Queensland Art Gallery - Queensland Government

Publisher
Queensland Art Gallery
Stanley Place, South Bank, Brisbane
PO Box 3686, South Brisbane
Queensland 4101 Australia
www.qag.qld.gov.au
Published for ‘The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of
Contemporary Art’, organised by the Queensland
Art Gallery and held at the Gallery of Modern
Art and the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane,
Australia, 5 December 2009 – 5 April 2010.
© Queensland Art Gallery, 2009
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as
permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no
part may be reproduced without prior written
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should be addressed to the publisher.
Copyright for texts in this publication is held by
the Queensland Art Gallery and the authors.
Copyright for all art works and images is held
by the creators or their representatives, unless
otherwise stated. Copyright of photographic
images is held by individual photographers and
institutions or the Queensland Art Gallery.
Every attempt has been made to locate holders
of copyright and reproduction rights of all images
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would be grateful to hear from any reader with
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reproductions match as closely as possible the
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-
Publication data:
Author: Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary
Art (6th : 2009 : Brisbane, Qld.)
Title: The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial
of Contemporary Art.
ISBN: 9781921503085 (pbk.)
Subjects: Art, Asian--21st century--Exhibitions.
Art, Pacific Island--21st century--Exhibitions.
Other Authors/Contributors: Queensland
Art Gallery.
Dewey Number: 709.50905
ISBN 978 1 921503 08 5
Notes on the publication
The order of the artists’ family names and given
names varies depending on the conventions used
in their respective home countries, or the artist’s
own preference.
Text for this publication has been supplied by the
authors as attributed. The views expressed are not
necessarily those of the publisher.
Dimensions of works are given in centimetres (cm),
height preceding width followed by depth.
Captions generally appear as supplied by lenders.
All photography is credited as known.
Typeset in Avenir and Clarendon. Printed by
Platypus Graphics, Brisbane, on Novatech Satin
from Raleigh Paper.
Cover (including back cover and inside gatefold details):
Kohei Nawa
Japan b.1975
PixCell-Elk#2 2009
Taxidermied elk, glass, acrylic, crystal beads /
240 x 249.5 x 198cm / Work created with the support
of the Fondation d’enterprise Hermės / Image courtesy:
The artist and SCAI, Tokyo / Photograph: Seiji Toyonaga
Page 6–7:
Subodh Gupta
India b.1964
Line of Control (1) (detail) 2008
Stainless steel and steel structure, brass and copper
utensils / 500 x 500 x 500cm / Image courtesy: The artist
and Arario Gallery, Beijing
Page 8–9:
Rudi Mantofani
Indonesia b.1973
Nada yang hilang (The lost note) (detail) 2006–07
Wood, metal, leather and oil / 9 pieces: 260 x 45 x 9cm
(each) / Collection: Dr Oei Hong Djien / Image courtesy:
The artist and Gajah Gallery, Singapore / Photograph:
Agung Sukindra
Page 10–11:
Kim Gi Chol
North Korea (DPRK) b.1959
The Songchun River Clothing Factory team arrives
(detail) 1999
Ink on paper / 135.5 x 250cm / Collection:
Nicholas Bonner, Beijing
Page 12–13:
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
Iran b.1924
Lightning for Neda (detail) 2009
Mirror mosaic, reverse glass painting, plaster on wood /
6 panels: 300 x 200cm (each) / Commissioned for APT6
and the Queensland Art Gallery Collection. The artist
dedicates this work to the loving memory of her late
husband Dr Abolbashar Farmanfarmaian / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY

Contents
16 Premier’s message / Anna Bligh
68 Minam Apang Tales from the deep / Miranda Wallace
140 Tracey Moffatt Plantation / Julie Ewington
200 Building bridges: 10 years of Kids’ APT / Andrew Clark
17 Sponsor message / Santos
71 Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan In flight / Michael Hawker
143 Farhad Moshiri Hybrid confections / Abigail Fitzgibbons
206 Kids’ APT artist projects
18 Sponsors
72 Chen Chieh-jen On going / Naomi Evans
144 Kohei Nawa Seeing is believing / Michael Hawker
21 Director’s foreword / Tony Ellwood
75 Chen Qiulin Salvaged from ruins / Angela Goddard
147 Shinji Ohmaki Dissolving into light / Shihoko Iida
76 Cheo Chai-Hiang Cash converter / Yvonne Low
148 The One Year Drawing Project / Suhanya Raffel
79 DAMP Untitled and indefinite / Francis E Parker
152 Pacific Reggae Roots Beyond the Reef / Brent Clough
218 Catalogue of works
80 Solomon Enos Polyfantastica / David Burnett
157 Rithy Panh Gestures of protest / Amanda Slack-Smith
230 Artist biographies
24 A restless subject / Suhanya Raffel
85 Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian Lightning for Neda /
158 Reuben Paterson Pathways through history /
242 Australian Cinémathèque Programs Promised Lands /
32 Rites and rights: Contemporary Pacific / Maud Page
Suhanya Raffel
Angela Goddard
The Cypress and the Crow: 50 Years of Iranian Animation
42 Promised lands / Jose Da Silva and Kathryn Weir
86 Subodh Gupta Cold war kitchen / David Burnett
161 Campbell Patterson Intimate videos / Francis E Parker
252 Acknowledgments
50 The hungry goat: Iranian animation, media archaeology
89 Gonkar Gyatso Trouble in paradise / Suhanya Raffel
162 Wit Pimkanchanapong In-between spaces / Donna McColm
259 Contributing authors
and located visual worlds / Kathryn Weir
90 Kyungah Ham Communication beyond
165 Qiu Anxiong The new book of mountains and seas /
58 The world and the studio / Russell Storer
the unreachable place / Jose Da Silva
Sarah Stutchbury
93 Ho Tzu Nyen Of the way of the creator / Russell Storer
166 Kibong Rhee There is no place / Donna McColm
94 Emre Hüner Panoptikon / Naomi Evans
169 Hiraki Sawa Active stillness / Mellissa Kavenagh
97 Raafat Ishak Pathways in paint / Bree Richards
170 Shirana Shahbazi A purely visual language / Bree Richards
98 Runa Islam Things that are restless and
173 Shooshie Sulaiman Who’s afraid of the dark? /
things that are still / Kathryn Weir
Ellie Buttrose
101 Ayaz Jokhio Toward the within / Russell Storer
174 Thukral and Tagra Dream merchants / Russell Storer
102 Takeshi Kitano Fallen hero / Rosie Hays
179 Charwei Tsai A space of contemplation / Ruth McDougall
105 Ang Lee Quiet! The film is about to start / Ellie Buttrose
180 Vanuatu Sculptors Innovation and tradition /
106 Mansudae Art Studio and art in North Korea (DPRK) /
Ruth McDougall
Nicholas Bonner
184 Traditions and rituals in North Ambrym /
114 Rudi Mantofani What is aslant and what is oblique /
Napong Norbert
Julie Ewington
186 Rohan Wealleans Ritual and excess / Nicholas Chambers
117 Mataso Printmakers / David Burnett
189 Robin White, Leba Toki and Bale Jione A shared garden /
120 Mapping the Mekong / Rich Streitmatter-Tran
Ruth McDougall
125 Bùi Công Khánh Contemporary story / Ian Were
190 Yang Shaobin X – Blind Spot / Abigail Fitzgibbons
126 Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba Breathing is free / Shihoko Iida
193 Yao Jui-chung Wandering in the lens / Jose Da Silva
129 Sopheap Pich 1979 / Mellissa Kavenagh
196 YNG (Yoshitomo Nara and graf) Discovering new worlds /
130 Manit Sriwanichpoom The agony of waiting /
Nicholas Chambers
Russell Storer
199 Zhu Weibing and Ji Wenyu People holding flowers /
135 Svay Ken Painting from life / Russell Storer
Abigail Fitzgibbons
136 Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu Between the two /
Rich Streitmatter-Tran
139 Vandy Rattana Fire of the year / Mellissa Kavenagh
14 15

Premier’s message
Anna Bligh mp
Premier of Queensland and Minister for the Arts
Sponsor message
Rick Wilkinson
President Queensland & GLNG
The Queensland Art Gallery’s Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) has become one
of Australia’s most anticipated international cultural events, earning Queensland an enviable
position in the contemporary art world.
The Queensland Government has supported the Asia Pacific Triennial since its inception in
1993, building the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) as a home for this spectacular exhibition
and for contemporary art.
APT6 incorporates more than 100 artists from many nations and across many disciplines.
GoMA has dedicated more than 5000 square metres of gallery, cinema and children’s activity
space to the exhibition, and the original Queensland Art Gallery has also devoted significant
space to the Triennial.
The Queensland Art Gallery is recognised as an international leader in contemporary Asian and
Pacific art and has been building its collection for almost two decades. The APT is unique and
remains the only recurring exhibition to focus on the contemporary art of Asia, the Pacific and
Australia. It attracts strong interest from outside Queensland, with more than a third of visitors to
APT5 coming from interstate or overseas. With the five exhibitions since 1993 attracting a total of
more than 1.3 million visitors, it’s clear there’s an audience for art work from Asia and the Pacific.
At Santos we have been putting our energy into Queensland for more than 50 years, unlocking
the state’s vast natural gas resources. We also put our energy into the communities we are part
of, supporting events and organisations that are valued by and enrich those communities.
Santos has been involved with the Queensland Art Gallery, an institution that is central to
Queensland’s cultural life, since 1990. The art within its walls has the power to inspire and
challenge us. It helps us to view the world in ways we might not have recognised before.
We are delighted to be continuing our association with the Gallery as the Presenting Sponsor
for ‘The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’. Showcasing the creativity of our Asia
Pacific region brings people and ideas together in all their diversity, and everyone benefits
from this exchange.
Santos supports the arts, because we’re not just an energy company, we’re a company
with energy.
I trust you will enjoy this publication, a record of what you have seen and experienced
at this outstanding exhibition.
This event brings together two of Queensland’s mainstays — our cultural and tourism industries
— and I encourage Queenslanders to experience for themselves this fantastic celebration of
contemporary visual art.
16 17

Sponsors
FOUNDING SUPPORTER
PRESENTING SPONSOR
Principal Benefactor
PRINCIPAL PARTNERS
Assisted by the Australian Government through the
Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body,
and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of
the Australian, State and Territory Governments.
MAJOR SPONSORS
TOURISM & MEDIA PARTNERS
SUPPORTING SPONSORS
Shirana Shahbazi
Iran/Switzerland b.1974
[Stilleben-22-2008] (from ‘Flowers, fruits & portraits’
series) 2003–ongoing, printed 2009
Type C photograph, ed. of 5 (+ 1 AP) / 150 x 120cm /
Image courtesy: The artist and Bob van Orsouw
Gallery, Zurich
18

Director’s foreword
Tony Ellwood
With each iteration since 1993, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art has taken on
new and surprising forms. It remains the only major recurring exhibition in the world to
maintain a focus on the contemporary art of Asia, Australia and the Pacific, and ‘The 6th Asia
Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT6) reaches into a wider realm than ever before. It
looks toward the dynamic region of West Asia and continues to explore the art of the Pacific.
The exhibition includes more than 100 artists, many from countries which have never before
featured in a Triennial: Tibet, North Korea (DPRK), Turkey and Iran, and countries of the Mekong
region, such as Cambodia and Myanmar (Burma).
The last Triennial in 2006 marked the launch of our second site, the Gallery of Modern Art
(GoMA). This time, the Triennial occupies this wonderful building in its entirety, along with the
Queensland Art Gallery’s iconic Watermall and adjoining galleries. The exhibition series has
introduced many artists to Australian audiences, and this, of course, continues with APT6.
An event of this scale will naturally strain at the bonds of any overarching themes, however, APT6
has, at its core, a long-held interest in collaboration, interconnectivity and cross-disciplinary
practice. This is expressed in many ways, from close partnerships between artists to larger scale
and less predictable forms of connection and collaboration.
Zhu Weibing
China b.1971
Ji Wenyu
China b.1959
People holding flowers (detail) 2007
Synthetic polymer paint on resin; velour, steel
wire, dacron, lodestone and cotton / 400 pieces:
100 x 18 x 8cm (each) / Installed dimensions variable /
The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection
of Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased 2008 with
funds from Michael Simcha Baevski through the
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Three major multi-artist projects examine some of these themes, and have been coordinated
in collaboration with co-curators working in the field. Focusing on artists working in the Mekong
River region of South-East Asia, The Mekong is an ambitious consideration of art from Vietnam,
Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar. Another multi-artist project, Pacific Reggae: Roots Beyond
the Reef, continues the Triennial’s engagement with the contemporary culture of the Pacific,
in this case revealing reggae music’s responsiveness to influences of location and technology,
and the genre’s ability to adapt from Jamaica to the Pacific. The third project presents a major
display of works, in a variety of media, from North Korea (DPRK). A central component is a
group of new works from the Mansudae Art Studio in Pyongyang. These works, including loans
from a key private collection, will be seen in Australia for the first time.
Three exceptional filmmakers — Ang Lee, Takeshi Kitano and Rithy Panh — are profiled as
APT6 artists with retrospective seasons during the exhibition. The Australian Cinémathèque
also presents two cinema projects, Promised Lands and The Cypress and the Crow: 50 years
of Iranian Animation, presenting contemporary cinema reaching from the Indian subcontinent
to West Asia and the Middle East.
The APT has, since its inception, played a leading role in the development of the Gallery’s
contemporary Asian and Pacific collections. The value of this was demonstrated earlier this
21

year through ‘The China Project’, a three-part exhibition which provided a fresh context for the
contemporary Chinese collection and included many acquisitions from previous APTs. Further
acquisitions will be made from this Triennial, continuing the Gallery’s long-term commitment to
the art of the region and building on its internationally significant collections.
I gratefully acknowledge the continuing support of the Triennial’s Founding Supporter, the
Queensland Government, whose unwavering commitment to this series has been essential
to its ambition and achievements. I welcome Santos as the Presenting Sponsor of APT6.
Santos also sponsors the Gallery’s Children’s Art Centre, and I look forward to working together
in this important new relationship. I also express our gratitude to the Australian Government,
which provides support through the Australia Council and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy,
an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory governments. Visual Arts and Craft Strategy
funds, administered by Arts Queensland, also support a regional program of the Triennial,
which has included the travelling exhibition ‘Frame by Frame: Asia Pacific Artists on Tour’
(2008–10). This exhibition presents works from the Gallery’s Asian and Pacific collections at
eight Queensland venues.
I wish to thank the Triennial’s Principal Benefactor, the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation, which has
generously supported Kids’ APT. I also acknowledge and thank the exhibition’s Major Sponsors —
Industrea Limited, Ishibashi Foundation and the Gallery’s Chairman’s Circle — as well as the many
media and tourism partners, cultural bodies, foundations and supporters, whose contributions
are greatly valued. The Gallery is also extremely grateful to the many lenders to the exhibition.
Thanks to all the Queensland Art Gallery staff who have contributed to this Triennial, and also to
the co-curators who have collaborated with us. Finally, I thank the artists for their work, and their
generous and enthusiastic support. The APT series has always depended on an extraordinary
network of close and enduring relationships with the participating artists. In fact, these
relationships are the foundation on which the Triennial’s achievements rest. The Gallery’s staff
are privileged and honoured to work with the participating artists, and I trust you will enjoy their
outstanding works in ‘The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’.
Subodh Gupta
India b.1964
The other thing 2005–06
Steel structure, plastic, stainless steel tongs /
206 x 211 x 63.5cm / The Lekha and Anupam Poddar
Collection / Image courtesy: The artist and the Devi
Art Foundation, Gurgaon
22 23

A restless subject 1
Suhanya Raffel
The anthology What Makes a Great Exhibition? opens with an essay by the curator Robert Storr.
He begins with the following words:
It is customary in writing about what curators do to use the singular noun exhibition to cover
what is in fact a plural category. From this, much confusion ensues in the experience and the
judgment of the public. Rather than one form, exhibitions take many, some more, some less
appropriate to their timing, their situation, their audience, and above all their contents. None of
them is ideal and none exhausts the potential meanings of important art. A good exhibition is
never the last word on its subject. 2
The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) is an ongoing project initiated in 1993.
It is one of very few regularly recurring international exhibitions with a declared interest in a
specific region; it addresses culture and ethnicity and acknowledges historical diasporas. It is
also one of the rare series sustained within a museum context. With every exhibition since the
first, the APT has been the subject of much discussion and debate in the art world and it has
developed a large, dedicated audience. Its uniqueness, asserted through geography, provides
structure and agency.
Today, one of the most prominent ways of seeing contemporary international visual art en
masse is via the biennale or triennial platform. These exhibitions are characterised by their
scale, together with an understanding by artists, curators, educators, administrators, funding
agencies and audiences that they offer a distinct perspective on the cultural life of a particular
place. They provide evidence of cosmopolitanism and a ground for the exploration of ideas; are
platforms for dialogue; and advocate a range of intellectual, political, aesthetic and otherwise
‘artistic’ views. They are also an important means of bringing a broad range of international
contemporary art to local audiences who would otherwise not have the opportunity to see
such work. They have bloomed across the world, multiplying most recently in places where art
infrastructure is less established, particularly in Asia, thus allowing for a decentralised viewing
of contemporary art. As the curator and critic Hou Hanru recently commented: ‘biennales are
really the most intense moments we see in the art world’. 3
It is interesting that most of the best regarded of these events are not staged in the major art
capitals of London, New York or Tokyo, but rather in Kassel, Brisbane, Gwangju, São Paulo and
Havana. These towns and cities provide a critical level of population, infrastructure and interest,
at a scale that is not suffocating, yet big enough to present an international event that allows
for both a physical space that is open and accommodating, and a conceptual space that is
curious and engaging.
Shirana Shahbazi
Iran/Switzerland b.1974
In collaboration with Sirous Shaghaghi, Iran
Sirous Shaghaghi painting Still life: Coconut and
other things 2009 in his studio, Tehran
Commissioned for APT6 / Image courtesy:
The artist / Photograph: Roozbeh Tazhibi
24 25

The curatorial structure of the inaugural APT laid the groundwork for subsequent events.
It eschewed the auteur in favour of a multitude of voices, initially because it was a pragmatic
way of both engaging and reflecting the diverse cultures of the region. The structure was built
around Queensland Art Gallery staff working with curatorial partners in different countries.
As Gallery expertise grew, this model evolved into an internal Gallery curatorial team seeking
advice from curatorial colleagues and artists abroad and at home.
In these two unique ways — regional specificity and no single directorial voice — the APT differs
from other biennales and triennials. Importantly, it also provides opportunities for artists from
the region to have external critical perspectives brought to their work. The APT advocates for
decentralised positions, and was one of the first in this part of the world to concentrate and
frame its ‘looking’ via this geography. Why is this important? It is an assertion that the work
of artists from Asia and the Pacific be presented in a regional context within the international
framework of the triennial. This productive focus offers significant perspectives generated by
privileging location. As independent curator and publisher Sharmini Pereira notes:
Even if an ambition to foster a world art history guided early APTs, its subsequent incarnations
have highlighted the impossibility of such an enterprise. Defining itself in relation to Asia and
the Pacific, the APT is, by choice, not geared to encompass a world art history. Through its
exclusive regional focus, it has not only made a phenomenal contribution to cultural debates
internationally but has provided rumination on problems of canons and linear narratives. 4
With every APT the definition of the region is tested. APT6 includes the work of artists from Iran
and Turkey for the first time, with the major thematic cinema program Promised Lands exploring
the rich cultures of the Indian subcontinent through to West Asia and the Middle East. Looking
to the immediate west was first mooted by a number of Indian and Pakistani artist and curator
colleagues who, when talking about their own practices, would often frame discussion around
Tracey Moffatt
Australia/United States b.1960
Gary Hillberg
Australia b.1952
OTHER (stills) 2009
DVD transferred to Digital Betacam, single channel
projection, continuous loop, colour, sound,
7:00 minutes, ed. 1/150 / Courtesy: The artists
Kyong Sik
North Korea (DPRK) b. unknown
The high-speed construction unit 1988
Linocut on paper / 59.5cm x 72cm /
Collection: Nicholas Bonner, Beijing
Jae Yong
North Korea (DPRK) b. unknown
Untitled 1964
Watercolour on paper / 26 x 19cm /
Collection: Nicholas Bonner, Beijing
the complex exchange of artistic and cultural ideas from the Middle East, especially Islamic art.
It is, in fact, a natural extension, and allows us to acknowledge the considerable influence that
Islamic art and culture have across the region.
Also included for the first time is a presentation of work from North Korea (DPRK). Working with
Beijing-based British filmmaker Nicholas Bonner as co-curator, the discussion about showing art
from North Korea began in early 2005. Given Bonner’s long-term relationships with artists and
filmmakers in the DPRK, the 13 commissions at the heart of the display have been developed in
close consultation with the artists from the Mansudae Art Studio, the curators and the Gallery.
One clear aim of the exhibition has been to challenge assumptions, and therefore broaden
understanding about what contemporary art is. The APT consistently addresses how artists live
and work in diverse conditions. One of the great contributions this exhibition makes to broader
discussions about art is the recognition of different, parallel art histories that have developed in
the region in locally specific ways. For example, the art historical canons cited in the works from
the Mansudae Art Studio include the socialist realist styles that were imported from the Soviet
Union and China as revolutionary artistic movements, a form also echoed in the iconography
developed in trade union banners in Australia and the English Midlands. Yet, this is not the only
stylistic influence. Brush-and-ink painting, or chosunhua, is still considered the most important
art form in Korea due to its established place in East Asian art; this is also the case with oil
painting, which has its roots in Europe and was most recently taught to Korean artists by the
Japanese during the occupation from 1910 to 1945.
Such a trajectory is in sharp contrast to the art history that octogenarian Iranian artist Monir
Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian draws on in her dazzling mirror mosaic sculptures. The rich traditions
that distinguish Islamic architecture are key influences. The geometric structures and the ordered
repetition of patterns that were developed as an intrinsic aspect of Islamic shrine and temple
26 27

