.

Lola Greeno — Palawa shell necklaces

Lola Greeno (b. 1946, Cape Barren Island, Tasmania, Australia) is a Palawa artist whose work continues her people’s tradition of making shell necklaces. Greeno, like many Palawa women, learnt to string shells from her mother. Growing up on Cape Barren and Flinders Islands in Bass Strait on the northeastern coast of Tasmania, collecting shells was an intrinsic part of her childhood. Later, she learnt about seasonal shells and where to find them, thus enriching her unique designs. At APT 9, there are a variety of her necklaces, made with shells of diverse colours, including the king maireener (rainbow kelp shell), found amongst slippery jagged rocks. Due to their rarity, the artist took a year to collect these shells for the piece on show.

In ancient Palawa tradition, shell necklaces are given as gifts to those arriving and departing, and as a mark of esteem to important visitors. Over a two-year period, Greeno sourced 143 shells for a 2014 commission for Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art to honour performance artist Marina Abramovic. As a Palawa Elder, Greeno now teaches the tradition to younger generations, ensuring its continuity. She was the first Indigenous artist to be recognised as a ‘Living Treasure – Master of Australian Craft’ in 2014.

Jaki-ed Project and Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner — Traditional jaki-ed weaving in the Marshall Islands

The Jaki-ed Project comprises 13 women from the Marshall Islands, born between circa 1946 and 1990, who gathered in a weaving hut in the Republic of the Marshall Islands to create a series of jaki-ed mats commissioned for APT9. Jaki-ed or nieded mats are among the finest examples of weaving in Oceania, and their creation conforms with sacred cultural principles. The mats are made with pandanus leaves, and were traditionally used as clothing and made only by women. When trade cloth was introduced, the weaving almost disappeared, but was revived when shipments were disrupted during World War II.

In 2011, a workshop programme was established to support the practice and train new weavers ina traditional weaving circle, where women would exchange and pass on their knowledge and skills. Jaki-ed are woven from the centre outwards, and their designs always variate. The plain centre is a symbol of the purity of heart and soul that must be at the core of any personal endeavour. Intricate geometric borders distinguish each mat as expressions of the weaver’s ancestry and a manifestation of the belief that, in this matrilineal society, women possess unique creative attributes.

Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner is a Marshallese spoken word poet, teacher and artist. At the beginning of APT9, she held two performances of Lorro: Of Wings and Seas (2018), highlighting her engagement with jaki-ed weaving as a site of cultural resistance and expression. Jetñil-Kijiner’s practice brings awareness to the history of endurance and resilience of her motherland, which was a nuclear testing site, home to one of America’s most advanced military bases and is now also threatened by the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels. Her spoken word performance commissioned for APT9 saw her participate in the weaving process by the Jaki-ed Project, completing a mat of her own under the supervision of master weaver Terse Timothy. Her final work, performed in GOMA and recorded for APT9, displays the symbolism of the weaving process and circle.

Jetñil-Kijiner explores how Marhsallese culture, the Islands’ nuclear legacy and the climate issue shape women’s roles and identity. In the closing part of the performative work, she draws inspiration from Japanese dance art form butoh, as a way to capture the “metamorphic influence of the nuclear legacy on the bodies of women”. The artist expands the weaving process to include words and movements, opening the weaving circle to a new audience and pointing towards discourses of global relevance.

Aisha Khalid — Water has never feared the fire (2018)

Pakistani artist Aisha Khalid (b. 1972, Lahore) studied Persian and Mughal miniature art at the National College of Arts in the former Mughal capital of Lahore. Her practice experiments with scale and technique, weaving skills and influences from miniature painting, textiles, Sufi music and philosophy, and the grandeur of Mughal architecture and gardens. Khalid’s art displays a profound knowledge of the miniature tradition, which she exploits to convey messages of socio-political relevance in the contemporary world. Commissioned for APT9, Water has never feared the fire takes its title from the words of 13th-century Persian poet Rumi, and is the result of Khalid’s recent exploration of the potential of textiles.