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
Iran b.1924
Lightning for Neda (detail) 2009
Mirror mosaic, reverse glass painting, plaster on wood /
6 panels: 300 x 200cm (each) / Commissioned for APT6
and the Queensland Art Gallery Collection. The artist
dedicates this work to the loving memory of her late
husband Dr Abolbashar Farmanfarmaian / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Opposite
Pasifika Divas
Shigeyuki Kihara in performance 2002
Produced by Lisa Taouma and the Queensland Art
Gallery for APT 2002 / Photograph: Lukas Davidson
architecture, dating from the seventh century to the present, have been inspirational to her work.
But so too was the artist’s training in New York during the late 1940s, when she studied at the
Parsons School of Design. She then spent 12 years living and working as a freelance designer for
American Vogue magazine, and as a commercial artist and fashion designer for the department
store Bonwit Teller. Her exposure to artist colleagues, gallerists and other art world luminaries
at the time meant she observed the postwar flowering of the New York Avant-garde before
returning to Iran in 1957. Working mostly instinctively, her shimmering works are testaments to
modernist abstract principles as well as the purity of Islamic geometry.
The one constant of the APT is dissonance. There is a certain impenetrability that such ‘noise’
engenders. An ordered consonance is not possible when the framework demands such broad
scope. The voice of the Pacific — and for APT6, it can literally be heard in the drop beat of Pacific
reggae — adds yet another pitch. Looking back at past APTs, it has been the Pacific artists who
have challenged the structure of ‘seeing’. Perhaps this is due to the nature of contemporary
practice on the many hundreds of islands, which also includes indigenous art-making forms.
The inclusion in APT6 of powerful customary objects by North Ambrymese sculptors
from Vanuatu encourages us to focus on the historical process of artistic creation and the
engagement with tradition. In these circumstances, the act of separating oral, performative
and visual art practices is both unproductive and uncreative. Why persist when such canonical
definitions are of no concern in the local contemporary context? The work of these artists
readily challenges assumptions about the stability of definitions within contemporary art
discourses in the museum.
For artists to alter the museum space is not a new phenomenon. It has a longer history growing
from the restless dissent of the 1960s and 1970s, when artists in the West focused their energies
on testing the conventional relationships between artist, audience, museum and market. Museum
director and writer Sandy Nairne describes the burgeoning history of these phenomena:
28 29

publication. The discrete projects — such as The Mekong, Pacific Reggae: Roots Beyond the
Reef, the works from North Korea (DPRK), and the thematic film programs — each concentrate
on particular regions to present more in-depth perspectives on art history and contemporary
ideas. For example, The Mekong uses the river as metaphor for the movement and exchange
of knowledge. As Rich Streitmatter-Tran, co-curator of The Mekong states:
The Mekong region is often referred to through a variety of organisational frameworks including
historic–cultural areas, sociolinguistic zones, and by the borders of the nations themselves. It has
always been a shifting territory — an ebb and flow of conflict and cooperation, modernisation
and preservation, exploitation and conservation. Each struggle can be found documented in
the arts, whether in historical artefact or in the contemporary work featured in APT6. 6
There is always more to be said about contemporary art and art-making in Asia and the
Pacific and, as we approach the second decade of this century, the economic, social, political
and cultural dynamics of the region — and its relationships with the rest of the world — are
more intense than ever. Every three years, the APT revisits this territory. Within Brisbane and
internationally, this exhibition marks a point of concentration and deliberation valued by many.
To return to Storr’s apt observation, ‘a good exhibition is never the last word on its subject’.
The general term ‘space’ replaced the word gallery (alternate spaces followed after
experimental galleries and laboratories) and was used precisely because it was supposed to
avoid the connotations of an institutional or commercial environment, where a hierarchical,
formal arrangement might determine audience behaviour in pre-set ways. ‘Space’ usefully
removed the immediate connotations of commodity.
If artists already had any ‘space’ it was because they had studios. And the connotations of
studio activity had long passed from associations of the model and the arranged tableau to
a less structured, process-oriented concept of the creative site. The new spaces in the early
seventies were thus much less the laboratories of technological or participatory experiment
than a self-consciously chaotic milieu (of which Warhol’s space of the Factory is a precursor),
where gesture and incident could be prominent and pre-eminent. 5
Endnotes
1 I would like to acknowledge Runa Islam for her wonderful work The Restless Subject 2008, which effortlessly
captures the complexities involved in the act of ‘seeing’.
2 Robert Storr, ‘Show and tell’, in Paula Marincola (ed.), What Makes a Great Exhibition?, Philadelphia Exhibitions
Initiative, Philadelphia, 2006, p.14.
3 Hou Hanru, interviewed by Robert Leonard, ‘The biennale makers’, Art & Australia [APT6 special issue], December
2009 [forthcoming].
4 Sharmini Pereira, ‘The Asia Pacific Triennial: A forum’, in ‘21st century art history’, The Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Art, vol.9, no.1/2, 2008–09, p.210.
5 Sandy Nairne, ‘The institutionalization of dissent’, in Reesa Greenberg, Bruce W Ferguson and Sandy Nairne,
Thinking about Exhibitions, Routledge, London, 1996, p.396.
6 Rich Streitmatter-Tran, ‘Mapping the Mekong’, The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art [exhibition
catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2009, p.128.
I include this quote by way of arguing that, indirectly, the APT has had a similar influence on
the art museum in which it takes place. The nature of art-making across the region is incredibly
diverse and includes places with highly developed art infrastructures, as well as others with very
limited foundations.
Over the last two decades, the APT has shown the work of over 300 artists. In this context, it
has introduced the work of little-known artists to Australia while also profiling artists with major
international reputations, whose work is generally known through art publications rather than
exhibitions staged in Brisbane. While APT6 presents work from places not previously included,
the exhibition is built around artists from East Asia, South Asia, South-East Asia, Australia,
the Pacific, as well as the diaspora, as it has from its inception. Thematic ideas — such as the
significance of collaborative practice and the perspectives offered in the inclusion of the two
major film programs, Promised Lands and The Cypress and the Crow: 50 Years of Iranian
Animation — are integral to the APT, and are discussed in the other overview essays in this
Simeon Simix
Vanuatu b.1981
Paw paw/coconut (from ‘Bebellic’ portfolio) 2007
Screenprint on magnani paper ed. 1/45 / 76 x 56cm /
Purchased 2008. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Vandy Rattana
Cambodia b.1980
Fire of the year 5 2008
Digital print / 105.5 x 63.5cm / Image courtesy:
The artist
30 31

Rites and rights: Contemporary Pacific
Maud Page
Leba Toki recently planted taro in the lush, terraced gardens of the Shrine of the Bab in Haifa,
Israel, a place of worship dedicated to Bahá’ulláh, the Persian founder of the Bahá’Í faith that
she follows. The experience of adding something from her own Fijian soil to a place already
imbued with so many symbols of unity and understanding provided the genesis for the work
Teitei vou (A new garden) 2009, produced in collaboration with New Zealand artist Robin White
and renowned masi (Fijian barkcloth) artist Bale Jione. But this is a mistranslation of Leba’s
account — formulating only a literal reading of the trio’s complex and poetic artistic process.
Rather, every time the three artists added another motif to their four-metre barkcloth they
saw it as planting — pushing the ink through the fibrous layers of masi with their fingertips, the
remnants of the ink remaining, like earth underneath fingernails. Taro was one of the first things
they ‘planted’ in their garden, followed by sugarcane, pineapples and orange trees. 1
Exhibiting art works that are still functional objects or that are derived from customary
practices, such as Teitei vou (A new garden), opens a number of dialogues that the Asia Pacific
Triennials have been exploring for some time. These conversations are both rewarding, in
that they broaden interpretive possibilities, and fraught, as they highlight the disjunctures
and mistranslations of our comfort zone. Curator Okwui Enwezor, however, warns against the
romantic idea that there will always be a ‘misunderstanding when you take on the work of other
cultures. These do happen, but those misunderstandings can never be addressed unless you
make an attempt’. 2 The APT is the only series of exhibitions to systematically engage with the art
of the Pacific region and interject it within that of a very prolific Asia. This is a discursive act.
This APT presents eight artists/collectives from the Pacific, including New Zealand. It has a
particular interest in the cultural expressions of Vanuatu, showing customary sculptures from
North Ambrym alongside prints made by a group of young Port Vila-based artists, as well as the
music of the region in Pacific Reggae: Roots Beyond the Reef. These three examples provide an
insight into ni-Vanuatuans’ engagement with modernity and history. In varying degrees, all draw
on customary practices, with artists continuing to use selected customary elements or altering
them to suit present needs and ideas.
Teitei vou (A new garden) also addresses these concerns by using barkcloth and the traditional
rites of Fijian marriage as a starting point. This installation explores the narratives relating to the
artists’ shared Bahá’Í faith, Toki and Jione’s Fijian material culture, and the difficulties of living
in a politically turbulent Fiji. The large Lautoka sugar mill dominating this town’s landscape is
repeated as a pattern on the taunamu (masi screen), for example, recalling over 100 years of
indentured Indian labour. Alongside these depictions, which include the symbols of major
world religions together with jackals and crows, are also patterns specific to the Moce area from
where Toki and Jione originate. In Teitei vou (A new garden), the artists have assembled and
Robin White
New Zealand b.1946
Leba Toki
Fiji b.1951
Bale Jione
Fiji b.1952
Taunamu from Teitei vou (A new garden) (detail) 2009
Natural dyes on barkcloth / 390 x 240cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
32 33

added to a number of customary practices. Taunamu are traditionally used as screens during
wedding ceremonies. Although in recent times they have begun to feature family names, the
patterns and formation of the masi have remained relatively constant over centuries. Similarly,
the ibe vakabati (wool-fringed mat), that features a lotus flower surrounded by the Fijian
sandalwood vine, in the past would likely have displayed colourful geometric designs. 3 To these
transformed works, Toki, White and Jione have added two fabric mats to be placed on the masi
where the couple would stand. These mats, featuring remnants of wedding saris sewn with strips
of masi, were inspired by the work of Toki’s Indo–Fijian neighbours. The artists have chosen an
installation rich in hope and cultural symbolism and, through their Bahá’Í faith, they call for the
peaceful transformation of their society, which is imaged in exquisite detail in this work.
Teitei vou (A new garden) is an example of how customary works convey artists’ alternative ideas
about their locale, or how they allow them to interact differently with their own rites. The desire
to communicate, and ensuing artistic change, facilitates the dialogue between customary-based
and contemporary works. Customary-inspired works have been included in past APTs, most
notably the ornate clay relief structures of the Indian artist Sonabai in APT3 (1999). The Rajwar
community, to which Sonabai belongs, transform their homes with elaborate decorations and
painted clay figures for the post-harvest festival of chherta. Sonabai came to international
attention when she developed a style inimitable to the women in her village, by creating figures
exploring different sculptural possibilities. Her inclusion in APT3 was a strong statement based
on the questioning of definitions of contemporary art, revealing the porosity of art historical
classifications and binding her practice to those that recognise different art histories.
The fifth APT in 2006 featured the Pacific Textiles Project, which demonstrated the use of textiles
across the South Pacific as a way of conveying narratives of religion and nationhood; in the past,
they were largely devoid of imagery and text. These textiles are still being used in the same
life-changing ceremonies as their forebears, but now use alternative materials, such as wool and
cotton, to weave new ideas. The embroideries, which include the words ‘happy birthday’, the
names of family members or bright depictions of biblical stories, circulate only within their own
communities, travelling far only when accompanying members of the diaspora to their other
homes. Consequently, they have not often found their way into exhibitions or the art market.
The artist Sonabai creating her work Untitled in Brisbane
for ‘The Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’,
Queensland Art Gallery, 1999 / Photograph: Ray Fulton
The Pacific Textiles Project installed at ‘The 5th Asia
Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’, Queensland Art
Gallery, 2006 / Photograph: Natasha Harth
Robin White
Leba Toki
Bale Jione
Teitei vou (A new garden) (work in progress) 2009
Taunamu from Teitei vou (A new garden) (detail) 2009
Natural dyes on barkcloth / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
This type of work raises a number of issues — the altering of customary practice is sometimes
perceived as merely derivative of the original; the authenticity of tradition somehow maintains a
cultural purity which is stronger and more valued, particularly by the tribal art market. Similarly,
customary work, whether used as a departure point for new work or not, is often not considered
to be contemporary art, and is therefore excluded from international platforms. 4 This important
and ongoing discussion also concerns contemporary Australian Aboriginal art.
34 35

The visibility and success of Aboriginal art has transformed the way Australians understand
modern and contemporary art. Its diversity of practice, strong formalist sensibility and inclusion
of customary objects as part of its ambit have created productive dialogues, some of which also
inform contemporary Pacific art. Awkward divisions between art and craft, secular and ritual,
and urban and remote have slowly become less rigid, allowing for a far richer appreciation of
what constitutes Aboriginal creativity. The fact that audiences are able to see such a diversity
of practice allows non-traditional media, such as fibre art, for example, to be critically explored,
while the accompanying debate continues. 5 Most recently, the academic Ian McLean has
sought to historicise Central Australian Aboriginal art practice, arguing for a more critically
engaged view, and allowing for alternative modernisms within the art historical canon:
The fear that applying theories of the modern to remote Aboriginal art will assimilate its
differences into Eurocentric concerns is paternalistic and ignores the ways in which Aboriginals
have, since the time of first contact, readily sought to translate and assimilate and use the
cultural products of modernity. 6
Sometimes, as is the case for the sculptures from Vanuatu shown here in APT6, novelty and
artistic autonomy are not readily apparent. Consisting of a number of mague (ranking black
palm figures), temar ne ari (ancestor spirit figures), atingting (slit drums) and guardian of tabou
house figures, the grouping invites comparison. Yet, what is more rewarding, and as Ruth
McDougall explains, is a historical account of how these practices have adapted and changed
to suit the needs and artistic impetuses of the community who makes them. 7 Ambrymese
carvers’ translations of a number of stylistic, as well as actual, rites from the neighbouring island
of Malakula occurred over a long period of time, and were the result of complex inter-island
canoe trading and intermarriage.
Although house paints have mostly replaced natural pigments and ochres (except in the case
of the guardian of tabou house figures), according to anthropologist Kirk Huffman: ‘influences
from the white man’s world have had very little stylistic effect on the art styles on Ambrym’. 8
Covering the torso of a temar figure we see a fluorescent green; previously derived from a
particular moss it is now conveniently available in acrylic. This vivid hue, combined with the
ancestors’ red markings on a white face, forms a striking representation. 9
As part of the group of black palm figures is a selection of mague that feature a more
experimental use of paint. Many have bright blue and lime fish forms which appear to emerge
from the figures’ mouths, their noses and crescent-shaped eyes often contoured in bright pink.
One of the figures is said to feature the receding hairline of the man who commissioned it. 10
This design (if it does not already belong to somebody else) is now governed by copyright,
and other makers will have to negotiate its future use. Such a system — infinitely more complex
than that conveyed — can be seen as an impetus for constant invention, yet the practice of
all four types of carving has not dramatically altered over time, suggesting that Ambrymese
artistic interests and priorities lie elsewhere. These probably do not conform to Western ideas
of artistic production or evolution; however, we can surmise that the visibility of these art forms
outside Ambrym — whether on the streets of the capital of Port Vila, which are lined with black
palm ranking figures, or in Australia and Europe — will lead to further developments. Indeed,
there may be a commercialisation of these objects, which, as Ian McLean so cogently argues in
terms of Australian Aboriginal art, does not necessarily mean it will be to the detriment of the
works and the rites accompanying them.
Mansak Family
Vanuatu b.unknown
Temar ne ari (ancestor spirit) c.1995
Natural fibres, clay, synthetic polymer paint, ochres,
coconut shells, bamboo and sticks / 145 x 50 x 25cm /
Purchased 2008. The Queensland Government’s
Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Michel Rangie
Vanuatu b.c.1981
Mague ne sagran (ranking black palm) grade 4 painted
c.2005
Carved black palm with synthetic polymer paint /
195 x 38 x 48cm / Gift of David Baker through the
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2008 /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
36 37

Kava street sign, Mataso-Ohlen, Port Vila, Vanuatu 2007
Photograph: Newell Harry
Opposite
Herveline Lité
Vanuatu b.1980
Le pigeon de Mataso (from ‘Bebellic’ portfolio) 2007
Screenprint on magnani paper ed. 1/45 / 76 x 56cm /
Purchased 2008. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
The archipelago of Vanuatu has been contested by Western countries and markets for over a
century. It was governed by a British–French condominium from 1906 until its independence
in 1980, and has therefore been far from isolated, having to variously adapt and resist. Under
international pressure, Vanuatu began to redress its tax haven status in 2008. The influx of
foreign money has brought with it many changes, primarily in Port Vila and the island of Efate,
with the selling of land for beef farming and tourism. These industries demand a certain level of
labour to sustain them and, when combined with a lack of opportunity outside of subsistence
practices, have caused an influx of people from the outer islands to Port Vila. For example,
most of the population of the small island of Mataso, which lies off the northern tip of Efate,
has relocated to Ohlen, a shantytown on the outskirts of Port Vila. It is from here, with only a
few fluorescent lights overhead, that a number of young men and women have created a bold,
simple and effective series of drawings (subsequently transformed into prints in Australia) as
a response to their changing daily environment; their primary inspiration derived from their
encounters with advertising signage promoting food, beverages and commercial products in
the capital. David Kolin’s drawing of a lion, with the speech bubble text ‘Mi laekem kae kaeman’,
which translates as ‘I like to eat man’, is a humorous response to the viewing of National
Geographic magazines showing African fauna.
Some of the artists also draw on their cultural heritage, like Herveline Lité who comes from
the island of Malakula, where sand-drawing is prevalent. 11 Her vibrant blue work features
a compartmentalised design comprised of rectilinear and circular motifs. In this work, Lité
references a large natural rock lying four kilometres off the coast of Mataso, which is a
favourite fishing location for villagers. It was also used for target practice by United States Navy
personnel during World War Two and, over time, the holes in the monolithic rock face have
served as nesting spots for pigeons which are hunted every spring. The soldiers’ presence on
the islands is still very visible through the abandoned machinery and army barracks, and the
glass Coke bottles peppering Efate’s north coast shoreline.
In contrast, a more sombre, and ultimately violent, act which occurred on the Vanuatu coast
in the late nineteenth century was the practice of ‘blackbirding’. Between the 1860s and early
1900s, ni-Vanuatuans (amongst other Melanesians and some Polynesians) were kidnapped to
work on sugar plantations in Queensland and Fiji. 12 This ‘recruitment’ preceded that of Indian
indentured labour and is addressed in Teitei vou (A new garden).
Marcel (Mars Melto) Meltherorong, a prominent ni-Vanuatuan singer–songwriter, recently
composed a reggae song with Georgia Corowa called ‘Slavaland’, lamenting the taking of
their forefathers. The song ends with the lyric: ‘Melanesians, Polynesians and Micronesians are
coming, you better be ready!’. No music seems more suited to melding storytelling with a call
38 39

tok pisin (Papuan pidgin) to a Tahitian (Polynesian) audience who then sing the chorus to him —
but perhaps this is simply due to this pan-Pacific star’s charisma and catchy tunes. Whatever the
reason, Pacific reggae is traversing this ‘one saltwater’, creating a multitude of narratives about
a region and a people who ‘stand up for their rights’ and who confront social, political and
environmental issues when needed, but which also promotes the things that strengthen in the
face of adversity — community, family and, of course, romance.
Together, projects such as these continue to build on a conversation with the people of the
Pacific that began in 1993 with the first APT, but which is now also maintained through this
Gallery’s collecting practices and exhibition programming. 16 This dialogue is liberating for its
open-endedness.
for social consciousness than reggae. Across one third of the world’s surface, Pacific people
come together to make reggae, continuing an oral history, regardless of what is happening
outside the ‘one saltwater’. 13 Today, Pacific reggae is flourishing; musicians travel throughout
the region to perform in concerts and festivals, such as the annual Fest’Napuan festival, which
began in 1996, and where, on a large outdoor stage on the lawns of the Vanuatu Cultural
Centre, musicians play to crowds gathered in their thousands.
Pacific Reggae: Roots Beyond the Reef, co-curated with Brent Clough, brings together reggae
artists from Hawai’i, New Zealand, Australia and Melanesia. It presents their unique approaches
to this music genre which originated in Jamaica. Through video clips, playlists, interviews,
documentaries and live performances, the project shows how reggae is one of the Pacific’s
most valued means of communication. As Clough argues, reggae is used by many in these
island nations to highlight the political and social problems that are often ignored due to the
promotion of tourism-related language and images. 14
For reggae, the language of choice is principally a local form of pidgin. Melanesian pidgin
(Hawai’i has its own) arose in the nineteenth century, when Europeans were harvesting and
trading sandalwood and sea cucumbers (known as bêche-de-mer in French), and had to
develop a common form of communication. It was primarily during the ‘blackbirding’ period,
however, that Melanesian men developed pidgin as a communicative tool of survival used
between themselves and the overseers. Those men who returned to their own countries
continued using pidgin when working with foreigners, and the language proliferated. The form
of pidgin in Vanuatu is Bislama (derived from the phonetic bêche-de-mer), and is now one
of the archipelago’s official languages, with ni-Vanuatuans also speaking English and French,
as well as a number of their own vernacular languages. 15 Although pidgin languages across
Melanesia have developed their own lexicons, for the most part they are widely understood.
This doesn’t explain how the blond-dreadlocked, Papuan-raised O-shen can sing ‘Meri Lewa’ in
26 Roots at home in Espíritu Santo, Vanuatu
Photograph: Dan Cole
Endnotes
1 Robin White: ‘For us — especially for Leba and Bale — it was a way of signalling our presence in that place, as well
as representing the idea of growth . . . and the process of growth . . . it’s really about people and about growing
communities’. Email to the author, 14 October 2009.
2 Okwui Enwezor, ‘Curating beyond the canon’, in Paul O’Neill (ed.), Curating Subjects, Open Editions, London,
2007, p.119.
3 See the Pacific Textiles Project featured in APT5, which displayed ibe vakabati as well as cloth textiles.
4 See Nicholas Thomas, ‘Our history is written in our mats’, in The 5th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
[exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2006, pp.24–31.
5 Refer to the work of, but not exclusively, Marcia Langton, Ian McLean and Nicholas Thomas.
6 Ian McLean, ‘Aboriginal Modernism in Central Australia’, in Kobena Mercer (ed.), Exiles, Diasporas and Strangers,
Iniva and MIT Press, London, 2008, p.75.
7 Ruth McDougall, ‘Vanuatu sculptors: Innovation and tradition’, in The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary
Art [exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2009, pp.188–91.
8 Kirk Huffman, ‘Sacred pigs to Picasso. Vanuatu art in the traditional and “modern” worlds’, Art and Australia,
vol.46, no.3, 2009, p.476.
9 Huffman also recounts that, as far back as the nineteenth century, the Ambrymese had discovered that the
laundry bleaching solution Reckitt’s Blue when left to dry, then mixed, formed a brilliant ultramarine colour, which
is echoed in much of the mague figures’ colouration. See Huffman, p.476.
10 As relayed to the author by David Baker, the donor of this group of works.
11 Called ‘sandroing’ locally; a key feature of this visual form of communication is that motifs are drawn directly
onto the sand in one single movement.
12 South Sea Islanders are the Australian descendants of these ‘blackbirded’ men and women.
13 Marcel ‘Mars Melto’ Meltherorong video interview with the author, 6 July 2009, as featured in Pacific Reggae:
Roots Beyond the Reef for APT6.
14 Brent Clough, ‘Pacific Reggae: Roots Beyond the Reef’, in The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
[exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2009, pp.160–3.
15 For example, the national anthem is in Bislama, and there are over 100 vernacular languages in Vanuatu.
16 Most recently, and running concurrently with APT6, is the exhibition ‘Paperskin: Barkcloth across the Pacific’,
a collaboration involving the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the Queensland Museum and the
Queensland Art Gallery.
40 41

Promised lands
Jose Da Silva and Kathryn Weir
Yael Bartana’s video A Declaration 2006 opens with a man rowing in the Mediterranean Sea.
He anchors alongside Andromeda’s Rock in Jaffa Harbor, where he substitutes the Israeli flag
planted on the rock with an olive tree. Seen within the context of Israeli–Palestinian relations,
the man’s actions are a bold intervention into the territory staked by the flag. The olive tree’s
symbolic resonance also imbues the gesture with sacred significance, representing not only
a peace offering and a call for an end to conflict, but also a celebration of strength and the
capacity for renewal. Promised Lands, a major cinema project for APT6, features artists and
filmmakers who similarly find opportunities to rethink the past and imagine the future. As in
Bartana’s poetic statement, their work draws on the historical roots of contemporary experience,
bringing the past to life in the present to transform our understanding of then and now.
Promised Lands profiles cinematic and geopolitical relationships throughout the Indian
subcontinent (Bangladesh, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Sri Lanka) and across to West Asia and the
Middle East (including Afghanistan, Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kurdistan, Lebanon, Palestine
and Turkey). In the context of the APT, which seeks to question the cultural and geographical
frameworks of the Asia Pacific region, Promised Lands offers an opportunity to open up a
deeper conversation with West Asia and the Middle East. This discussion underlines the need
for a more specific awareness of distinct histories and genealogies within these regions, while
also acknowledging interactions and shared influences across borders. Through the process
of bringing political geographies and histories into question, the opportunity arises to reflect
on how the region’s complex and diverse cultures and artistic practices contribute to new and
more nuanced understandings of ‘Asia’.
Promised Lands includes five programs of film and video that consider local politics and
individual lives within a larger context. Each program has an autonomous curatorial framework:
responses to civil war in Sri Lanka (The Road to Jaffna); the legacies of partition across the
Indian subcontinent (Cinema of Partition); dissent and the affirmation of cultural identity
in a climate of political intervention in West Asia, as well as the fraught nexus of religious
fundamentalism and national politics (The Tree of Life); the traumatic histories linking Armenia
and Turkey (Return of the Poet); and fault lines throughout the Middle East in response to
conflict and territorial incursions in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon (Eating My Heart). Several
broad themes appear across these strands, in particular the intersection of daily life with
relationships to land, religious affiliations and cultural histories.
Artists and filmmakers across the Indian subcontinent have given expression to the
consequences of partitioning British India into the states of India and Pakistan following
the country’s independence from colonial rule in 1947. This imposed geographic division
along religious lines caused profound physical, social and emotional scars for Muslim, Hindu,
Mahmoud al Massad
Jordan b.1969
Production still from Ea’ Adat Khalk (Recycle) 2007 /
HD video, colour, Dolby SR, 78 minutes, Netherlands/
Jordan, Arabic (English subtitles) / Image courtesy:
Wide Management, Paris
42

Vimukthi Jayasundara
Sri Lanka b.1977
Production still from Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken
Land) 2005 / 35mm, colour, Dolby SR, 108 minutes,
Sri Lanka/France, Sinhala (English subtitles) / Image
courtesy: Unlimited Films, Paris
Sarah Singh
India b.1971
Production still from The Sky Below 2007 / Digital video,
black and white and colour, stereo, 76 minutes, India/
Pakistan, Urdu/Hindi/English/Punjab/Sindhi/Kashmiri
(English subtitles) / Image courtesy: The artist
Christian and Sikh communities that are still carried in the region today. Large-scale border
crossings and emigration occurred in attempts to flee conflict, intolerance and economic
hardship, and individual and collective identities were subject to media and political
manipulation. East Pakistan, which would become Bangladesh after the Liberation War of 1971,
also suffered economically and culturally when it was separated from the rest of Bengal, and the
exodus to the wealthy emirates of the Persian Gulf that began at this time continues today.
Filmmakers working in India after partition have attempted to address what had been repressed
through fear of further conflict. Ritwik Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star) 1960
is considered one of the most important cinematic statements of its time. Set amongst a refugee
community in post-partition Bengal, it is a compassionate study of dislocation and poverty
experienced by a family uprooted from their ancestral home. Sanjay Kak and Sarah Singh belong
to a younger generation of documentary filmmakers who offer insights into the continuing effects
of partition and the possibility of transcending the divisions created. In Jashn-e-Azadi (How We
Celebrate Freedom) 2007, Kak examines two decades of conflict in the disputed territories of
Jammu and Kashmir and the differing interpretations of azadi (freedom) throughout the Kashmir
valley. By reflecting on first-person testimonies, Singh’s The Sky Below 2007 asks whether the
shared cultural roots of India and Pakistan may bring lasting peace between them in the future.
Similarly, in the predominantly Buddhist country of Sri Lanka, filmmakers have examined the 26
years of civil war between the Sinhala majority and Tamil minority, and the continuing struggle for
an independent Tamil state. 1 In Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken Land) 2005 and Ahasin Wetei
(Between Two Worlds) 2009, Vimukthi Jayasundara expresses a pervasive ambivalence felt in
Sri Lanka. The films respectively investigate a period of ceasefire in 2001, and the defeat of the
Tamil Tigers by the Sri Lankan military in May 2009, both signalling the end, if only temporarily,
of fighting throughout the country. 2 Jayasundara shows a nation suspended in a state of being
without war and without peace and, like his contemporaries Asoka Handagama, Dharmasena
Pathiraja and Prasanna Vithanage, attempts to reconcile the history, religious myth and political
rhetoric which have brought both Tamil and Sinhalese nationalist discourse into being.
Artists and filmmakers in Lebanon, Israel and Palestine underline the imbrication of faith,
nationalism and memory, as well as the relationship between political instability and resistance
across the Middle East. Cinematic approaches to its social and political situation often
combine personal observations with performative devices designed to question the situations
presented and their inscription in collective memory. First shot as a documentary before
being reconstructed as an animated film, Ari Folman’s Vals Im Bashir (Waltz with Bashir) 2008
explores the trauma — and its legacy of unresolved guilt — that he experienced as a young
Israeli conscript during the 1982 Israel–Lebanon war. 3 The soldier’s haunting dreams awaken a
powerful examination of personal memory and responsibility independent of media versions of
the events. In contrast, Avi Mograbi’s Z32 2008 uses musical numbers and a Greek chorus-like
ensemble to reflect the director’s ambivalence at reducing to artistic representation a soldier’s
confession of complicity in the death of two innocent Palestinian policemen.
Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s Baddi Chouf (I Want to See) 2008 underlines the
importance of bearing witness to historical events. The directors stage a road trip for French actress
Catherine Deneuve and celebrated Lebanese artist–actor Rabih Mroué to survey the devastated
regions of southern Lebanon after the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War. Explaining their motivation
for the experiment and its significance for international audiences, the directors have written:
There are many things to be seen, but what do we see? . . . Catherine never pretends she
knows, she is not affirming anything . . . Catherine herself says: ‘I don’t know if I’ll understand
anything, but I want to see’. In today’s world, it is important to be in a time of questioning.
We are never finished with what there is to see, the important [thing] is the feeling. 4
44 45

Ari Folman
Israel b.1963
Production stills from Vals Im Bashir (Waltz with Bashir)
2008 / 35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 90 minutes, Israel/
France/USA/Finland/Switzerland/Belgium/Australia,
Hebrew/German/English/Arabic (English subtitles) /
Image courtesy: Sharmill Films, Melbourne
While Palestinian cinema finds its roots in the traumatic experience of dispossession — the nakba
or ‘catastrophe’, 5 which followed the exodus of Palestinians from their homeland and the creation
of the State of Israel in 1948 — many contemporary artists and filmmakers working in the Gaza
Strip have produced works that stand out against the gravity we might expect. Elia Suleiman’s
Al Zaman Al Baqi (The Time That Remains) 2009 uses irreverent humour and absurdist situations
to chart his father’s move from resistance fighter during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence to
postwar compliance, alongside the filmmaker’s own path from young conformist to rebellious
activist then, ultimately, to mute observer. Larissa Sansour’s Happy Days 2006 employs the theme
music from the 1970s American sitcom of the same name to convey the resilience of individuals
in the occupied territories and their ability to transcend expectations of their experiences.
A refusal to be defined by historical trauma or political circumstances is characteristic of works
by artists and filmmakers from Armenia and the diaspora. At the juncture of West Asia and
Eastern Europe, Armenians live with the legacies of the 1915 Armenian Genocide in which over
a million Armenians were killed. 6 Economic hardships resulting from Armenia’s independence
from the Soviet Union in 1991, as well as the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict that followed it,
are reflected in Harutyun Khachatryan’s Sahman (Border) 2009, where a buffalo becomes
the symbol of trauma and redemption on a farm occupied by refugees. Artavazd Pelechian’s
cinematic poems Tarva Yeghanakneve aka Vremena Goda (The Seasons) 1972 and Obibateli
(The Inhabitants) 1970 celebrate resilient humanity, raw animal life, landscape and community
in an allegorical register that creates new cinematic languages.
The region from Afghanistan to Iraq and Iran has experienced parallel trajectories of political
manipulation, war and invasion, with outside political interference in Iran’s internal politics from
the 1950s, three decades of conflict in Afghanistan, the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Iran–
Iraq War (1980–88), the United States’ military aggression in Iraq in the 1990s and 2000s, and
the ongoing plight of Kurdish people living across the geographic lines of Iran, Iraq and Turkey.
Shahram Alidi’s Sirta la Gal ba (Whisper with the Wind) 2009 is a poetic exploration of Kurdish
survival in a landscape marked by this turbulent history. A postman performs the role of a
messenger of hope and reconciliation, playing recordings of combatants and isolated survivors
trying to reconnect with family. Other artists and filmmakers have explored possibilities for selfaffirmation
and dissidence in younger generations, as well as the position of women. Working
against the grain of media images of war, terrorism and religious extremism, they have sought to
articulate complex local knowledges, and emerge from a vibrant social and artistic context that
draws on a rich heritage of art, architecture and literature, and historical networks of exchange.
The last decade has seen the rise of affordable digital filmmaking and the regional mobility
of artists and filmmakers, allowing local stories to be recorded in isolated regions and shared
internationally. Hana Makhmalbaf’s Ruzhaye Sabz (Green Days) 2009 is a testament to these
freedoms, documenting the violent government crackdown on mass demonstrations following
the disputed Iranian presidential election in 2009. Makhmalbaf shoots directly amid the
protests in Tehran and tells the story of a young Iranian woman’s creative crisis amid these
events. Makhmalbaf has reflected on her role in mediating representations of these events:
I am not a sociologist but my film is sociological. My camera works like a mirror to show
you the Iranian society undergoing a revolution with all its hopes and doubts. 7
A fragile mood of hope is also revealed in Mahmoud al Massad’s Ea’ Adat Khalk (Recycle)
2007, where Abu Amar, a former Mujaheddin reflects on the economic and political conditions
46 47

that breed jihadist sentiment in the contemporary Arab world. Living in the poor Jordanian
neighbourhood once shared by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader killed in 2006
by US forces in Iraq, Amar discusses faith and hope in Islam in the face of poverty and radical
religious doctrine.
While political and colonial legacies have divided land and communities, Promised Lands points
to the aspirations of artists and filmmakers to reframe these struggles and find a path forward.
The program brings together works that project possibilities for change and explore the hopes
of exiled and dispossessed communities to return to, or create, a homeland. The artists and
filmmakers featured in Promised Lands provide extraordinary insights into complex contemporary
situations, and work in myriad ways to counter the insidious effects of cultural homogenisation.
Their individual narratives offer a depth of understanding rarely available in official histories and
suggest new possibilities for relationships and understanding. The past and present in the first
person take discussions of the future out of the realm of rhetoric and into a shared framework of
responsibility. When Larissa Sansour raises a Palestinian flag on the moon in her video A Space
Exodus 2008, she employs a fantastical mode which carries with it the understanding that a torn
social fabric can be reshaped through a sense of community and possibility.
Endnotes
1 The origins of the Sri Lankan civil war extend to the period after British colonial rule ended in 1948, and in the
drafting of the country’s first post-independence constitution. Sinhalese nationalists moved to replace English
as the official language and in the process disavowed the Tamil language and all vernacular dialects. Charges
of discrimination led to riots and a growing demand for an autonomous Tamil state in the north and east of the
country. Increasing political confrontations followed, leading to military and terrorist hostilities that plunged
the country into civil war.
2 The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is commonly referred to as the LTTE or Tamil Tigers.
3 The title of the film refers to the Lebanese Christian president and Israel ally Bashir Gemayel, whose assassination
in September 1982 triggered a violent anti-Muslim backlash and the massacre of Palestinian and Lebanese
civilians in Sabra and Shatila by Lebanese Phalangist militia units.
4 Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, interview with Claire Vassé, Film Boutique press kit, , viewed 19 October 2009.
5 The term nakba was popularised after the publishing of Syrian historian Constantine Zurayk’s Ma’na al-Nakba
(The Meaning of the Disaster) in 1948.
6 The Armenian Genocide during the Ottoman Empire is the first and arguably least addressed genocide of
the twentieth century. The Turkey–Armenia genocide dispute remains primary to Turkey’s exclusion from the
European Union and fulfilment of the Copenhagen Criteria.
7 Hana Makhmalbaf, Makhmalbaf Film House, ,
viewed 19 October 2009.
Yael Bartana
Israel b.1970
Production still from A Declaration 2006 / Digital video,
colour, stereo, 7:30 minutes, Israel / Image courtesy:
The artist and Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam
Larissa Sansour
Israel b.1973
Production still from A Space Exodus 2008 /
HD video, colour, Dolby SR, 5:24 minutes, Denmark,
English / Image courtesy: The artist and Le Galerie
La B.A.N.K, Paris
Hana Makhmalbaf
Iran b.1988
Production still from Ruzhaye sabz (Green Days) 2009 /
HD Video, colour, stereo, 87 minutes, Iran, Farsi (English
subtitles) / Image courtesy: Wild Bunch, Paris
48 49

The hungry goat: Iranian animation, media
archaeology and located visual worlds
Kathryn Weir
In 2005, an Iranian archaeologist revealed an extraordinary insight into the sequence of images
painted on an earthenware pot excavated in the 1970s from the 5000-year-old city of Shahr-e
Sukhte. 1 The excavation of the ‘burnt city’, so-called as it was repeatedly destroyed by fire, is
situated in the Sistan-Baluchistan province in the south-east of Iran. Apart from making pottery
and growing crops, the ancient inhabitants of the city wove and knitted dyed threads, and
created complex games. The pot features five sequential images of a goat jumping up to eat
leaves from a tree; its goblet shape — a bowl on a stem — could function to spin the pot as an
optical device, allowing a viewer to perceive movement and duration and constituting a form
of animation. Whether or not the motifs were actually viewed in this way, the pot remains an
important expression of the desire to represent time and movement. The art of animation in Iran
today draws on rich visual languages and techniques which incorporate the artistic heritage of
textile design, Persian folk tales and literature, calligraphy, and miniature painting, as well as the
motifs of interior design, ceramics and architecture. The APT6 cinema project The Cypress and
the Crow: 50 Years of Iranian Animation profiles influential senior figures, including Esfandiar
Ahmadieh, Abdollah Alimorad, Vadjiollah Fard Moghadam, Ali Akbar Sadeghi and Noureddin
Zarrinkelk, through to the current generation of talented emerging artists. Animation is
recognised in Iran as a medium which is closely related to drawing, painting and the graphic arts.
A direct reference to the Shahr-e Sukhte pot’s sequential hungry goat motifs is found in
Moin Samadi’s Boz Bazi (Boz Game) 2007, a short animation which shows the goat jumping
off the pot and cavorting across Persian history, occasionally leaping up to score points, in a
pastiche of the Super Mario Brothers video games. The work riffs on race-to-the-finish-line,
teleological accounts of culture, art and animation, in which present glorious achievements
are predetermined by past discoveries and successes, with the points accumulating until it’s
‘game over’. In his influential essay of 2004 ‘The new film history as media archaeology’, film
and media theorist Thomas Elsaesser discusses how the histories of the relationships between
art forms and their technologies have been told in evolutionary terms, identifying origins and
tracing lines of descent. 2 Elsaesser proposes an approach to constellations of related or parallel
phenomena, histories in which the irrecoverable past ‘can be seized only by a hermeneutics
of the fragment, a discourse of metonymies, and an “allegorical” view of (always already lost)
totalities’. 3 The past is ultimately inaccessible, but the fragments and forms which remain can
be reinterpreted by historians, and also by artists. The hungry goat pot would accordingly be
understood not as part of a linear sequence of aesthetic or optical discoveries, but rather as an
instance of visual language representing movement and duration, not necessarily less or more
complex than other languages developed at other times. In Bache ha dar moozeh (Children
at the Museum) 1987, Abdollah Alimorad combines live action and animation to represent
children’s imaginations animating objects and bringing their motifs to life. He points to how
the objects — or remaining traces of another era, in this case conserved in a museum — which
Moin Samadi
Iran b.1979
Boz Bazi (Boz Game) (stills) 2007 / DVD, black and
white, stereo, 2:30 minutes, Iran / Image courtesy:
Raiavin, Tehran
50 51

vehicle the narrative and aesthetic preoccupations of their time and place of origin, may be
interpreted, their motifs extrapolated and reconfigured.
Maryam Bayani’s Dastane Sofal (The Pottery Tale) 2008 uses what she identifies as the ‘motion
potential’ in patterns drawn from about 165 different pieces of prehistoric pottery from different
regions of the Iranian Plateau, animating these to music. 4 Movement is suggested in different
ways; for example, two positions of the motif of a group dancing helped the filmmaker to
extrapolate a type of ancient dance. In other cases, the motion elaborates on a single image
and its references to a story or symbol:
A good example here is the story of the growth of plants from ox’s blood and the symbolic
concept of the antler, representing a plant, which made a relationship between the hunter,
ox, deer and plant to create a scene manifesting life coming out of the death. 5
When a contemporary animator brings to life a dance form or constellation of symbols recorded
in another medium in another era, the circulation of motifs modifies the context of production
and viewing, creating new possibilities — what Elsaesser calls ‘new diegetic worlds or new media
ontologies’; 6 he gives the example of the rediscovery by artists of early and classical cinema
practices in what has been called ‘the cinema effect’. 7 This finds expression also in the reworking
of other forms of art and literature through animation. Seyyed Morteza Ahadi’s Gonjeshk va
Panbeh Daneh (The Sparrow and the Boll) 2007 is a textile animation which shows the stages
of fabrication of its own medium. Using cut-out elements of felt, jute cloth, wood and threads,
Ahadi tells an old Persian tale that exists in different regional variants, recounting the adventures
of a sparrow and the farmer who is determined to catch it. A young girl helps the sparrow to
escape from a trap; the bird holds a cotton boll in its beak which is first spun, then dyed, then
woven before being offered to the girl to fix her skirt.
Seyyed Morteza Ahadi
Iran b.1963
Production still from Gonjeshk va Panbeh Daneh
(The Sparrow and the Boll) 2007 / 35mm, colour, stereo,
12 minutes, Iran / Image courtesy: Kanoon, Tehran
Farhad Moshiri
Iran
Converted Heirloom 2007
Carpet cut out / 600 x 400cm / Image courtesy:
The artist and The Third Line, Dubai
Vadjiollah Fard Moghadam
Iran b.1945
Production still from Lili Lili Hosak (Lily Lily Little Pool)
1992 / 35mm, colour, stereo, 16 minutes, Iran / Image
courtesy: Kanoon, Tehran
Abdollah Alimorad
Iran b.1947
Production still from Bache ha dar Moozeh (Children at
the Museum) 1987 / 35mm, colour, stereo, 10 minutes,
Iran / Image courtesy: Kanoon, Tehran
Particular art forms or technologies are valorised in particular histories, and function to normalise
and promote the world view of a particular place. In his monograph of 2006, The Theft of History,
cultural historian Jack Goody points, for example, to the high value that celebrated French
historiographer Fernand Braudel gives the use of a table as an indicator of culture and progress,
when he records that the Arabs did not have the use of them; Goody suggests that ‘it might
equally be claimed that Europeans did not have the carpet or the divan until they arrived from
the east’. 8 The carpet is a social and aesthetic, even spiritual, form which circulates in an economy
of identity and value in Iranian literature, art and animation. It links the domestic space to these
other realms. Farhad Moshiri, an Iranian artist who is showing a series of paintings in APT6, has
previously fabricated both prosaic and political manifestations of the Persian carpet: Flying
Carpet 2007 consists of a pile of carpets from which cut-outs of stealth bomber planes have been
52 53