The artist has been drawing on embroidery and stitching techniques taught to her by her mother, to create monumental works that reinterpret patterns, motifs and symbols inspired by Persian carpets and historical paintings. Architecturally imposing in scale, these suspended pieces show a meticulous design and labour-intensive process, which sees enormous tapestries stitched together with thousands of long gold-plated pins.

Water has never feared the fire is composed of three hanging structures nearly five metres high, with a design based on the quadrilateral garden layout of the Charbagh (‘four gardens’ in Urdu). The Charbagh is a manifestation of the quintessential Islamic garden from the Qur’an, a symbol for paradise on earth, carrying symbolism and geometries that bridge the earthly and the divine. In the central hanging panel, four water channels representing the four rivers of paradise delineate the four gardens of paradise – soul, hear, spirit and essence. In these sections are depictions of creatures such as dragons and phoenixes, typically found in Persian art and described in the historical epic The Shahnameh (The Book of Kings). The outer panels display geometric motifs of water, with sea creatures and ships, representing trade and the movement of peoples and cultures.

Bona Park — Beyond the sea (2018)

South Korean Bona Park (b. 1977, Seoul) collaborates with people from different walks of life and professional backgrounds to create stories touching on broad social themes. In her works, she employs people as disparate as cooks, comedians and carpenters, putting them in awkward, game-like situations, creating scenarios that reflect on complex social and historical contexts. In her recent practice, she has been exploring issues of workplace relations, and extinction or redundancy brought about by human activity, technological development and economic imperatives. Her work for APT9 is a three-channel video that reflects on these themes, and features three individuals working behind the scenes in the Korean film and television industry: a voice actor, a lighting operator and a stunt double. Park has assigned one action to each person, which are screened alongside each other.

Beyond the Sea centres around the voice actor in a sound studio reading a monologue from French playwright Marguerite Duras’s experimental 1981 film The Atlantic Man, an ode to a departed lover set at the seaside. On one side of the central screen is the stunt double, incessantly rehearsing a sweeping kung-fu move in slow motion, while on the other side is the light operator standing on a beach, using a studio lamp to flash in Morse code a poem read by one of the characters in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 French New Wave cinema classic Alphaville. All these actions are not casual; they all form part of a poetic whole, referencing themes of disappearance, longing and the role of culture in shaping sensibilities, as well as redundancy in the workplace.

The voice actor’s clip comments on the status of the profession, which was once popular for providing Korean language dubbing to foreign films. After the global financial crisis of 2008, many actors were made redundant as their function was replaced by subtitles. Once the economy recovered, the film industry started employing famous actors to dub films, rather than vocal specialists. The kung-fu video brings about a certain nostalgia for old martial arts films, which have been replaced by special effects that often do not require the greatest physical skills from actors. The Morse code poem stands as a symbol of cold rationality replacing emotion, with the light operator only automatically flashing out the poem’s words, without actually understanding its deeper meaning.

Iman Raad — Days of bliss and woe (2018)

Based in New York, Iranian artist Iman Raad (b. 1979, Mashhad) creates paintings, drawings, murals and banners that reconfigure and reimagine influences from ‘glitch’ aesthetics, Persian miniature painting, Iranian folk art and Pakistani truck painting. For the APT9 commission, Raad created a monumental mural that references the ornamented trucks and buses of South Asia, and makes use of vernacular art forms. The artist was inspired by the Mughal painting tradition and Persian miniatures, as well as Persia’s history of mural painting, dating back to the late third century BCE, and of monumental mosaic works adorning Islamic architecture.

Raad reinterprets these public art traditions in a contemporary key, creating a mural that can be viewed from various vantage points throughout the Gallery. As central subjects, his work features birds, fruit and flowers – ubiquitous decorative elements on Persian miniatures’ borders. By repositioning these motifs, and placing them within fantastical narratives about social and historical events, Raad transforms his seemingly traditional work into an innovative one. The same focus on ornamentation taken from vernacular traditions is also apparent in his other work at APT, draped across the Gallery’s foyer, for which Raad collaborated with artisans in Mashhad to transform his drawings into tapestries. These textile works celebrate life and death in its many forms, and reference the velvet banners or flags displayed during the annual Ashura festivities in Iran, when the Shiite population mourns the death of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad.