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
Iran b.1924
Shazde Garden – Kerman (detail) 2009
Mirror mosaic, reverse glass painting and plaster on
wood / 180 x 110cm / Courtesy: The artist and The
Third Line, Dubai
removed and placed in proximity; Converted Heirloom 2007 is a single carpet cut into the floor
plan of an apartment — the domestic as reduced, constrained by walls and not alive with social
or aesthetic possibility. In Lili Lili Hosak (Lily Lily Little Pool) 1992, Vadjiollah Fard Moghadam
tells the story of a chick falling in a pool and its parents trying to get help from the community of
other animals to save it; the stylised geometrical forms of the animals, trees and pool are cited
from carpet designs. The narrative of carpets functions in every direction, offering a model of a
non-linear experience of time and place, and carpet designs literally link different geographies
through natural motifs. In Noureddin Zarrinkelk’s Pood (Persian Carpet) 1998, a father takes the
family’s herd north in search of water during a drought; on his return, he invents the carpet in
order to bring the sea and the forest that he has seen back to his children in the desert. Nazanin
Sarbandi’s Ghali (Carpet) 1980 similarly plays on carpet design that resembles an undulating
landscape running to a great ocean of blue with island swirls, made real in a child’s imagination.
a full-grown tree, a refuge for birds and insects. The celebrated Sufi text Mantiq at-Tayr (The
Conference of the Birds), by mystic and poet Farid Ud-Din Attar, is adapted in animated form by
Mohammad ali Soleymanzadeh in Kalaghi keh Mikhast Ghavita rin Bashed (A Crow Who Wanted
to be the Strongest) 1998, and by Ahadi in Safar-e Bidari (The Path of Love) 2004. The story
recounts a pilgrimage of the birds in search of the Simorgh, the mystical sun bird who lives on
the cosmic mountain Qaf. Only 30 birds survive to attain the realisation that the nature of the
Simorgh, what they have been seeking, is within them as their own profound essence. Many of
the animation works in The Cypress and the Crow: 50 Years of Iranian Animation feature animal
figures — birds, mice, the fox, the goat and many more — which have literary and symbolic
associations, and are also alter egos for humanity. The crow exhibits the baser human traits —
selfishness, suspicion, greed, opportunism — but is also crafty and intelligent; there are many
stories about crows.
The garden and the tree of life are important Persian carpet motifs, defining a locus of art and
the sacred in the domestic realm; gardens figure in the Persian mystical literature of Hafez,
Rumi and Omar Khayyám as places of spiritual refuge and transcendence. Caribbean novelist,
poet and essayist Édouard Glissant, whose writings have been influential in the field of postcolonial
criticism, contends that every work of art carries in it a totalité-monde (or world-totality),
which links the particular place where the work is emitted to a world view from there. 9 Monir
Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, who has created a large-scale installation for APT6, Lightning for
Neda 2009, also completed this year a smaller work entitled Shazde Garden – Kerman, in the
same materials of reverse-glass painting: plaster and mirrors. Here, Farmanfarmaian represents
the cypress, sacred in Iran, and links it to the tree of life. In the Islamic tradition, the tree of life
is in heaven and harbours brightly coloured birds which sing melodiously, representing the
souls of the faithful; the tree may also represent the human body and aspirations to the divine. 10
Farkhondeh Torabi’s Risheh dar Asseman (The Sprout) 2006, a pebble and sand animation,
shows a young shoot surviving harsh conditions until one day it surges and blossoms into
Maryam Bayani
Iran b.1982
Dastane Sofal (The Pottery Tale) (stills) 2008 / Digital
video, black and white and colour, stereo, 8:34 minutes,
Iran / Images courtesy: The artist
Kurdish–Iranian painter Mashaallah Mohammadi began making animations five years ago
on the basis of scanned drawings. In his short work Other Being 2006, a man is shot and
falls into a pool, where his lifeblood transforms into red fishes. Laleh Khorramian’s I Without
End 2008 concentrates life and love into two figures formed in orange peel and placed in
a miniature domestic interior. They sit together, curl around each other, and convey intense
fragility and emotion. Many contemporary animation works by artists function in this way, as
visual poems in which crystallising images vehicle metaphoric associations. In an international
context, animators are often not recognised as artists, nor their works as art objects; animation
frequently falls between the gaps of art and film. When exhibited in an art context, the
extraordinarily diverse aesthetic qualities of these works, which combine all of the plastic arts,
film, video and computer-based media, disrupt and bring into dialogue otherwise hermetic
spheres of production and exhibition. Art historian and cultural critic Susan Buck-Morss
points to the unique vitality of art practices for which there is no formal institutional context of
exhibition. She refers to the ‘gesture of disappearance’, where ‘aesthetic experience manages
54 55

to escape not only the artworld, but all “worlds” as disciplinary regimes’. 11 In his writings on
what he calls ‘polyculturalism’ (as opposed to multiculturalism), cultural theorist Vijay Prashad
posits, like Elsaesser, that ‘the task of the historian is not to carve out the lineages but to make
sense of how people live culturally dynamic lives’ which partake of a ‘host of lineages’. Cultural
phenomena and individual lives are both coherent and extremely complex and open: ‘Social
interaction and struggle produces cultural works, and these are in constant, fraught formation’. 12
As an infinitely varied visual field which reworks cultural forms, Iranian animation expresses
many historical lineages and geographical relationships; working against tendencies to cultural
homogenisation, these works offer ways of seeing that displace and expand visual experience,
and make new, located, and always provisional, visual worlds.
Endnotes
1 The pot is held in the National Museum of Iran in Tehran.
2 Thomas Elsaesser, ‘The new film history as media archaeology’, Cinémas: Journal of Film Studies, vol.14, no.2–3,
Spring 2004, pp.75–117.
3 Elsaesser, paragraph 32.
4 The music, inspired by the folk music of Baluchistan, was composed and adapted by Shir-mohammad Espandar.
5 Maryam Bayani, email to the author, 10 September 2009.
6 Elsaesser, paragraph 54.
7 Elsaesser, paragraph 1. See also The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image [exhibition catalogue],
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 2008; Cinéma Cinéma: Contemporary Art and the Cinematic Experience
[exhibition catalogue], Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, and NAi Publishers, Rotterdam, 1999; Art and
Film since 1945: The Hall of Mirrors [exhibition catalogue], Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and The
Monacelli Press, New York, 1996; Spellbound: Art and Film [exhibition catalogue], Hayward Gallery and British
Film Institute, London, 1996; Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel (eds), Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after
Film, MIT Press, Boston, 2003.
8 Jack Goody, The Theft of History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006, p.185.
9 Édouard Glissant, Introduction à une poétique du divers, Gallimard, Paris, 1996, p.34.
10 Jasleen Dhamija, Living Traditions of Iran’s Crafts, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, and Farabi University,
Tehran, 1979, p.63–4.
11 Susan Buck-Morss, Thinking past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory on the Left, Verso, London and New York,
2003, p.73.
12 Vijay Prashad, Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity,
Beacon Press, Boston, 2001, p.148.
Laleh Khorramian
Iran b.1974
I Without End (single channel) (still) (detail) 2008 /
Digital betacam, colour, stereo, 6:20 minutes, Iran /
Image courtesy: The artist and Salon 94, New York
56

The world and the studio
Russell Storer
To make their ‘Blurring the Boundaries’ series, Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu transposed a set of
exhibitions into their studio, and then sent them out into an exhibition again. In other words,
they carefully constructed tiny exhibition models to house their paintings, video works and
installations, photographed them, and now present them in the Asia Pacific Triennial as a
sequence of digital prints. A complex network of objects and images is formed in which the
original, the copy, the real and the fictive have become utterly entangled. Further complicating
matters, some of the models contain little versions of Wah Nu’s works, others feature Tun Win
Aung’s — yet the creative process is a collaborative one, and the work is attributed accordingly.
On close viewing, what might appear to be a hermetic, relatively modest project begins to
speak volumes about the nature of making and exhibiting art. Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu
live and work in Yangon (Rangoon) in Myanmar, which, as the artist and curator Chu Chu Yuan
has written, is:
. . . a country where if one is not interested to produce the kind of art that is saleable in the
galleries in Myanmar, then there is little other possibilities except to make art for oneself, or for
one’s partner; rare as it is to find alternative support structures for art or to be able to express
the sense of connections between art and society. 1
In an environment in which access to information, audiences and other artists can be seriously
limited, the dialogue the artists have with each other is essential. Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu’s
immaculate models can be read as proposals for the kind of public discourse for art that a
gallery exhibition offers. These exhibitions may never be realised in real space, but are made
available to those visiting the artists’ studio, and now to audiences in Brisbane via photographs.
In most societies, art-making has traditionally been a group undertaking, from artisanal
communities to guilds and formal studios. Artists all over the world often band together
when a need is felt, to create support structures and opportunities for themselves and
for others. These can be thought of as spaces, both physical and conceptual, for making,
discussing and exhibiting art. Some early forms of critical collaboration were avant-garde
collectives and societies in Europe, established in opposition to existing forms of artistic
production and circulation. The conservative salons of late nineteenth-century Paris and Vienna
gave rise to Gustave Courbet’s Fédération des artistes and Gustav Klimt’s Vienna Secession,
which organised their own exhibitions to advance the cause of artistic innovation. The early
twentieth century Avant-garde is synonymous with artist groups formed to challenge art and
society — the dadaists, constructivists, futurists, surrealists, and De Stijl, for example. Collective
practice responds to specific conditions, and has often been evoked at times of great political
upheaval, with groups able to achieve more than individuals in mobilising change. From the
Charwei Tsai
Taiwan b.1980
Earth mantra 2009
Performance, Taipei, Taiwan 2009 / Image courtesy:
The artist
58

Grupo de Artistas de Vanguardia under the Ongania dictatorship in Argentina, to the Stars in
post-Cultural Revolution China, to the Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru Indonesia (New Indonesian Art
Movement) during the Suharto era, artist groups have pushed for broader possibilities for art,
which, in many cases, are closely allied with alternative political models. 2
Artistic collaboration can, however, take in a wide range of structures: artist duos, collectives,
artist groups, art societies and artist-run initiatives, any of which may be temporary or ongoing.
It can also extend to include the teamwork of art-making itself; that is, working with technicians,
assistants, fabricators and/or artisans in the production process. Each collaboration has its own
reason for forming, and its own particular dynamics in terms of authorship and attribution, process
and final outcome. What they share is the acknowledgment of art as a fundamentally social
activity, rather than a rarefied, autonomous production of objects by an individual ‘genius’, which
has long been a basis for artistic value. In his study on collaboration, Charles Green observes:
. . . teamwork in post-1960s art challenged not only the terms in which artistic identity was
conventionally conceived but also the ‘frame’ — the discursive boundary between the ‘inside’
and the ‘outside’ of a work of art’. 3
When these social relationships are made explicit in the work, it not only shifts the nature
of an art work’s authorship, but also its context — not least the transition out of the studio and
into the world.
YNG
Yoshitomo Nara
Japan b.1959
graf
Japan est. 1993
Torre di Malaga (Tower of Malaga) (detail) 2007
Installation view, CAC, Malaga / Image courtesy:
The artists and Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo /
Photograph: Hako Hosokawa
Left
Tun Win Aung
Myanmar b.1975
Wah Nu
Myanmar b.1977
Blurring the Boundaries #1 2007–09
Digital print / 42 x 59cm / Image courtesy: The artists
Right
Runa Islam
Bangladesh/United Kingdom b.1970
The Restless Subject 2008
16mm film and CD wild tracks, colour, sound,
6:42 minutes
and
Tobias Putrih
Slovenia b.1972
For The Restless Subject 2008
Plywood / 343 x 350 x 460cm / Installation view /
Image courtesy: The artists and White Cube, London /
Photograph: Todd-White Art Photography
A key aspect of APT6 is the large number of artists who work in collaboration with others, be
they other artists, practitioners from different disciplines, or gallery audiences. The motivations
and configurations vary, but, in each case, the relationships between collaborators are intrinsic
to the process of making, and are in some way constituted in the final form of the work. This
includes the ‘exquisite corpse’ sequence of drawings that comprises The One Year Drawing
Project 2005–07, passed from one artist to another across Sri Lanka — a political gesture at a
time of civil war. There is the combination of skills and traditions employed in the Fijian masi
(barkcloth) work Teitei vou (A new garden) 2009 by Leba Toki, Bale Jione and Robin White,
and Shirana Shahbazi’s commissioning of Iranian billboard painters to translate her still-life
photographs into vast canvases. There is the freestanding ‘cinema’ designed by Tobias Putrih
to screen Runa Islam’s film The Restless Subject 2008, as well as the ‘hut’ constructed by the
design firm graf to contain a room of art works by Yoshitomo Nara, recreating the atmosphere
of the artist’s workspace as a hub of interconnected ideas. The Australian group DAMP has
created a ‘cubby-house’ inside a huge plinth for visitors to spend time in, featuring items from
their shared studio in Melbourne, while Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan’s In-flight (Project: Another
Country) 2009 comprises hundreds of tiny aeroplanes made by children in the Gallery and from
all over Queensland. Charwei Tsai works with local Buddhist monks to inscribe the Heart Sutra
onto mushrooms for the duration of the exhibition, while her video projections are made to be
viewed on the hands, physically involving Gallery visitors in the activation of her images.
Whatever their rationale, collaborations such as these bring, in a sense, the ‘private’ activities
of the studio into the public eye. Artistic collaboration, as critic John Roberts has argued:
. . . directly involves shaping the ways in which art finds its sensuous and intellectual place
in the world. In this it draws into view the very nature of how, and under what conditions, art
might appear in the world. 4
60 61

Collaborative works register art’s grounding in interactions between people, with all the
negotiations and decisions that this entails. They might make us aware of artistic divisions
of labour, in which particular skills or activities are delegated amongst individuals; or of the
constructed nature of a form or style that is, by definition, not the outcome of a single ‘hand’.
In the case of temporary projects, such as Tsai’s and the Aquilizans’, the primary focus is not
the final art work, but rather the act of making, with the Gallery itself becoming the studio.
This latter form of practice — often loosely described as relational or participatory art — has
become increasingly prevalent since the 1990s, and has been a strong presence in past APTs.
These include works such as Surasi Kusolwong’s Ruen pae (During the moments of the day)
1999–2000, featuring a structure based on a Thai floating house in which the audience was
invited to rest and contemplate, and Lee Mingwei’s Writing the unspoken 1999, a series of three
sculptural booths in which visitors could write personal letters.
The number of collaborative works in APT6 is a reflection of its importance to contemporary
art-making, not only in the Asia Pacific region, but internationally. Collaboration did not begin as
a prescribed theme for the exhibition, but is rather an element that appeared again and again
when looking at how artists are working today. Wit Pimkanchanapong, for example, often works
across the disciplines of art, design and architecture, and regularly collaborates with Jiro Endo,
Pitupong Chaowakul, and others as Soi Project. The work Fruits 2007–09, featured in APT6, is an
interactive project that invites the audience to construct paper fruit out of preprinted templates.
The task of folding the paper and joining the tabs is likened by Pimkanchanapong to the
process of communication, with the paper models contributing to a fruit stall-style installation
or kept for the contribution of a donation equalling the real fruit’s market price. Soi Project
enables Pimkanchanapong to develop the kinds of experimental, cross-disciplinary works that
he would not be able to realise alone; the word soi (‘small street’ in Thai) evokes connections
made between people in an urban environment.
For Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, the decision to work collaboratively came out of shared
interests and backgrounds, and developed organically as their process of emailing concepts
back and forth during art school began to coalesce as concrete projects. 5 Under the moniker
Thukral and Tagra, as well as the label Bosedk Designs, they have been working across the
areas of art and design since 2000. Their works are developed digitally before being realised as
paintings, sculptures and installations, enabling a fluid and responsive circulation of images and
ideas. Their approach reflects a more recent form of collective work, which, rather than rejecting
the promotion of artistic identity, heartily embraces it, creating their own ‘brand’. The power of the
market to absorb even some of the most resistant activities, and the shifts in identity formation
that technology has brought, has led to collaborative strategies that work with, rather than
against, consumer and media culture. Recent artist groups, according to critic Pamela M Lee:
. . . are as likely to shadow the logic of the corporation as that of the co-op, as predisposed
to emulate the thinktank as the factory floor . . . the appearance of these new collectives . . .
announces a marked shift from the ways collectives have been historically imagined relative
to their ideological filiations. 6
Yoshitomo Nara and graf’s collaborations are also presented under a ‘brand’ name, YNG, and
have been produced in gallery spaces all over the world. Sometimes working with local people
to construct them, each installation features Nara’s works within a structure, or ‘hut’, created by
graf, which reflects the architecture of its location, be it Yogyakarta, Seoul, Malaga or Brisbane.
The ‘huts’ erect a kind of barrier between the works and the museum’s white walls, enabling Nara
Wit Pimkanchanapong
Thailand b.1976
Fruits 2007
Installation view, Sharjah Biennale 2007 / Image courtesy:
The artist
Thukral and Tagra
Jiten Thukral
India b.1976
Sumir Tagra
India b.1979
Effugio (escape) 2008
Installation view, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo / Image
courtesy: The artists and Gallery Nature Morte, New Delhi
62 63

APT6 features the works of many artists born in the 1970s and 1980s, many of whom have
studied overseas, and may still live there; their points of reference are fluid and multifarious.
Collaboration’s complication of the singular artistic identity and ‘signature’ provides an
important critical current running through APT6, which, with its focus on the contemporary art
of a specific region, takes on the contestations that such a geographical framework brings.
This understanding cuts across the regional bounds of the Asia Pacific Triennial, and offers up
a range of possible readings of art works. These are subject to the equally diverse experiences
and histories that we, as audiences, bring to them; and by opening their studio doors to the
world, artists are inviting us in.
to control the environment in which they are shown, while subtly shifting the dynamics of the
gallery space. DAMP’s enormous plinth functions in a similar way, creating a structure that turns
inward, its cubby/studio being a room within a room. On top of the plinth is a circle of chairs,
which the artists have allocated for meetings by local groups at specified times, transferring
social activities traditionally external to the Gallery into the space as a performance. While many
collaborations in the past have resisted museums and proposed alternative structures, many
recent projects, such as those by YNG and DAMP, are intended to work within this context.
Museums, in turn, have been transformed by this process; opening out to more interactive
approaches, and bringing broader forms of artistic endeavour into their ambit. The growth of
relational practices over the past two decades has indeed been primarily within the circuit of art
institutions and biennales; likewise for ‘site-specific’ works, which effectively relocate the studio
to each site of display. 7
Endnotes
1 Chu Chu Yuan, ‘Wah Nu’s and Tun Win Aung’s art’, Artstream Myanmar, , viewed 15 October 2009.
2 See Angelika Nollert, ‘Art is life, and life is art’, in Collective Creativity [exhibition catalogue], Kunsthalle
Fridericianum, Kassel, and Revolver Books, Frankfurt, 2005, pp.25–9. For a historical overview of conceptualism
across the world, including numerous collaborations, see Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin, 1950s–1980s
[exhibition catalogue], Queens Museum of Art, New York, 1999.
3 Charles Green, The Third Hand: Collaboration in Art from Conceptualism to Post-Modernism, University of NSW
Press, Sydney, 2001, p.x.
4 John Roberts, ‘Collaboration as a problem of art’s cultural form’, Third Text, vol.18, no.6, 2004, p.557.
5 Russell Storer, interview with the artists, Queensland Art Gallery, 3 June 2009, QAG Research Library artist file.
6 Pamela M Lee, ‘How to be a collective in the age of the consumer sovereign’, Artforum, vol.XLVIII, no.2, October
2009, p.185.
7 Claire Bishop, ‘The social turn: Collaboration and its discontents’, Artforum, vol.XLIV, no.6, February 2006, pp.178–9.
8 Daniel Birnbaum, ‘We are many’, in Making Worlds [exhibition catalogue], 53rd Biennale of Venice, Marsilio,
Venice, p.191.
The translation from the studio to the gallery is a process with which contemporary artists across
the region are increasingly familiar, and are embracing as a means of communicating ideas
and exchanging information. Artists throughout the world are living and working in a highly
interconnected environment, socially and technologically, and their work is circulating more
widely in exhibitions around the globe. This requires a continual rethinking, for artists as well as
audiences, of context and identity, which is not, and has never been, singular and fixed. This is
an obvious but often overlooked point in the case of large international exhibitions, as curator
Daniel Birnbaum acknowledged in his essay for the 2009 Venice Biennale:
Instead of viewing ourselves and others in terms of a singular identity, we should remember
that each and every one of us carries a multitude within . . . If one maintains that a cultural event
with participants from many cultures is to be more than a stage where one culture is put on
display to another, then it may be important to insist on the complexity of individuals, not to
mention the communities that they form. 8
Surasi Kusolwong
Thailand b.1965
Ruen pae (During the moments of the day) 1999–2000
Installation at ‘The Third Asia Pacific Triennial of
Contemporary Art’, Queensland Art Gallery, 1999 /
Photograph: Ray Fulton
64 65

Minam Apang
Tales from the deep
Minam Apang’s ‘War with the stars’ series of drawings is inspired by
a folktale recorded in Verrier Elwin’s 1958 book Myths of the North-
East Frontier of India. It visually retells a creation myth similar to those
that Apang heard as a child in her grandmother’s house, and through
participating in rituals led by her shaman aunt. 1 The story describes
how fish and amphibians were created: the water dwellers are at war
with the stars, and during their unending battle climb upwards onto
rocks, but are set upon by the stars’ arrows. Those who can’t escape
are gashed and grazed by the arrows, which explains the fish’s gills.
In Apang’s work The sleeping army may stir 2008, delicately drawn
fish swarm in inky waters, ready to rise against the stars.
The Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh is a region of mountains and
valleys bordered to the north, west and east by Tibet, Bhutan and
Myanmar, respectively. It was isolated from direct external influence
until the mid 1900s, when it became the North-East Frontier of British
India. 2 Elwin, an ex-Anglican missionary and anthropologist, served
as an adviser on tribal affairs in the north-east to India’s Prime Minister
Nehru, after the country attained independence in 1947. Advocating
a policy of isolationism to preserve the traditions of the area’s many
tribal groups, Elwin devoted much of his career to recording their
animist beliefs, expressed in myth and song. Without such recording,
many of these tales would have disappeared, as most Arunachal tribes
have no indigenous form of written language. 3
Until relatively recently, foreigners were forbidden from entering
Arunachal and tribal life continued unchanged. However, the influence
of missionary activity, as well as the inevitable infiltration of tourists
and technology, has meant that Apang’s generation is not defined by
cultural and social isolation. Educated at a Christian boarding school
in Uttarakhand, Apang was distanced from her family’s tribal traditions
from a young age. Her description of her childhood sounds not unlike
those of children the world over:
I grew up watching lots of films . . . I enjoyed everything from the regional
matinees on [public TV broadcaster] Doordarshan, Bollywood, Hollywood,
to tacky action/horror films . . . We grew up reading lots of comics. 4
Further education in Chicago, Leeds and Mumbai gave Apang a sense
of being ‘at home’ and viewing the concept of national or even tribal
identity askance:
Although I live in India there is nothing in my work that may be seen
as being distinctly Indian or Adi (the tribe which my family belongs to
in AP), nor do I feel like I’m part of any one identity but maybe a part
of the many spaces/identities that I have come to occupy. 5
In north-east Indian folktales, the role of the storyteller is often
assumed by a bat, an ambiguous trickster figure. The bat is the
central form in He wore them like talismans all over his body 2008,
and appears again lying at the bottom of a deep lake surrounded by
craggy mountains in Apang’s most recent work, Nothing of him doth
fade 2009. The lake also contains a shipwreck swarming with divers,
sharks, ghostly figures and sea creatures — echoing characters in both
folktales and contemporary comic books. Apang has worked the paper
into three-dimensional peaks and troughs, held in tension by a web of
threads, creating a hybrid sculptural drawing. Repeated layering of ink
and acrylic has rendered the paper’s surface almost burnished, tanned
like an animal’s hide.
He wore them like talismans all over his body is not based on a story
from Arunachal, but from Ecuador (‘The lake at the end of the world’),
demonstrating Apang’s access to a universal repertoire of folktales.
Describing the dark figure of the bat, Apang says:
This bat is ambiguous: I don’t know if it is dead or if it’s just asleep; if it’s
a real bat, a shadow or just an illusion. I don’t know if it’s a friend or an
enemy. I don’t quite know if the scene signifies a beginning or an end. 6
Minam Apang’s distance from the traditions of her birthplace, and
her ability to draw from a vast archive of global folktales, means that
she occupies the role of storyteller with some hesitation. Like the
lake at the end of the world, her drawings are ultimately opaque,
suggesting uncharted depths.
Miranda Wallace
Endnotes
1 Verrier Elwin, Myths of the North-East Frontier of India, North East Frontier Agency,
Shillong, 1958, p.313.
2 The area of present-day Arunachal Pradesh formed part of the North-East
Frontier Tracts of Assam during the colonial period; in 1954, it became part of
the North-East Frontier Agency, in 1972 a union territory, and in 1987 a state. See
Government of Arunachal Pradesh, ,
viewed 11 October 2009.
3 In this essay, the use of the term ‘tribe’, considered by many as ethnographically
imprecise and historically constructed, is used in the manner in which it is found
in much of the writing on and by people of the region. As the British academic
Stuart Blackburn has noted: ‘although in most of India the term is politicised
and controversial . . . in Arunachal Pradesh, where tribes predominate, the term
may be politicised but it is not controversial and is often used with pride’. Stuart
Blackburn, ‘Colonial contact in the “hidden land”: Oral history among the Apatanis
of Arunachal Pradesh’, 2003, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of
London, ,
viewed 11 October 2009.
4 Amrita Gupta Singh, ‘Living to tell a tale: Interview with Minam Apang’, Art
Concerns, , viewed 8 October 2009.
5 Minam Apang, email to the author, 9 October 2009.
6 Apang, email to the author.
Minam Apang
India b.1980
He wore them like talismans all over his body 2008
Ink, synthetic polymer paint and tea on fabriano
cold-pressed paper / 138.5 x 184cm / The Lekha
and Anupam Poddar Collection / Image courtesy:
The artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai
The sleeping army may stir 2008
Ink and synthetic polymer paint on fabriano coldpressed
paper / 70 x 240cm / Collection: Isabelle Levy
and Geraldine Galateau, Paris / Image courtesy:
The artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai
Previous page
The sleeping army may stir (detail) 2008
Ink and synthetic polymer paint on fabriano coldpressed
paper / 70 x 240cm / Collection: Isabelle Levy
and Geraldine Galateau, Paris / Image courtesy:
The artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai
68 69

Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan
In flight
Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan
Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
Philippines/Australia b.1965
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan
Philippines/Australia b.1962
In-flight (Project: Another Country) (details) 2009
Mixed media / Site-specific work for APT6 /
Images courtesy: The artists
Husband-and-wife team Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan live their art.
They use everyday domestic objects to make art works which are
powerful metaphors for contemporary experience and identity
formation. Highlighting the fluidity of these personal and communal
identities, and caught between destinations — never fully arriving but
always in flux 1 — their works explore ideas of consumerism, home and
dislocation. Making associations between individuals and communities,
the Aquilizans create a framework for the exchange of ideas, creating
new relationships and dialogues, and fostering new understandings.
The Aquilizans participated in APT3 (1999) with Project be-longing #2
1999, a work exploring ideas of kinship and the place of memory in
evoking the sense of lives and experiences shared. The installation
comprised household items and mementos from members of Brisbane’s
Filipino community. In inviting the Aquilizans to exhibit in APT6, after
ten years, with In-flight (Project: Another Country) 2009, we have an
opportunity to see how their work and lives have progressed. In Project
be-longing #2, the ‘community’ was based on a group organised around
a shared heritage, living in a particular location. The title acknowledges
the creative potential of difference in people, groups, contexts and places.
It also undermines geography as a perimeter for communities, which
are globally dispersed. As demonstrated by this work, and their work for
APT6, collaboration is central to the Aquilizans’ practice: working both in
and outside the studio, with individuals and amongst communities, they
foster the exchange of ideas, new relationships and dialogues.
The Aquilizans migrated to Australia from the Philippines in 2006, and
now share in the experience of global diaspora with their children. Their
current work continues to engage social and educational elements, while
it also unearths what artists do, by making art and its processes visible.
Engaging hands, minds and relationships, In-flight (Project: Another
Country) comprises hand-sized and handcrafted aeroplanes, assembled
en masse from donated recycled materials. The gallery space becomes
activated by people adding to a large pile of aeroplanes, from which a
suspended spiral of planes takes flight toward the Gibson entrance of
the Queensland Art Gallery.
To construct this work, individuals fashion their own unique aeroplanes
using discarded and personal objects: the intricacy of their construction
and the prodigious variety of material used is impressive. The
rudimentary cruciform of the aeroplane is suggestive of Catholicism,
the prevalent religion in the artists’ homeland, and the cross is a point
of intersection encouraging interaction. It too invokes the points of the
compass and the four corners of the earth — associations reinforcing
the artists’ interest in global diversity and interaction.
An earlier installation, Project be-longing: Presences and absences
(Erasure and remembrance) 1998, shown at the 6th Havana Biennial,
revealed the beginning of the Aquilizans’ interest in ideas of
collaboration and exchange. Here, the artists organised a collection
of some 10 000 used toothbrushes from a town in the Philippines,
getting to know the inhabitants through the process. Even such
mundane objects reflect their owner, who, if wealthy enough, could
discard them before they became worn. Collated as an enormous mass,
however, they lose their specificity; as Alfredo Aquilizan comments, in
mixing the toothbrushes together the work ‘becomes a metaphor for
obscured identity’. 2
A more recent work, Address 2007–08, 3 reconfigures personal objects
in cardboard balikbayan boxes, used by many Philippine migrants
to transport their belongings. A Tagalog word, balikbayan literally
means to take back to the nation or country. The Aquilizans used
these boxes as moulds to ‘cast’ blocks of their own possessions, which
were transported from the Philippines, becoming the foundation for
a future projection of their home in Australia. Here, the home is no
longer a stable site, but a patchwork of desires and impermanent
arrangements; home is a place where the continuing story of a family’s
life is constantly being lived. 4
Building on these earlier works, In-flight (Project: Another Country)
expands on connections generated through the construction process.
The recycled materials used to construct the aeroplanes for In-flight have
been gathered and assembled through a series of workshops involving
both children and adults in Brisbane. The plane shape becomes the
embodiment of people drawn together via a common purpose and
place, and their suspended formation is evocative of a wheeling flock
of birds gathering and breaking up into bigger and smaller groups on a
migratory flight. As if preparing for a journey, this installation promises a
new understanding of home, identity and belonging.
Michael Hawker
Endnotes
1 Flaudette Datuin, ‘Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan: Home, family, journey’, The Third
Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art [exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art
Gallery, Brisbane, 1999, p.120.
2 Gina Fairley, ‘Project. Memory. Migration’, Eyeline, no.62, summer 2006–07, p.46.
3 Address 2007–08 was exhibited in the Art Gallery of South Australia in the ‘Handle
with Care’ exhibition, and was installed at the Central Promontory for the Singapore
Biennale in 2008.
4 Claire Doherty, Claustrophobia [exhibition catalogue], Ikon Gallery, Birmingham,
1998, p.12.
70 71

Chen Chieh-jen
On going
Chen Chieh-jen’s guerilla-style performance art in 1980s Taipei
demonstrated early the artist’s sense of urgency to highlight subjects
often hidden or off-limits in Taiwan’s mainstream culture — from
the inequity of power to its history of colonisation. Chen’s acts of
resistance during Taiwan’s martial law period, which had been in place
since 1949, conflated his role as artist, culture jammer and activist.
By taking performance art into the streets, Chen critiqued social
and political abuses, but also served to openly testify to the belief in
personal and artistic freedom of expression. He enacted this through
the body, facing a serious risk of personal danger in doing so. When
martial law was finally overturned in 1987, however, Chen retreated
from making art. It was not until 1996 that he resumed work, this
time on a project that stridently questioned the nature of selfhood in
contemporary Taiwan, an inquiry inextricably linked to its colonial past.
In the digitally manipulated photographs Chen produced from the late
1990s, his body takes the place of Taiwan, becoming a site of depravity
and the grotesque within scenes of horror — simultaneously victim,
perpetrator and historical accomplice.
On Going 2006 can be seen as the culmination of several films by Chen
which reveal Taiwan’s once-thriving structures of industry as ruins. In
the works Factory 2003 and Bade Area 2005, he reveals the complex
implications this has had for people left unemployed and displaced by
the loss of industries, which have moved out of the country in search of
higher profits. 1 Chen recognises the indifference of mainstream media in
respect to these issues; these people have no voice, and Chen describes
their situation, like others in Taiwan, as ‘being shrouded’. 2 The coping
mechanism of the amnesiac, which compartmentalises the past, becomes
a feature of On Going, where silence heightens the presence of a cloaked
consciousness, in insistent, surfacing images that refuse the shroud.
A black car emerges from an invisible entrance. It is adorned with
stickers calling for Taiwan to become the 51st state of the United
States. No contact is made between the anti-imperialist and the
driver of the car, both of whom seem distanced from reality as if
their coexistence in this stage is a coincidental crossing of parallel
dimensions. The driver makes no attempt to get out, and in a moment
we see that the interior has filled with smoke, and he can no longer
be seen sitting upright in the driver’s seat.
Excerpts from a black-and-white documentary about the US military
stationed in Taiwan during the Cold War take over the screen. In
government parlour rooms, deals are toasted, while bombs detonate
and machine guns strafe the night. Returning to Chen’s film, large
pieces of ash float in from the dark. The location in the factory has
changed to a similar grey room now populated by defunct machines.
The back of the truck has been burnt, but from behind a red curtain the
man produces a suitcase housing a small screenprinting set, and begins
printing manifestos on unused dot-matrix printer paper left under the
factory’s machines. Televised media returns to screen in which news
clips talk about arms procurement in Taiwan. The man gets into the
driver’s seat, and backs the truck out of the factory room, leaving it lit
but deserted, stage open, and in a state of suspension.
About On Going, Chen writes:
I understand that the abstractive expressing form and the political
problems in interior Taiwan are not easily understood . . . If we leave
aside the political situation in Taiwan, I do hope the viewers just see
the film as ‘image poetry’ and experience the state in the film. 4
The new edit of On Going, shown for the first time in APT6, considers
the role of political ideologies in Taiwan, hinging past and present.
On Going opens with a slow gliding camera shot, circling the interior
windows of a high-rise office block; the central atrium and its vacant
floors establish a palpable sense of void which permeates the film.
Next, an abandoned factory becomes a dark theatre which shelters
a solitary anti-imperialist and his beaten-up truck. 3 Fluorescent
lighting describes the edge of this stage, over which numerous fire
extinguishers and bundles of flyers are littered. The man slowly shifts
some fire extinguishers onto a pile and loads bundles of papers into
the back of the truck. Chen’s 35mm film absorbs the nuanced gloom of
the factory, suffused with detail and deep colours — red, blue, greenish
grey — as it tracks through the scene, graceful and seemingly luxurious
in contrast to the content on stage.
In the rear of the truck the man is surrounded by framed portraits
of leftists who have been executed in Taiwan. Ageing pamphlets lie
strewn on the floor, along with a copy of The Communist Manifesto.
Naomi Evans
Endnotes
1 Chen Chieh-jen describes his work ‘as an act of connection, linking together the
history of people who have been excluded from the dominant discourse, the reallife
situations of areas that are being ignored, and “others” who are being isolated.
In this way, I resist the state of amnesia in consumer society’. ‘Chen Chieh-jen’, Artes
Mundi 4, ,
viewed 29 October 2009.
2 Chen Chieh-jen, email to the author, 21 October 2009.
3 Chen, email to the author. Chen describes the actor in this film as a member of an
anti-imperialism group: ‘The group only has two or three members and their claims
have never been followed with interest’.
4 Chen, email to the author
Chen Chieh-jen
Taiwan b.1960
On Going (stills) 2006
35mm film transferred to DVD, single channel,
continuous loop, colour, silent, 20:22 minutes,
ed. 4/5 / Images courtesy: The artist
72 73

Chen Qiulin
Salvaged from ruins
Chen Qiulin
China b.1975
Garden No.1 2007
Photograph / 127 x 152cm, ed. of 8 / Image courtesy:
The artist and Max Protech Gallery, New York
Xinshengchang installed in the exhibition ‘Migration’ at
the Long March Space, Beijing, 2006 / Image courtesy:
The artist and the Long March Space, Beijing
Chinese artist Chen Qiulin established her artistic language to
formulate juxtapositions of the new with the old. These tensions and
polarities sustain her practice and, in keeping with this approach, for
APT6 Chen exhibits both a reconstruction and a study of ruins.
In 2006, Chen salvaged a traditional wooden home from the Xinsheng
region of Zhongxian County in Sichuan Province, an area affected by
the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. She employed labourers
to precisely number and dismantle the simple and well-worn wooden
pieces, to be reconstructed elsewhere. The house was initially shown
at the Long March Space in Beijing, and has now been shipped
to Australia, through all the arduous bureaucratic channels such
undertakings require. Chen’s ambitious enterprise could be seen as a
micro version of the Three Gorges Dam project, with Xinsheng Town
275–277 2009 providing a physical embodiment of the intangible
effects of displacement.
Chen grew up in suburban Wanzhou in Sichuan Province, an area also
destined to be submerged by the rising water of the Three Gorges
Dam. Between 2002 and 2007, the subjective effects of the dam’s
construction played out in Chen’s works, which charted attitudes
ranging from despair to acceptance. 1 First proposed in 1919, the dam
is the world’s largest hydro-electricity project. It has set unenviable
records for the number of people displaced (more than 1.2 million),
the number of cities and towns flooded (13 cities, 140 towns, 1350
villages), and the length of the reservoir (more than 600 kilometres).
The new dam will provide clean energy and mitigate the persistent
flooding of the Yangtze River, but the project has not been without cost:
reports of corruption, spiralling expenditure, technological problems
and human rights violations, as well as resettlement difficulties, as
residents are rehoused in new developments.
Rescued from its now-submerged location, the houses presented
in APT6 have become similarly de-territorialised, a nomad without
a specific site. Within the imposing spaces of the Gallery, this home
appears out of place, of a different architectural language, its footings
from far away. Yet, in making this move, Chen has liberated a new
space and forged a fluid future for this traditional structure. The
houses now function as indexical signs of the site they once occupied,
and also recall some of the issues surrounding contemporary sitespecific
art raised by art historian Miwon Kwon. Though the ‘site’ itself
no longer exists in an accessible form, it is mobilised in a discursive
manner as the key element of the work through the physical object
of the house. Chen’s project also encapsulates Kwon’s contemporary
phenomenon of the ‘itinerant’ artist, where today we see the ‘intensive
physical mobilization of the artist to create works in various cities
throughout the cosmopolitan art world’, highlighting the changing
conditions of artistic production and reception. 2
The looming physical presence of the house contrasts with the whimsy
of Chen’s video projection Garden 2007, also featured in APT6. To
make Garden, she filmed a group of migrant workers whom she had
employed to deliver huge bouquets of fake peonies in ceramic vases
to the artist’s hometown of Wanzhou. 3 The video begins in darkness
before dawn and, as it becomes light, these floral messengers stride
past people washing in the river, the flowers bobbing slowly in time
with their steps along narrow paths, through a hazy and polluted
landscape of concrete rubble. They move through dreamlike
sequences featuring traditional Chinese opera performers to deliver
bright packages to shiny new apartment buildings.
Within the grand narrative of China’s social and economic
transformation, Chen’s work considers concepts of place, memory and
individual experience. She excels in the tensions created by startling
contrasts — the brilliant colours and textures of fake peonies against
grey rubble, the worn and ‘lived in’ wooden houses amid the Gallery’s
pristine architecture, the old and the new. Chen Qiulin’s work evokes
some of the complexities that arise when the lives of individuals are
considered in relation to great leaps of industrial progress — like
phantom attachments that persist beneath the waters of the Yangtze.
Angela Goddard
Endnotes
1 Wu Hung (ed.), Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam and Contemporary Chinese
Art [exhibition catalogue], Smart Museum of Art and The University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, 2008, p.18.
2 Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity,
MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2000, p.46.
3 The peony is a traditional floral symbol of China. It is known as the ‘flower of riches
and honour’, and is used symbolically in Chinese art to signify the fragility of life
and its potential for renewal.
74 75