Pannaphan Yodmanee — In the aftermath (2018)

Thai artist Pannaphan Yodmanee (b. 1988, Nakhon Si Thammarat) brings to the forefront the cycles of destruction and renewal in our contemporary world, through installations of spiritual landscapes of ruin that use a mixture of urban materials, found debris, objects and painting. Trained by a monk in traditional Buddhist painting techniques, Yodmanee has a deep understanding of the philosophies and cosmologies inherent in vernacular Buddhist art, which she uses in her work. Her installations display meaningful references to Buddhist faith, with miniature stupas, and painted sacred symbols and motifs, placed within decaying structures, ruins and rubble.

These landscapes in ruin not only illustrate Buddhist narratives, but also represent the formation of individual and regional identities in Southeast Asia, within the regional history of migration and conflict, and the destructive tensions in society. The debris that forms her installation is in stark contrast with the delicate, decorative Buddhist painting style she was once taught. The traces of the latter visible in her large-scale work represent a constant element in regional identity, and a reminder of the pervading, long-lasting place that spirituatlity holds in the ever-changing, developing world today.

Nona Garcia — Hallow (2018)

Filipino artist Nona Garcia (b. 1978, Manila) explores the dichotomy between the transparent and concealed, the framed and the natural, the sublime and the everyday. She creates works that are a representation of how she sees reality, as if through an X-ray machine. With both her parents being doctors, Garcia grew up in an environment of hospitals, medical laboratories and equipment. Her fascination with X-rays was immediate, as for her the images coming out of the machines infused a new life into their subjects. In one of her early experiments with X-rays, Recovery (2014), Garcia ran her mother’s reliquary of saints through an X-ray machine, thus revealing hidden details and parts of the statuettes, giving them new life. In Recurrent (2018), she X-rayed bones and coral, shown on a lightbox in the form of a seascape.

Hallow is a work she first made in 2015, and reconfigured last year as a commission for APT9 to fit the glass façade of QAGOMA’s Stanley Place entrance. Both configurations comprise X-rays of animal bones, arranged in mandala-shaped compositions installed on a glass façade, allowing the light to shine through, like in a cathedral’s stained-glass window. The animal bones are arranged in symmetry, forming flower and spiral motifs, on a scale that inspires awe and spiritual reflection. Upon closer inspection, the images appear clearly made of elements of death, with bones and skulls of various animals becoming recognisable. Garcia opens a window onto the everyday that expands our field of vision, to include both the sacred and profane, the visible and invisible, thus reflecting on the inextricable presence of death in life.

Mithu Sen — UnMYthU: UnKIND(s) Alternatives (2018)

New Delhi-based Mithu Sen (b.1972,West Bengal) challenges conventions of social exchange, “recalibrating” hierarchies of intervention. She uses language, its codes, syntax and linguistic meanings as creative and experimental devices, playing with linguistic rules to create new modes of expression. The “UnMYthU” project is Sen’s recent body of work incorporating poetry, social media, exchange, instruction and performance to demonstrate how language and social conventions limit possibilities for expression. She describes “UnMYthU” as a “byproduct of twenty years of performance”, which draws on her practice of making and sharing art. Sen uses ‘un’ to explore the voids and anomalies of the in-between spaces of social conventions and interactions that she investigates.

The APT9 commission UnMYthU: UnKIND(s) Alternatives is a series of large-scale drawings on handmade Kozo paper, together with diagrams and instructions, questions, contracts and obligations on the audience and a performance with Alexa. The work continues Sen’s exploration of the in-between, by exploring the idea of artificial intelligence “as a trope to enable the manifestation of the process of (un)mything”. In her statement, she writes that “UnMYthU: UnKIND(s) Alternatives (un)myths through the trope of A(I)- artificial intelligence which (un)creates to allow for access and actualization of the void where I locate the medium of life. The tactile byproducts that are exhibited and the performance taking place by each entity engaging with the installation, are both creations of A(I).”