Cheo Chai-Hiang
Cash converter
Cheo Chai-Hiang is interested in the processes and practices of
making art. His exploration of the tradition of Conceptualism stems
from a personal commitment to independent critical thinking. Cheo
belongs to a generation of Singaporeans who could choose between
the English and Chinese education systems; he says he is ‘fortunate to
have been educated in the Chinese system’, one which encouraged a
world view informed by traditional Chinese ethical and philosophical
values. 1 A prolific writer in both Chinese and English, Cheo uses
linguistic cues, textual associations and idiomatic wordplay as the basis
for his work, which at first glance often appears deceptively simple.
Working with everyday objects as raw materials for his sculptures and
installations, Cheo defines his art by his own terms — terms he is also
not afraid to challenge. When he first left for the United Kingdom to
study at the Brighton Polytechnic in 1972, it was precisely to rethink
preconceived ideas of art. His early work 5’x5’ (Singapore River) 1972,
for example, consisted of a set of instructions for the exhibitors to
draw a square measuring five feet by five feet, partially on a wall and
partially on a floor. Its rejection by the Modern Art Society revealed
the conservative views of the local art world at the time. Art historian
TK Sabapathy has described Cheo as:
. . . among the first in Singapore’s art history to advocate cultivating
critical, questioning attitudes in the practice of art [and] advanced
these attributes as necessary, requisite conditions for developing
that practice. 2
of juxtaposing the two seemingly unrelated words ‘conned’ and
‘contemporary’ — who was conned, and by whom?
In Fei Chang Ku 2007, another element of Cash Converter, the artist
makes a pun on the pronunciation of the Chinese word ‘ 哭 ’ (ku,
which translates as ‘cry’) and the English word ‘cool’. ‘HuaYu Cool!’
(Mandarin Cool!) was the theme for the 2004 Speak Mandarin
Campaign to encourage English-speaking Chinese Singaporeans
to improve their Mandarin language skills. Initially launched in 1979
to encourage dialect-speaking Chinese Singaporeans to speak
Mandarin, the campaign has in recent years shifted its focus to Chinese
Singaporeans who grew up speaking English. Anxious to keep up with
the opportunities a global city presents, Singaporeans have embraced
the English language, which has become the default lingua franca for
many, widening the gap between the current and previous generations.
After living and working in Europe and Australia for almost two
decades, Cheo returned to Singapore to find a more anglicised
audience who did not always understand the Chinese expressions
used in his work. The ambivalent role of the Chinese language in
Singapore raises the question: are Singaporeans encouraged to speak
better Mandarin now in order to reconnect with their elders or to
simply improve the facilitation of business transactions? Cheo’s works
are rooted in contemporaneity (dang dai), but pay homage to the
previous generation (shang dai).
Cash Converter 2009, Cheo’s work for APT6, is comprised of six
sculptures from a series that Cheo has been developing for the past
five years. In this work, he evokes the sort of street scene which can still
be found in parts of Singapore, boxing it up neatly for the foyer of the
Gallery of Modern Art. The individual sculptures are pieced together
using seductive neon lights, found objects and polished steel fixtures,
suggesting shophouse signage, 3 reminiscent of an all-too-familiar way
of life — the raw hustle and bustle, glowing heat, shiny trinkets.
There is humour and play in Cash Converter, but underlying it is quiet
reflection and pathos. Perhaps Cheo is subtly alluding to the economic
agenda behind cultural policy, urging us to think about its real cost, or
maybe he is merely trying to entice us with his bright neon sculptures,
as any shop owner would a customer.
Yvonne Low
Cash Converter shows the layering of various disparate elements,
which, on the one hand, makes perfect material sense when placed
side by side, but on the other accentuates a competitive spirit as
each fights for space and attention. One component, Dang Dang
(Mirror Effect) 2009, is a commanding piece with its two iconic ‘ 當 ’
(dang) signs written in traditional Chinese, characters still commonly
used as signage by pawnshops in Singapore. Cheo draws attention
to the subtle relationships formed between individual characters
by strategically adding words before and after the sign — it now
reads shang dang (‘conned’) and dang dai (‘contemporary’). The
visual juxtaposition of the traditional script ‘ 當 ’ (dang) with the
simplified scripts ‘ 上 代 ’ (shang dai) is striking. Cheo grew up learning
traditional Chinese in school, and belongs to the shang dai (‘previous
generation’). 4 He encourages us to contemplate the significance
Endnotes
1 Cecily Briggs, ‘The thirty-six strategies: Thinking in the midst of things’, in Cheo
Chai-Hiang: The Thirty Six Strategies [exhibition catalogue], Casula Powerhouse
Arts Centre, Sydney, 2000, p.21.
2 TK Sabapathy, ‘Cheo Chai-Hiang: Agent of change’ in Cheo Chai-Hiang:
The Thirty-Six Strategies, p.15.
3 A shophouse is a terraced two-storey building with a shop or eating house on
the ground floor and living quarters above.
4 By combining the added characters shang ( 上 ) and dai ( 代 ), the phrase now
reads shang dai ( 上 代 ) (‘previous generation’).
Cheo Chai-Hiang
Singapore b.1946
Fei Chang Ku 2007
Stainless steel, perspex, neon / 3 parts: 53 x 55 x 13cm
(each) / Image courtesy: The artist and NAFA, Singapore
76 77

DAMP
Untitled and indefinite
DAMP must be one of Australia’s most successful artist collaborations,
even if measured only by its longevity. Established by graduates of
Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts in 1995, it has involved 74
members since its inception. Although some inaugural members
remain, it has resisted being tied to a specific identity or agenda. If it
may be characterised at all, DAMP is known for its playfully provocative
actions, and projects that revel in the expansion of art’s parameters,
particularly where the division between artist and audience is blurred.
DAMP describes its works as ‘social sculptures’.
With Untitled 2009, for APT6, DAMP revisits an earlier work into
which new elements have been introduced, reflecting the group’s
own changing form. Untitled 2007, an oversized plinth crowned with
a circle of ill-matched chairs, was presented at Uplands Gallery in
Melbourne. Conventionally, what sits atop a plinth is understood to be
art, but DAMP’s weekly meetings took place on top of the structure,
implying that the collaboration was its own art form. This gesture was
deliberately compromised, however, as the space between the plinth
and the ceiling was too cramped for anyone to stand upright.
where they can sit and relax, and a visitors’ book in which to leave
responses and comments.
A self-negating monument, Untitled 2009 gives form to the idea that
art is not necessarily found in galleries or on plinths, nor is it located
in unique objects. Pointing to a conventional eschewal of references
outside of art, its classic modernist title, ‘Untitled’, instead opens a
portal onto endless possibilities.
Francis E Parker
Endnote
1 See Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, trans. Simon Pleasance and Fronza
Woods, Les presses du réel, Dijon, 2002, p.18.
While Untitled 2007 took the form of the very thing that isolates an
art object from the rest of the world, DAMP imagined this plinth
as a conduit rather than a demarcation. When visitors climbed the
structure’s internal steps to peer out of the manhole at the top,
they found themselves in the middle of the group. This work, and
DAMP’s practice in general, exemplifies theorist Nicolas Bourriaud’s
proposition that art is a state of encounter. 1 DAMP often invites the
audience to participate, either by contributing text or ideas, or by
taking up weapons to destroy its works. Authorship dissipates among
the members and beyond to its viewers in a boundless exchange
between individuals.
DAMP
est. 1995, Melbourne
Dan Cass b.1970 / Rob Creedon b.1969 / Narelle Desmond
b.1970 / Sam George b.1987 / Sharon Goodwin b.1973 /
Ry Haskings b.1977 / Deb Kunda b.1972 / James Lynch
b.1974 / Dan Moynihan b.1974 / Lisa Radford b.1976 /
Nat Thomas b.1967 / Kylie Wilkinson b.1971
Untitled 2007
Synthetic polymer paint, chairs, mdf, timber, cornices /
Installed dimensions variable / Installation view Uplands
Gallery, Melbourne / Image courtesy: The artists and
Uplands Gallery, Melbourne / Photograph: John Brash
To reconfigure Untitled for the Gallery of Modern Art requires an
impressive amplification of scale. Just as plinths are sized to fit the art
they support, this one must be raised to over five metres in height in
order to occupy the vast space in which it sits. For the duration of the
exhibition, DAMP makes the space above the plinth available for local
groups of various kinds to hold their own meetings. The context of
APT6 also puts DAMP in dialogue with collaborations from the Asia
Pacific region, one of the threads running through this year’s exhibition.
The interior of the original work proved a popular hideaway for
children at the exhibition opening in 2007, which has prompted DAMP
to extend the new version to include a ‘rec room’ or cubbyhouse inside.
Cubbies exist in collective memory or imagination as autonomous
sites away from adults. DAMP secretes its cubby inside a plinth inside a
gallery — right under the paternal nose of art — and invites the audience
into this space, into the zone between art and everything else. Here,
visitors encounter paraphernalia from the DAMP studio, an old couch
78 79

Solomon Enos
Polyfantastica
At a time when many indigenous traditions are being both regenerated
and lost, Hawaiian artist Solomon Enos is passionately committed
to reinstating his culture’s rich and vibrant traditions of storytelling.
Enos’s graphic novel Polyfantastica imagines 40 millennia of voyage
and evolution in pursuit of peace and harmony. 1 The tale is framed in
a globalised and ultimately virtual world where solutions and salvation
are proffered for a humanity wracked by war, disease and ecological
devastation. It is of its time, aiming to reach a generation raised on
multiple media: Western comic strips and super heroes; Japanese
manga and animation; science fiction and fantasy books; online gaming
and war play; and, increasingly, the extended form of the graphic novel.
Polyfantastica plays out through four epic 10 000-year periods known
as Kuu, Lono, Kanaloa and Kaane, names which also denote Hawaiian
gods. It is, in large part, Aquarian in its scope — oceanic environments
are both battleground and healing sanctuary. Water, in particular fresh
water, appears to be the ultimate sacred grail in the quest, as it brings
life to universes and galaxies far beyond earth.
Enos’s graphic style is lively and draws on many sources. He cites
fantasy and science fiction writers Robert E Howard, JRR Tolkien,
Arthur C Clarke and Frank Herbert as models for his visionary hybrid
bestiary, fused with manga and indigenous Polynesian oral traditions.
Equally, however, there are echoes of gladiatorial warriors, Doctor
Who’s repertoire of aliens and mutants, and the ethereal spectres of
William Blake’s illustrated poems. Such mythic narratives, of course,
have been told and re-told, in many forms and in many cultures, for
thousands of years. Some have been inscribed in epic sagas, while
others remain as a residue in various indigenous traditions — like an
echo or a whisper that only the initiated would recognise. In many
cultural traditions, origin myths anthropomorphise the immense
energies and mysteries of the earth and the universe into gods and
beings of superhuman and divine powers. In the Western tradition,
certain aspects of ancient pagan and classical myths of origin — albeit
modified — found their way into Judeo–Christian beliefs. Other great,
mythopoeic narratives of heroism or of voyages of conquest, and tales
of lust, betrayal, love, transformation and redemption, have continued
to be relevant today. When the extremes and vulnerabilities of human
behaviour remain tragic, treacherous or heroic, the tales of Ovid and
Aeschylus still sustain repeated interpretation and adaption to stage,
screen, song and story.
crustacean warrior god; Lono, the god of peace and agriculture of
Amazonian proportions; Kanaloa, the armoured oceanic voyager; and
Kaane, a futuristic fugitive and illusory being, adorned in what appear
to be shards of glass or crystal.
Environmental destruction wrought by warring tribes is at the heart of
the story. Compared to the apocalyptic threat of nuclear annihilation,
which preoccupied both science fiction and real-life narratives of
the 1980s, global ecological catastrophe now appears to be a real
and present danger. In recent decades alone, events with disastrous
consequences — such as the gas leak at the Union Carbide-operated
pesticide plant in the Indian city of Bhopal (1984), the nuclear reactor
accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine (1986), and the devastating toxic
spill from the oil tanker Exxon Valdez off the coast of Alaska (1989) —
punctuate a history of cumulative, permanent and often unreported
environmental damage. According to Enos:
Polyfantastica is many things, it is largely driven by a desire to shift
our current critically unsustainable and horribly violent state of
co-existence on earth by diverting mainstream media away from the
crippling societal icons of fear, greed, inadequacy and insecurity
. . . Wasn’t there something that we were working on before we got
distracted by organised religion and war and plastic? 2
Solomon Enos’s Polyfantastica is motivated by hope and faith in the
power of regeneration. His culture and traditions tell of a time when
‘There is no conflict here, not anymore. No warfare. No pestilence or
starvation. Yet, each adult intimately knows them all — through a drop
of water. Through memory’. 3
David Burnett
Endnotes
1 Enos’s serial comic was published weekly in the ‘Island Life’ section of The
Honolulu Advertiser, Hawaii’s largest daily newspaper, between November 2006
and October 2007.
2 Excerpt from ‘Overview’, in correspondence to Maud Page, Queensland Art Gallery,
2 December 2008.
3 Excerpt from narrative text to accompany images, in correspondence to Maud Page.
Solomon Enos’s storyboards, painted in gouache and washes of
watercolour, are rich with detail. Their development manifests in
graphite smudges, underdrawing and marginal annotations. Fantastic
ships, vessels and weapons are itemised and named. His cast of
characters and villains is established at the outset, like the genealogy
of a nineteenth-century Russian novel, but with the appearance
of spectacular ‘transformers’ and shape-shifters: there is Kuu, the
Solomon Enos
Hawai’i, United States b.1976
Kuu era: Polyfantastica the beginning (detail) 2006
Gouache and synthetic polymer paint on paper /
53 sheets: 38 x 29cm (each) / Image courtesy: Solomon
Enos and Meredith Desha Enos, Polyfantastica
80 81

Solomon Enos
Kuu era: Polyfantastica the beginning (details) 2006
Gouache and synthetic polymer paint on paper /
53 sheets: 38 x 29cm (each) / Images courtesy: Solomon
Enos and Meredith Desha Enos, Polyfantastica
82 83

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
Lightning for Neda
Over a career spanning decades, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian has
created an art imbued with the aesthetics of her Iranian culture. Inspired
by its architecture and the traditions of Islamic geometry and pattern,
and using media such as reverse-glass painting, mirror mosaic and relief
sculpture, Farmanfarmaian has revived and adapted these forms to
make original, compelling works. Clearly motivated to be an artist from
her teens, she enrolled in Tehran University’s Fine Arts College in the
early 1940s and then, at the age of 22, ventured to New York to study
fashion illustration at Parsons School of Design. Following graduation,
she pursued a career as a successful graphic and fashion designer and,
during her 12 years in New York (1945–57), Farmanfarmaian became
familiar with the city’s art scene — she met abstract expressionist Jackson
Pollock and his wife Lee Krasner, and a young Andy Warhol. In 1957, she
returned to Iran to develop her artistic career.
In Tehran, Farmanfarmaian also directed her prodigious energy
towards collecting. Assembled throughout the 1960s and 1970s, her
collection reflected both her unconventional interests and informed
and consolidated her aesthetic concerns. To this end, she gathered a
group of highly coloured images prevalent in Tehran’s coffee houses 1
and a significant group of tribal and antique reverse-glass paintings, as
well as Turkoman tribal textiles and silver jewellery. 2 She also collected
architectural fragments, such as doors, windows and wall panels. These
latter pieces were salvaged from historic buildings (domestic as well
as public) that were being demolished in her hometown of Qazvin,
and in other cities in Iran, as part of the process of modernisation.
Much of this was done to recover material culture that was rapidly
disappearing, with the aim of gifting to Iranian state art collections.
Immersing herself in this material and developing her own artistic
language became interdependent activities for Farmanfarmaian,
maturing into a unique practice.
The characteristic mirror mosaic of Farmanfarmaian’s work is an
Iranian decorative technique known as aineh-kari. As curator Rose
Issa has explained:
to structure and develop complex architectural ornamentation. Arab
mathematicians of the ninth century added considerably to Greek and
Indian scholarship, and Muslim craftspeople have long relied on this
knowledge to produce the myriad patterns embellishing the facades
and walls of buildings. In this work, the six sides of the hexagon
provide an underlying structure, and are expanded and elaborated on
as a repeated motif.
The mystical and symbolic connotations assigned to numbers in
Islamic culture are based on the profound symmetry that the grammar
of mathematics offers, a great inspiration for Islamic scholars. In this
way the point of origin is the dot; it also signifies the primordial, the
one, the permanent, the eternal. The line connecting two dots is
understood as a symbol of the polarity of existence, the first move
or direction, and therefore the intellect. From here, the plethora of
geometric shapes expands to include the circle, the triangle (the
isosceles and the equilateral each offering different possibilities),
and so on. The hexagon represents the six directions of motion (up,
down, forwards, backwards, right, left), and the six virtues: generosity,
self-discipline, patience, determination, insight and compassion. In
each of the six panels constituting Lightning for Neda, Farmanfarmaian
uses over 4000 mirror shards to activate a myriad of patterns across a
glittering and sublime surface.
Neda means ‘voice’ in Farsi and, in this work, the compelling voice of
an octogenarian Iranian artist acknowledges the turmoil facing her
country. Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian has herself experienced
the trauma of exile, leaving Tehran in the wake of the 1979 Iranian
Revolution, and returning in 2003 to rebuild her life there. Although all
her works and collections were confiscated in 1979, her strength as an
artist could not be curbed. Thus, in the splendour of Farmanfarmaian’s
vision, the majestic spirit of affirmation also lives.
Suhanya Raffel
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
Iran b.1924
Lightning for Neda (detail) 2009
Mirror mosaic, reverse glass painting, plaster on wood /
6 panels: 300 x 200cm (each) / Commissioned for APT6
and the Queensland Art Gallery Collection. The artist
dedicates this work to the loving memory of her late
husband Dr Abolbashar Farmanfarmaian / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
The technique dates back to the 16th century, when mirrors were
imported from Venice and Bohemia to Iran and arrived broken.
The new owners had to find imaginative ways of recycling these
shards of glass, and would set the pieces in stucco to create
decorative panels with attractive multiple reflections. As well as Sufi
symbolism of reflecting the self, mirror has since been associated
with purity, brightness, symmetry, veracity and fortune. 3
In Lightning for Neda 2009, Farmanfarmaian has constructed her most
ambitious work to date. Commissioned for the Gallery’s Collection and
premiering in APT6, its six panels of intricate mirror mosaic explore
the geometric possibilities afforded by the hexagon. Essentially
abstract, Lightning for Neda draws on the Islamic use of geometry
Endnotes
1 Coffee houses in Tehran are traditionally male-only establishments. Their walls are
generally hung with stylised, highly coloured paintings of religious and national
heroes. These works are identified as being made at the cusp of the Constitutional
Revolution (1906–11).
2 The Turkoman are a formerly nomadic tribal people from the region encompassing
Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, northern Iraq and north-eastern Iran.
3 Rose Issa, Mosaics of Mirrors: Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Nazar Research
and Cultural Institute, Tehran, 2006, pp.14–15.
84 85

Subodh Gupta
Cold war kitchen
New York’s World Trade Center — billowing smoke and flames and in
various stages of terrifying and devastating collapse — on September 11
2001 is a defining image of this decade. Up to and during the twin
towers’ construction, between 1970 and 1977, a similarly defining
image of the twentieth century — the ‘mushroom cloud’ — was circulated,
reproduced and repeated so many times it became commonplace, even
clichéd. Associated with atomic explosions and, specifically, the bombs
detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the mushroomshaped
cloud was instantly recognisable and largely symbolic. In 1991,
American literary critic Peggy Rosenthal defined the power of this image:
. . . a quarter century after the nuclear mushroom cloud has been
seen in real life, it remains the unchallenged symbol of the nuclear
age because its name, shape and size carry all the meanings we
need for it to bear’. 1
Today, the cloud’s dissociation from history is complete. Available
in thousands of permutations as ‘stock’ imagery on various websites
and image banks, it has been, to a large extent, neutralised. It will
be some time before the imagery of the Twin Towers gains such
mainstream currency.
Gallerist Peter Nagy has said of Subodh Gupta that he is ‘very good at
selecting icons and symbols’. 2 Gupta’s five-metre-high Line of Control (1)
2008 adopts the image of the nuclear cloud as a potent vehicle for
investigating the geopolitics specific to his region. The disputed
Kashmir border region between Pakistan and India (a border known
in military parlance as the Line of Control) is a focus for the renewed
fear of nuclear conflict. In 1998, India detonated three nuclear devices,
emphatically declaring its status as a nuclear weapons state, followed
weeks later by similar tests in Pakistan.
of his Indian home state of Bihar, but also project a compendium of
ideas with a global reach. His quirky and often anecdotal takes on
the cultural, social and political influences of global economies and
technologies on the Indian subcontinent find expression through
painting, video, performance and sculpture.
Gupta’s work Bullet 2006–07 also reinvests a familiar, and considerably
less menacing, image with a residue of cultural meaning and memory.
The 350cc Royal Enfield ‘Bullet’ motorcycle was selected by the Indian
government in 1955 as the vehicle of choice to patrol its national
borders. Hundreds were purchased from British engineering firm the
Enfield Cycle Company (founded in 1893), which also manufactured
armaments for the Royal Small Arms Factory. The brand name ‘Royal
Enfield’ emerged with the motto ‘made like a gun’. Enfield India was
established in 1955 to assemble the bikes with British components in
Madras (now Chennai), and by the early 1960s both the manufacture
and assembly of components was completed in India. Enfield India
purchased the rights to the brand Royal Enfield in 1995, and the Bullet
continues to be produced there, making it the oldest motorcycle
company and the longest running production model in India. Gupta’s
Bullet is cast in brass with a cargo of beaten metal milk cans lashed to
a pannier frame adapted for carrying them. Royal Enfield motorcycles
played significant military roles in both World War One and Two, but
here the Bullet is rendered bovine in its capacity as a carrier.
The end of the first decade of the twenty-first century is on the horizon,
providing an occasion to review, reminisce and look forward. At such
times, amid a fathomless ocean of media, certain images rise to the
surface, fixing particular events and moments indelibly in our minds.
The power of such images may reside in the inimitability of the events
they represent.
Line of Control (1) is constructed from brass and copper vessels, pots,
pans, candle holders, decorative details, urns, trays and goblets —
patinated with use and time. Dented, bent, crushed and corroded,
they form an oddly ‘historic’ armature for such a loaded image. While
the work is predominantly a sculptural form, the mushroom cloud also
exists essentially as image: Gupta reinvests this familiar symbol with a
quotient of contemporary tension and gravity. The use of pots, pans
and vessels as the essential units in Line of Control (1) compresses
history, tradition and change, forming an intimate dimension of
domestic religious and cultural practice, one which is played out in
millions of Indian kitchens on a daily basis. While these domestic wares
add a vein of cultural meaning to the image, they are also analogous
to the essential atomic units that make up both the cloud and the
diabolical energy of nuclear fission.
In recent years, Subodh Gupta has gained international attention
for works that have their genesis in the local traditions and materials
David Burnett
Endnotes
1 Peggy Rosenthal, ‘The nuclear mushroom cloud as cultural image’, American
Literary History, vol.3, Spring 1991, p.88.
2 Peter Nagy, quoted in Christopher Mooney, ‘Subodh Gupta: The idol thief’,
Art Review, no.17, December 2007, p.54.
Subodh Gupta
India b.1964
Line of Control (1) 2008
Stainless steel and steel structure, brass and copper
utensils / 500 x 500 x 500cm / Image courtesy:
The artist and Arario Gallery, Beijing
86 87

Gonkar Gyatso
Trouble in paradise
Gonkar Gyatso
Tibet/United Kingdom b.1961
Angel 2007
Stickers and pencil on treated paper / 152.5 x 122cm /
The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of Contemporary
Asian Art. Purchased 2008 with funds from Michael Simcha
Baevski through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
In 2009, Tibetan artist Gonkar Gyatso has made two related large-scale
works. The first, Reclining Buddha – Beijing Tibet relationship index,
commissioned for the 53rd Venice Biennale, runs to six metres in
length, while the second, Reclining Buddha – Shanghai to Lhasa Express,
measures nine metres, and has its first showing at APT6. Both works
feature the reclining Buddha as their primary subject — the Buddha in
parinirvana, or the state of ultimate bliss, released from the cycles of
reincarnation and no longer attached to the temporal world.
The elongated structure of these works references the traditional
Tibetan book, usually a continuous sheet of paper folded in
concertina style; and the Chinese hand scroll, which is rolled at either
end and viewed only in sections. The two works mark a substantial
development in Gyatso’s art, bringing together in more ambitious
forms a number of his signature motifs, including the Buddha figure,
various scripts, traditional Tibetan thangka iconography, commercial
logos, newspaper clippings, and images taken directly from popular
culture. These are drawn from sources as diverse as children’s stickers;
the lyrics from European and American pop songs; cartoon characters,
such as Pokémon and Spiderman; and the ubiquitous panda. While
these works are driven by Gyatso’s analytical interest in Buddhism’s
conspicuous rise in global popularity, the volatile relations between
China and Tibet also underscore his practice.
In Reclining Buddha – Shanghai to Lhasa Express, the surface of the
figure is collaged intensively with layers of stickers, fragments of
newspaper clippings, magazine advertisements, product labels and
promotional logos. This resting Buddha appears encrusted by a
great wave of commercial accumulation. If this work metaphorically
traces the long railway track from Shanghai to Lhasa, and we read the
reclining figure as embodying the extent of this territory, then we can
imagine that it is through the feet in Shanghai that this colourful deluge
swells to fill the sleeping form. As critic Elaine W Ng has explained:
The Qinghai-Tibet Railway was first proposed by Mao Zedong
when China established the Tibetan Autonomous Region in 1951.
The dream of connecting the once-secluded Buddhist capital
of Lhasa with the political capital of China was finally realised in
2006. Stretching over 1140 kilometres (710 miles) of land, much
of it unstable permafrost, and rising up to 5072 metres above sea
level, the rail line . . . promises to bring more opportunity to an
economically-challenged region as well as exert greater control
over a much disputed territory. 1
Access, opportunity, proximity, progress, change, exchange, loss,
conflict and flux — these are some of the words that describe the
condition of contemporary life, which apply equally to those living
in Lhasa or London, both being home for Gyatso. Having received
his formal art training in China, India and the United Kingdom, this
mobility has deeply informed his views on the histories of China
and Tibet, ensuring an opinion that is far from dogmatic. 2 According
to Ng again: ‘He is sympathetic to both the Chinese and Tibetans
living in Tibet, but circumspect of the exoticised vision of Tibet being
a spiritual Shangri-la’. 3
Although its political content is unquestionable, the structure of
Gonkar’s work juxtaposes humorous kitsch and social elements,
forcing uncomfortable contradictions. For example, in Angel 2007, the
outlined figure is of a Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (the Bodhisattva of
compassion) while clearly also echoing the unsettling image of an Iraqi
prisoner tortured by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib. 4 Similarly, the seven
graceful standing Buddhas in Spring 2008 2009, finely drawn in pencil
on a background of gridded script, all sport horned heads like the
popular image of the devil. This later work is a response to the violent
confrontations between Tibetan and Han Chinese in Lhasa during
demonstrations in the spring of 2008.
Observing paradox, and acknowledging its place as intrinsic to human
character, Gonkar Gyatso’s images are imbued with a sensibility that
amalgamates the darkly beautiful, the kitsch, the sombre and the playful.
Suhanya Raffel
Endnotes
1 Elaine W Ng, ‘Gonkar Gyatso – Reclining Buddha’, Rossi & Rossi Ltd, , viewed 5 October 2009. Although Ng refers to
Beijing in this article, the reference should be to Shanghai.
2 Gyatso grew up in Lhasa and studied at the Central Institute of Nationalities in Beijing
before spending time in Dharamsala in north India, where many Tibetans reside,
including the exiled Dalai Lama. Here, he leaned about Tibetan art and culture,
including the technique of thangka painting. He moved to London in 1996 and
completed a Masters in Fine Art at the Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2000.
3 Ng, ‘Gonkar Gyatso – Reclining Buddha’.
4 Abu Ghraib was the chief prison in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s regime, and
became notorious as the site of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American military
personnel after its takeover by US forces in 2003. First reported in 2004, these now
infamous acts of physical and psychological torture were committed by members
of the 372nd Military Police Company, with photographs taken by the perpetrators
and subsequently circulated by the media.
88 89

Kyungah Ham
Communication beyond the unreachable place
The work of Kyungah Ham reflects on the way images structure our
understandings of cultural politics, militarised conflict and social activism.
Employing imagery from past and present-day exemplars found on the
internet — and using traditional artisanal techniques for their reproduction
— Ham’s work foregrounds the way these images are circulated and
interpreted within popular culture and online communication. Inspired
by the use of the propaganda poster bill for disseminating dissident
views, Ham’s work explores the significance of past atrocities for
contemporary audiences and asks: how can an individual’s actions
have agency within the context of international politics?
In her 2008 solo exhibition ‘Such Game’, 1 Ham presented her first
series of textile works produced in North Korea (DPRK). Collecting
images sourced through the online search engine Google, Ham
covertly sent composite imagery and photomontages to female
artisans in the DPRK (via China) to be hand-embroidered using
traditional techniques and materials. The project began as a means of
opening up communication with North Koreans about local anxieties
and foreign politics that influence everyday lives on both sides of the
Korean border. In undertaking this charged exchange, Ham sought
to enact a dialogue across the barriers of ideology and physical
distance. Owing to the political sensitivities of the works, many of
the embroideries have been confiscated by DPRK officials; in some
instances, the textiles are sent back to Ham by the artisans in pieces,
to be reconfigured on their receipt in South Korea.
In the diptych Nagasaki Mushroom Cloud, Hiroshima Mushroom Cloud
2008, Ham reproduces two of the most recognisable images of modern
warfare: the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the
United States. These aerial views depict the nuclear mushroom clouds
in stark black and white, devoid of flaming colour; concealed beneath
is the destruction, devastation and unseen effects of radiation. As
images of the world’s only wartime nuclear attacks, the photographs
continue to conjure anxieties over nuclear proliferation in a post-Cold
War era. For Korean audiences, their reception is further complicated
by the shaping of these events in mainstream Korean history. While
large numbers of Koreans interned in Hiroshima and Nagasaki labour
camps were casualties of the bombings, acknowledgment of their
experiences is shadowed by Korea’s liberation and independence
from the prewar Japanese empire.
mimics military strategy and imagery. On the surface, the burning
skyline of New York on September 11 2001 is relocated to the
jungles of Vietnam. Below, a labyrinth, connected by staircases and
passageways, reveals fragmented images and signifiers — piles of
skulls are a stark reminder of massacres carried out in Cambodia by
the Khmer Rouge regime; the back of an anonymous man recalls the
‘Tank Man’ of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing; and, in
a more abstract illustration, Wandjina figures painted by Aboriginal
people from the Kimberley region of Western Australia evoke the
trauma of colonisation. 3 These diverse images were selected by the
artist as enduring symbols of conflict and resistance that the North
Korean artisans would need to consider while transforming the source
images into embroideries.
Ham’s embroideries offer a strange and compelling mixture of
propaganda, personal memory and social agency. Given the labourintensive
process of hand embroidery, Ham’s project might be
interpreted as utilising the participatory process of labour as a form of
political enactment and transformation. For Kyungah Ham, the contrast
between her ability to spontaneously access information online and
the limited access her collaborative artisans have prompts a desire
to ultimately, as she puts it, attempt ‘communication beyond the
unreachable place’. 4
Jose Da Silva
Endnotes
1 ‘Such Game’ was held at SSamzie Space in Seoul in 2008. In addition to the textile
works, the exhibition included a series of white porcelain sculptures of Kalashnikov
rifles and related weaponry, which were decorated with traditional landscape
paintings and the pattern of a Persian carpet traced with the oil residue of Iraqi
military supplies.
2 Kyungah Ham, email to the author, 10 August 2009.
3 Wandjina is the Aboriginal name for ancestral spirits who control the seasons and
rain patterns. The painting of Wandjina figures forms part of important ceremonial
practices at sacred sites for the people of the West Kimberley region. The
appropriation of these figures, by those not permitted to paint or reproduce
these images, is the subject of continued debate.
4 Ham, email to the author.
In Some Diorama 2008, Ham interweaves representations of war,
colonialism and trauma — what she terms images ‘representing hidden
terrorism, a hidden political brutality’ 2 — into a network resembling a
platform video game. Based on a miniature diorama of the Vietnam–
US War (1959–75) — illustrating key events within a complex of secret
caves and tunnels used by the North Vietnamese — Some Diorama
explores the way these particular images register with a media-literate
public, as well as their influence on video game culture, which often
Kyungah Ham
South Korea b.1966
Nagasaki Mushroom Cloud, Hiroshima Mushroom Cloud
2008
Hand embroidery on silk / Diptych: (a) 120 x 150cm;
(b) 120 x 150cm / Sigg Collection, Switzerland / Image
courtesy: The artist and Kukje Gallery, Seoul
90 91

Ho Tzu Nyen
Of the way of the creator
Friedrich Nietzsche’s best known work, Also Sprach Zarathustra: Ein
Buch für Alle und Keine (Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone
and No One) (1883–85), is a stirring metaphorical treatise on many of
the German philosopher’s key ideas. These include the potential of
humanity to transcend its circumstances, embodied in the figure of the
übermensch, or overman; and a rejection of the metaphysical world,
summarised in the famous phrase ‘God is dead’. Written in a neo-Biblical
style (paradoxical given Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity), the book
features as its central character the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra,
who descends from a mountain to teach his ideas of the overman to a
modern world without God, its people lost in a nihilistic wasteland. 1
Ho Tzu Nyen’s Zarathustra: A Film for Everyone and No One 2009 is
a condensed representation of Nietzsche’s narrative, presented as
a starkly staged video and sound piece. Produced in collaboration
with students from the film, fine arts, music, acting and musical
theatre departments at Singapore’s LASALLE College of the Arts, the
work weaves the pedagogical impulse of Nietzsche’s text — in which
Zarathustra brings his knowledge to the masses, and then leaves
them to find their own way — into its method of production. With his
philosophy of overcoming the self and building the new, Nietzsche
foregrounds creativity and, by making the film within an art school, Ho’s
work reflects on the creative act and the process of becoming an artist.
As with many of Ho’s previous works — such as the painting and video
installation Utama: Every Name in History is I 2003, the video work
The Bohemian Rhapsody Project 2006 and the theatre production The
King Lear Project 2008 — Zarathustra reworks existing cultural icons.
The soundtrack for Zarathustra features another work inspired by
Nietzsche’s book, Richard Strauss’s 1896 tone poem of the same name,
which has one of most famous opening sequences in music — in part
due to its use in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. 2
In his ambitious adaptations of historical works, Ho also pulls apart
the medium he is using, be it painting, film, video or theatre. Drawing
attention to constituent elements such as sound, image, editing and
staging, he lays bare conventions and processes, as well as making
connections to other histories and art forms.
the mechanics of the video’s production in full view. The narrative of
Nietzsche’s book may be unfamiliar to some, but Strauss’s music is
immediately recognisable, most likely associated with Kubrick’s aligning
planets. In a sense, Ho’s work returns it to its original inspiration — the
rising of the sun, and the descent of Zarathustra from the mountain.
Complex and self-reflexive, Ho Tzu Nyen’s works are driven by a
palpable passion for his material and a strong sense of humour. While
iconic, many of his source texts are somewhat flawed: unfinished,
overreaching, or incomprehensible. Nietzsche’s book is all three —
Harold Bloom refers to it as a ‘gorgeous disaster’ 4 — and its excesses
reflect the philosopher’s fragile constitution and intensity of feeling.
As translator RJ Hollingdale wrote:
. . . unlike most people, even most philosophers, Nietzsche lived
with his intellectual problems as with realities, he experienced a
similar emotional commitment to them as other men experience
to their wife and children. 5
Ideas, after all, are what make us human, and creativity propels us
forward — but no-one said it was going to be easy.
Russell Storer
Endnotes
1 Zarathustra (or Zoroaster) was a Persian prophet and poet living around 1200–1500
BCE. Following a divine vision, he rejected the polytheistic religion of his people
and preached belief in one creator God, founding Zoroastrianism, one of the
world’s earliest monotheistic faiths. Its followers today are largely in India (known
as Parsis) and Iran.
2 Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, Harper Perennial,
London, 2009, p.7.
3 See Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, Oxford University
Press, New York, 1973.
4 Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, Macmillan,
London, 1995, p.210.
5 RJ Hollingdale, ‘Introduction’, in Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A
Book for Everyone and No One, trans. RJ Hollingdale, Penguin Classics, London,
2003, p.11.
Ho Tzu Nyen
Singapore b.1976
Zarathustra: A Film for Everyone and No One
(production stills) 2009
High-definition digital video, single channel, colour,
sound, 24:30 minutes, ed. of 3 / Commissioned for APT6 /
Supported by Osage Gallery, The Puttnam School of
Film and the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore,
LASALLE College of the Arts. An initiative of the National
Arts Council’s Arts Creation Fund. / Images courtesy:
The artist and Tzulogical Films / Photographs: Olivia Kwok
An ongoing interest of Ho’s, influenced by the literary critic Harold
Bloom, is the idea of ‘misprision’, in which young artists find their
voice by creatively misreading the works of past masters, which in
turn are re-read in the light of the new. 3 His use of well-known sources
also draws on the audience’s existing images of them, who inevitably
bring these to bear on their viewing of his works. He calls this process
‘mental karaoke’, and as his deconstructed projects unfold, they move
between familiarity, which assumes coherence and understanding,
and a more destabilising fragmentation. Ho’s version of ‘Bohemian
Rhapsody’, for example, uses the lyrics of the British rock band Queen’s
song to construct a courtroom drama, with alternating lead actors and
92 93

Emre Hüner
Panoptikon
The disjointed narrative of Emre Hüner’s Panoptikon 2005 is inspired by
the visual structure of the falname, an Ottoman literary genre which first
appeared in thirteenth-century Turkey. Falname were specially produced
and illustrated publications based on the sacred text of Islam, the Qur’an,
and were used for divinations and soothsaying by opening the book at
any page and ascribing meaning to what lay open. Like an encounter
with a random page, Panoptikon’s jewel-like video animations are
constructed from a personal archive of images that Hüner has built from
disparate sources. With its representations of humans, animals and plants
juxtaposed with tools, weaponry and machines, and set in amalgams of
scenes resembling Turkish miniatures bridging the ancient and modern,
the work allows us to observe hidden, forgotten and imagined histories.
Hüner’s title alludes to the eighteenth-century panopticon, or ‘all-seeing’
prison structure, designed by the social reformer Jeremy Bentham,
and later made infamous by philosopher Michel Foucault, who saw this
architectural model as a metaphor for broader ‘mechanisms of power’. 1
Bentham’s intention was to provide visual access to all prison cells from
a central observation tower. The possibility that the inmates might be
watched at any time, without knowing when, was meant to encourage
self-policing, a principle that Foucault argued could apply to any
disciplinary system, such as hospitals, factories and schools.
To inhabit this metaphor, the verticality of our bodies might be viewed
as the central observation tower of Bentham’s prison. Our perceptions
make us, at least to a certain extent, the centre of our own universe.
In Foucault’s writing on the panopticon, the individual prison cells
all facing the surveillance tower were ‘like so many cages, so many
theatres, in which the actor is alone, perfectly individualized and
constantly visible’. 2 In Hüner’s Panoptikon, the video animation also
becomes a window into an otherworldly realm, which we can observe
without being seen. By extension, we are invited to consider our world
as characterised by systems of surveillance and discipline.
Panoptikon’s sequences are like theatrically staged fables that
combine markers of extraordinary histories, as if an illustrated
manuscript of arcane knowledge had come to life. Mining the visual
language of Ottoman and Persian miniatures, as well as Chinese
and northern European painting, Panoptikon refigures events of
migration, trade, conquest, intellectual exchange, scientific discovery,
violence, philosophy, religion, political change, and art and culture.
While it might be appealing to interpret this work with reference to
contemporary Istanbul, which retains visible layers of these histories,
the work takes place in an unmoored speculative zone. Hüner’s
hand-drawn, digitised construction is faceted with traces, figments
and passings of the power of an empire — an approach to art that
seems logical when urban streets are proof that parallel histories
exist simultaneously. Chronometers tick through a liquid soundtrack,
keeping score of time.
Hüner’s interest in the psychical effects of contemporary life, steeped
in technology, is filtered through aesthetic, literary and philosophical
approaches. This work adopts the distinctive perspective of classical
Ottoman composition, in which mythologies, past narratives and future
speculations are contained within a single frame. He also mines the
illusionism of Western perspective, layering components from his
detailed tempera drawings on paper, some of which are reproduced
in his artist book Bent 003 2007. In Panoptikon, elements of this
idiosyncratic encyclopedia are combined and animated.
The thirteenth-century Arabic encyclopedia Acaib’ül Mahlukat (The
Wonders of Creation) by Zakariyya al-Kazvini is a key reference for Hüner.
Translated into Turkish by the fourteenth century and widely distributed,
it contained cosmology, zoology and botany, along with rich illustrations
of fantastical creatures. Hüner’s drawings of fecund flora — where the
squirting nectar of tulips fertilises the growth of strange organic forms
— reclaim architectural expanses decorated with Iznik tile, while chuffing
machines appear anachronistic, abandoned and functionless.
In another sequence, mysterious instruments or weapons lie scattered
on the ground as if cut from a vanitas painting. The tools of science,
medicine and alchemy are combined with the possibility of past
torture, the violence now dumb, a missed event. Masked and cloaked
figures tinker. Human bodies are shown in states of dissection, their
musculature, circulatory system and organs detailed in rich and
saturated colour. Elsewhere, the two coastal promontories of Pieter
Breughel’s Landscape with the fall of Icarus c.1558 is appropriated and
transformed into the site of a violent and extravagant battle. And in
the background of these dreamlike scenes, which are always enclosed
by a cage or a room, groups of figures look on, their understanding
limited to their own particular view.
Naomi Evans
Endnotes
1 Michel Foucault, originally published in Surveiller et Punir, 1975; Discipline and
Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan, Pantheon, New York, 1977.
2 Michel Foucault, ‘Panopticism’, in David M Kaplan, Readings in the Philosophy of
Technology, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, Maryland, 2004, p.359.
Emre Hüner
Turkey b.1977
Panoptikon (stills) 2005
Digital hand-drawn animation, single channel,
continuous loop, colour, sound, 11:18 minutes, ed. of 5 /
Images courtesy: The artist and Rodeo, Istanbul
94 95