Jonathan Jones — (untitled) giran (2018)

Australian artist Joanathan Jones (b. 1978, Sydney) is of Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi descent, and his work references his mixed origins, underlining the importance of preserving and continuing the indigenous traditions and languages, as part of Australia’s culture. For his new work for APT9, Jones collaborated with Dr Uncle Stan Grant Snr AM of the Wiradjuri people (b. 1940, Dubbo, New South Wales), with whom he has worked before on several other projects. Language is a key component of the installation. The artist departs from two similarly sounding words, born far from each other, one of Jones’ land, one adopted and coming from afar: ‘Murun’, a Wiradjuri word meaning breath or life, and the English word ‘murmur’, a low recurring sound, or soft voices.

The installation (untitled) giran is a “murmuration of winged sculptures evoking birds in collective flight”. The sounds of wind, birds calling and breathing are audible through the exhibition space, alongside Wiradjuri speakers whispering. ‘Giran’ means ‘wind’, but is also used to describe apprehension or fear. Wind is an important concept, as Jones explains in his statement: “Understanding wind is an important part of understanding country. Winds bring change, knowledge and new ideas to those prepared to listen.”

The installation comprises about 2000 scultpures of six types of tools, each embodying knowledge passed down through generations and representing the potential for change. These tools allowed Jones’ ancestors to live, survive, develop. Each type of tool is made from a different material: bagay — an emu eggshell spoon; galigal — a stone knife; bingal — an animal bone awl; bindu-gaany — a freshwater mussel scraper; dhala-ny — a hardwood spear point; and waybarra — a rush ‘start’ (the beginning of a woven item, such as a basket). Jones has made many of the base ‘tools’ himself, as well as in collaboration with family members, Wiradjuri community and long-time artistic collaborators. Bound with handmade string around each tool is a small bundle of feathers, which Jones collected from people all over Australia.

The installation shares traditional knowledge and seeks to foster change and the exchange of ideas and skills, as explained in the catalogue essay. Uncle Stan Grant Snr speaks of this work as “continuing the development of Wiradjuri gulbanha (philosophy), working with language and country via the artworks for the ongoing enrichment of the community”. Wiradjuri is one of many hundreds of distinct Indigenous Australian languages acutely affected by colonisation. It is a language at risk, but is also in a state of renewal. Through this project, Jones and Grant promote the multicultural nature of their country, and the preservation and continuation of its many languages, philosophies, stories and treasures.

Qiu Zhijie — Map of Technological Ethics (2018)

A student of calligraphy, Chinese classics and European philosophy, Beijing-based Qiu Zhijie (b. 1969, Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, China) has evolved over many years to develop a method the artist calls ‘Total Art’. This concept merges Chinese pictorial and literary traditions, contemporary art, art theory and social engagement, and encompasses pedagogical, curatorial and publishing projects. Departing from his previous photographic and video work, Qiu Zhijie has in recent years adopted the map format as his central medium.

Using brush and ink, his maps have a classical Chinese aesthetic and evoke the history of Chinese map-making, dating back to the Warring States period in the fifth century BCE, as well as the pictorial elements of pre-modern European cartography. Starting from his Map of Total Art (2012), in which he depicted Total Art as a city with avenues like ‘Reality’, ‘History’ and ‘Creation’, and a ‘Lake of Absolute Freedom’, Qiu created a variety of maps that grew larger in scale and subject, from utopian societies to a history of contemporary art in China.

His APT9 commission, Map of Technological Ethics, represents an archipelago of morally contentious issues, with biological questions figuring prominently. Issues that appear include abortion, euthanasia and genetic identifcation cards, surrounded by a ‘Sea of Risk’. There is an Island of Bioethics, home to Dolly the cloned sheep, while activist and political protagonists also figure in the map including professional lobbyists, animal liberationists and the environmental movement. Technocracy and anthropogenic climate change, artifcial intelligence and computer technologies, all have a home in his map. Even classics like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World are represented.

C. A. Xuân Mai Ardia

The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT9) runs from 24 November 2018 to 28 April 2019 at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Brisbane, Australia.