Raafat Ishak
Pathways in paint
Raafat Ishak’s works are subtle, contemplative and alive with ideas.
His paintings often carry echoes of the arbitrary relationships that exist
between sign and meaning and, using a visual language both formal
and understated, he roams freely among art historical antecedents,
across centuries, and within his own locality for inspiration.
For APT6, Ishak has created a series of 20 paintings that plays with
the evocative potential of form. Within each work he simultaneously
combines and deconstructs elements from the expansive, and at times
contradictory, archive of imagery he has amassed over time. This
cornucopia of references ranges from logos, symbols and flags to
biographical details and Arabic text, architecture and art historical
motifs. He pushes and pulls at each source, re-imagining their
constituent elements in a series of painterly lines, abstracting them to
a point almost beyond description. By consciously shaping aspects
of his symbology into alternative configurations, Ishak creates ‘hybrid
identities that blur distances, time and symbolic currencies’. 1
Ishak lays his catholic array of references across paintings, relocating
them to trace a trajectory from Australia to South-East Asia, across
the Indian subcontinent to the Middle East and onward to Turkey, the
gateway to Europe. Ishak’s work questions ‘the relevance of that path
towards, as an example, the birthplace of Cubism and the Utopic vision
of the early 20th century’. 2 In a broader sense, he seeks to create an
inclusive point of view that ‘concerns itself with common human values
and aspirations as well as complexities, unrealised dreams and desires,
madness, peculiarities, but most of all, the need to move’. 3 This work is
about transit, in a literal as well as an imaginary sense.
The paintings themselves are deceptively simple: graphic lines
enclose curved or geometric shapes and figurative elements. Each is
painstakingly built up in muted, tonally related shades on unprimed
MDF, with swathes of raw surface left visible. Ishak’s attitude to scale
and materials is unpretentious, yet this pared-back aesthetic enables
him to traverse enormous physical and psychological territories.
The paintings present an oxymoron of sorts: as ordered explosions
they somehow manage to unite disparate visual elements. Ishak
flattens these onto the same plane, transposing the real as a chaos
of intertwining hard-edge cubist lines. Indeed, evidence of Cubism
abounds — Marcel Duchamp’s Nude descending a staircase 1912 is a
strong reference and, in his fractured treatment of form, Ishak recalls
that painting’s jumble of interlocking planes and lines.
counterpoint, sitting somewhere at the intersection between art and
geometry and, as a symbol of mobility, it facilitates the movement
of ideas across and between Ishak’s paintings. The visual grammar
at play here is one in which there is no ‘proper’ exit or entry point.
While it is possible to identify references harking back to actual
places and events — a stadium in Hanoi, a British flag, or a newspaper
image of an overturned ute at a border crossing — in its decidedly
anti-literal rendering, this work is not meant to be read or interpreted
semiotically. Instead, Ishak seeks to create ‘a space of hallucination, or
not knowing where you are’. 4
From within this non-specific space, Ishak is able to disrupt the
chronology and order of given histories in works that extend beyond
the purely visual: ‘Like a pilgrim he walks a path that has been trod
many times before, his footsteps becoming yet other symbols, other
sites, among those he encounters along the way’. 5 Indeed, the pilgrim
tracing personal lines across impersonal space provides an apt
analogy for Raafat Ishak’s nomadic wanderings — across the surface
of places and cultures, systems of thought and modes of expression.
These painterly pathways explore the circularity and dissemination of
cultural artefacts, and play with ‘ideas that implode upon themselves,
that seem to go backwards and forwards, circling the viewer and by
implication the artist’. 6
Bree Richards
Endnotes
1 Sarah Tutton, ‘Raafat Ishak’s passage to safe harbour’, Eyeline, no.67, 2009, p.24.
2 Raafat Ishak, email to the author, 11 June 2009.
3 Ishak, email to the author, 5 August 2009.
4 Ishak, conversation with the author, 22 June 2009.
5 DJ Huppatz, ‘Personal archive’, Art/Text, no.67, November 1999 – January 2000, p.49.
6 Tutton, p.27.
Raafat Ishak
Egypt/Australia b.1967
Untitled (from ‘Emergencies, Accidents and
Congratulations’ series) 2009
Synthetic polymer paint on MDF / 60 x 42cm /
Image courtesy: The artist and Sutton Gallery,
Melbourne / Photograph: Nick Kreisler
In marked contrast to the paintings on either side, a giant industrial
castor — starkly rendered, and applied directly to the wall in vinyl — is
an unexpected inclusion. It is underscored by the same Utopian,
romantic tendency foreshadowed in Ishak’s painted works — a literal
nod to ‘revolution’ and radical acts of change that gesture towards
a desire to see the world as a different place. The wheel acts as a
96 97

Runa Islam
Things that are restless and things that are still
When Runa Islam returned after 23 years to Dhaka, the place of her
birth, she felt herself a tourist and began developing ideas for film
vignettes that would work against the grain of immediate impressions
of the city. On Bangladesh’s official first day of spring, she paid
rickshaw drivers to sit in a city park, still for once rather than in motion,
their faces visible and reflective rather than bent over with physical
effort. Her camera sweeps across the dusty park, recording children
squatting in a circle beneath the trees and the wind gusting leaves
in silence. The slow reveal ends as it foregrounds an assembly of
men sitting on rickshaws, harnessing the cinematographic means of
mainstream entertainment to focus attention on an overlooked subject.
catch a fly, eye bright and beak ajar, and, on the other, a wire cage;
the whole is attached to a wheel and handle. 7 When the panel spins,
the two images combine and the bird is caged. The thaumatrope
is framed in a room lined with cases displaying scientific objects —
scales, calipers, a pendulum — and framed also by Islam’s geometrical
camera movements, rising vertically, then panning left to right, before
ascending on the diagonal across the bird and fly. On a new camera
angle, through the spinning bird and cage, a man’s hand can be seen
working the toy’s mechanism. In a final shot, the thaumatrope comes to
a halt side-on to the camera. Like a film frame line, it is almost invisible,
an interstice — what is not registered, though it frames the image.
Islam describes her aim as ‘a non-dramatic performance/event that
would interfere with the usual daily routine of the workers and hence
illustrate what could be akin to a wish-fulfillment’. 1 Where action staged
for the documentary camera generally seeks repetition, Islam creates
a situation unlike the constant movement of a working day. Slowly
observing faces, she offers no interpretation, but underlines both the
individual humanity and hermetic inaccessibility of her subjects. Her
lens turns up into the trees, like a quiet mind observing the movement
of the leaves. The silence makes the viewer aware of the act of viewing
and recalls the constructed film experience.
At the end of First Day of Spring 2005, the introduction of sound
reinstates time and movement: traffic noises, birds gathering, a vendor
crossing the park with a tower of pink bags, and a woman looking long
at the camera as she walks by. The final shot, from ground level, finds
the backs of the rickshaw drivers riding away from the park and its
vanished still point. The frame goes black but the sounds continue.
Islam’s works perpetually recall the construction of film and art. In
First Day of Spring, a camera glides across the subjects, posed by the
artist through a contractual agreement to be still. The viewer observes
the unmoving rickshaw wallahs and the perfectly controlled camera.
Film theorist Raymond Bellour suggests that relative stillness in films,
especially the filming of photographs, allows the viewer to reflect on
cinema. The unconscious viewer is transformed into what Bellour calls
‘the pensive spectator’, uncoupled from the image through ‘effects
of suspension, freezing, reflexivity, effects which enable the spectator
to reflect on what he/she is seeing’. 8 Runa Islam is fundamentally
interested in this process of uncoupling, and in underlining the
material qualities of film. She demonstrates that film is an apparatus
that frames, withholds and reveals — like a museum, or a thaumatrope
which plays on the hidden mechanisms of sight.
Kathryn Weir
The Restless Subject 2008 also deploys a series of devices to literally
bring viewers to their senses: the rhythmic whirr and clack of film
passing through the gate of the 16mm projector, the small size of
the projected image, and the sculptural nature of the projection
space designed by Slovenian artist Tobias Putrih. Islam and Putrih
first collaborated in 2007, 2 when Islam sought another artist to create
film-viewing environments that would provide alternatives to the ‘black
cube’. 3 Putrih compares these structures, made from materials including
cardboard, ply and even film stock, to a ‘digestion tract’, 4 describing
them as ‘display mechanisms, but without an ideological context’. 5
While the installation elements make the viewer conscious of seeing,
hearing and moving through the space, the film that they frame points
to the mechanics of vision. It features a thaumatrope, an optical toy
of the early nineteenth century, whose name can be translated as
‘turning wonder’. 6 In its simplest form, it consists of a disc with images
on either face, which spins on a string to create the effect of the two
images combining. The thaumatrope in The Restless Subject consists
of a panel with, on one side, a delicate painting of a bird poised to
Endnotes
1 Runa Islam artist statement, in Subcontinent: The Indian Subcontinent in
Contemporary Art [exhibition catalogue], Electa and Fondazione Sandretto
Re Rebaudengo, Milan, 2006, p.88.
2 For the ‘Lost Cinema Lost’ exhibition at Galleria Civica, Modena,
27 January – 30 March 2008.
3 Interview with Milovan Ferronato, ART iT, vol.5, no.3, summer–fall 2007, p.53.
4 Lost Cinema Lost [exhibition catalogue], Galleria Civica, Modena, 2008, p.69.
5 Lost Cinema Lost, p.70.
6 The thaumatrope was first popularised around 1825 in London. See Jonathan
Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth
Century, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1992 [1990], p.105.
7 The thaumatrope which appears in The Restless Subject 2008 is held in the
collection of the Museo del Gabinetto di Fisica dell’Universita degli Studi di Urbino
‘Carlo Bo’.
8 Raymond Bellour ‘The pensive spectator’, Wide Angle, vol.9 (1), 1987, p.10. See
also Laura Mulvey, ‘The pensive spectator’, in Laura Mulvey, Death 24x a Second:
Stillness and the Moving Image, Reaktion Books, London, 2006, pp.181–96.
Runa Islam
Bangladesh/United Kingdom b.1970
The Restless Subject (still) 2008
16mm film and CD wild tracks, colour, sound,
6:42 minutes / Image courtesy: The artist and
White Cube, London / Photograph: Todd-White
Art Photography
First Day of Spring (still) 2005
16mm film, colour, sound, 7:00 minutes / Image
courtesy: The artist and White Cube, London /
Photograph: Todd-White Art Photography
98 99

Ayaz Jokhio
Toward the within
A thousand doors and windows too,
The palace has . . . but still,
Wherever I might go or be
Master confronts me there
Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai 1
The soaring structure by Ayaz Jokhio in the Queensland Art Gallery’s
Watermall takes its inspiration from this verse by Bhittai, the great
Sindhi Sufi poet of the late Mughal era. Also from Sindh, and a poet
himself, Jokhio considers the work a piece of ‘conceptual architecture’;
a physical translation of Bhittai’s expression of the omnipresence of
God. 2 As a simple geometric form, surrounded by gently flowing water,
a thousand doors and windows too . . . 2009 evokes the refined beauty
of Islamic architecture, with its emphasis on symmetry, repetition and
spatial interplay as the means to invite contemplation.
Jokhio’s work takes the shape of a roofless, octagonal room; one
wall contains an arched doorway, and the other seven each feature a
curved alcove. These elements suggest the mihrab, the niche built into
the wall of a mosque to indicate the qibla — the direction facing Mecca,
and therefore for prayer. Here, the niches face in seven directions,
implying the multifariousness of God’s presence, while the identical,
yet differently oriented, walls also elaborate Jokhio’s interest in what
he calls ‘similarities and differences occurring at the same time and in
the same thing’. 3 This interest also connects with Sufi thought, which,
while maintaining Islam’s central tenet of the unity of God, also gives
primacy to personal interactions with the divine.
Jokhio claims to have no signature style, stating that each project is an
opportunity to start at the beginning again. 4 His works have included
an installation of a classroom, video documentaries, large paintings
of museum wall texts and the reverse of photographs, and newsprint
collages of celebrities. A recurrent medium is drawing; in a recent
series, the artist employed an academic realist technique to render
diptychs of ordinary objects of similar form but of vastly different
function. A flat loaf of naan bread is paired with planet Earth, a ballpoint
pen with a bullet, bracelets with a pair of handcuffs, and a sumo
wrestler with the ‘Fat Man’ atomic bomb detonated over Nagasaki in
1945. Here, Jokhio’s interest in similarity and difference takes on the
guise of one-liners, yet with wry social and political significances.
it is difficult to avoid an underlying political message, especially when
viewed in the context of a contemporary world where there are great
pressures to maintain a singular, fixed identity. The powerful forces
of nationalism and religious fundamentalism, not only in Pakistan
but across the globe, view fluid, multiple identities as suspicious,
even dangerous. Indeed, if we return to Sufism, its tolerance of other
faiths and individualised worship has for centuries been considered a
potentially moderating force within Islam, in the face of more sectarian
and authoritarian versions.
However, Jokhio has said, ‘In the end I do realise that all subjects and
materials are secondary. What comes first is the visual impact of the
work itself as seen by the viewer’. 6 Within the context of an art exhibition,
Ayaz Jokhio’s structure is, of course, primarily sculpture. From the
outside, it is a monolithic white form — clearly, the detailed decoration
of classical Islamic buildings is eschewed here — with its huge scale
creating specific relationships with the viewer and the space around
it. Yet, as in the Islamic tradition of ‘hidden architecture’, its focus is on
an internal, enclosed space, in which the work truly exists ‘only when
entered, penetrated and experienced from within’. 7 It is only when we
walk inside the sculpture that we can see all its walls at once, with their
niches fanning out in all directions, echoing Bhittai’s sublime words.
Russell Storer
Endnotes
1 Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai (1689–1752) was a Sufi poet and scholar who lived in the
province of Sindh, in the south-east of what is now Pakistan. Sufism is the esoteric
or mystical dimension of Islam, greatly influential in the direction and spread of
Islamic thought throughout the world. Sufi poets and thinkers include Rumi, Omar
Khayyám and Al-Ghazali.
2 Ayaz Jokhio, email to the author, 7 May 2009.
3 Jokhio, email to the author.
4 Ayaz Jokhio artist statement, ‘Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan’, Asia
Society, New York, , viewed
11 October 2009.
5 The number 99 is highly significant in Islam, with the Qu’ran describing God as
having 99 attributes, known as ‘The Most Beautiful Names’.
6 Ayaz Jokhio artist statement.
7 Ernst J Grube, ‘What is Islamic architecture?’, in George Michell (ed.), Architecture
of the Islamic World: Its History and Social Meaning, Thames & Hudson, London,
1995, p.11.
Ayaz Jokhio
Pakistan b.1978
Working designs for a thousand doors and
windows too… 2009
Site-specific work for APT6 / Images courtesy: The artist
Another series, 99 Self portraits 2008, comprises a drawing of the
artist’s face reproduced 99 times, with each version sent to a different
person to add hair and other features. 5 These were then reassembled
and exhibited as a group, offering dozens of permutations of the
original face and, by association, of the artist himself. Again, there is
directness, lightness and humour to the work — Jokhio deliberately
absolves his authorial role and taps into Duchampian tactics of
appropriation and self-parody. Nevertheless, as with the diptychs,
100 101

Takeshi Kitano
Fallen hero
Actor and director Takeshi Kitano seeks to undermine the traditional
notion of the virtuous and invulnerable protagonist as an instigator
of a heroic narrative. He creates powerful filmic explorations of a
contemporary notion of heroism. Employing a spare style of acting
and a masterful use of silence, which is counterpointed by absurdist
humour, Kitano captures the decline of the heroic character at the
precise moment of his fall from grace.
His directorial debut, Violent Cop 1989, demonstrates Kitano’s confident
storytelling approach and signals his interest in problematising the
notion of an irreproachable protagonist. He uses narrative pauses,
sparse dialogue and empty frames to focus the audience’s attention
on his complex characters and the subtleties of their interactions; his
delicate, understated filmmaking techniques provide stark contrast
to abrupt intrusions of violence. The opening scene of Violent Cop
follows a group of high school students who viciously beat a homeless
man for entertainment. Kitano plays the lead, a police detective who
invades the home of one of the boys and beats a confession out of
him, vividly capturing the moment when his character crosses the line
of no return and begins a rapid descent from righteous heroism. He
avenges the injustice but transforms the boy into a victim, taking his
place as the aggressor. The transgressions in Violent Cop unleash a
string of consequences leading to the character’s onscreen decay.
His inevitable destruction is both tragic and glorious as he struggles
to follow a path to redemption.
In contrast to his movie roles, Kitano’s television persona is primarily
comedic. Drawing from his performance beginnings as a standup
comedian, Kitano’s TV persona is often the prankster, regularly
making fun of celebrity guests he interviews, and hosting game
shows which deliver slapstick humour in the form of extreme physical
challenges and outlandish costumes for contestants. For mainstream
Japanese audiences, Kitano’s television career largely overshadows
his filmmaking; they are more accustomed to his work as a comic and
struggle to engage with his more serious film content.
International audiences know him best as a filmmaker. Violent Cop
and Sonatine 1993 garnered critical acclaim, but it was Hana-bi 1997,
with its delicate balance of tenderness and characteristic nihilism,
which brought the actor–director to international prominence. Kitano’s
most recent cinematic trilogy Takeshis’ 2005, Glory to the Filmmaker
2007 and Achilles and the Tortoise 2008 expands his exploration of
the flawed hero, from yakuza and police officer alter egos to the selfreferential
realm of the filmmaker.
Kitano’s bold yet serene storytelling evokes a mood of uncertainty.
His questioning of masculine mythologies offers the viewer a glimpse
of the taboo notion of the hero as a flawed mortal lacking mythic
strength or resilience — an everyman breaking under the pressure of
expectations, his own as much as others.
The cinematic study of the consequences of violence is central to
Kitano’s exploration of his failing heroes. Unlike traditional acts of
heroism which equate violent force with restrained and unavoidable
collateral damage, Kitano’s heroic violence is excessive and messy,
not stylised into palatable and exhilarating action sequences. Kitano
strips his violence of conventional film melodrama, presenting
his central character’s actions and the resultant reprisals as gritty
inversions of cinematic expectations of heroic fiction. Kitano is careful
to connect the dead to their killer — often a protagonist will pause over
a dead body to absorb the reality of what has transpired, the camera
lingering on a trail of blood or a grimace of pain. The protagonists
who carry out these acts are often yakuza (members of Japanese
criminal organisations) or police officers. Rather than being physically
and emotionally impervious, they are fragile and at the limit of their
endurance from the outset. As the decay and destruction reach their
climax, the only redemption possible for these characters is death —
an onscreen liberation realised through self-sacrifice.
Kitano’s presence in Japanese popular culture is ubiquitous: he is
often referred to as the most famous person in Japan, and is a source
of humorous social and political commentary. A prolific artist, he is also
a writer of poetry and fiction and a regular contributor to newspapers.
The majority of his creative output, however, is through television. 1
Rosie Hays
Endnote
1 Tim Smedley, A Divine Comedy: The Films of Takeshi Kitano,, viewed September 2009.
Takeshi Kitano
Japan b.1947
Production still from Kantoku: Banzai! (Glory to the
Filmmaker) 2007 / 35mm, colour and black and white,
Dolby Digital, 108 minutes, Japan, Japanese (English
subtitles) / Image courtesy: Celluloid Dreams, Paris
Left
Production still from Sonachine (Sonatine) 1993 / 35mm,
colour, Dolby, 94 minutes, Japan, Japanese (English
subtitles) / Image courtesy: Shochiku, Tokyo
Right
Production still from Takeshis’ 2005 / 35mm, colour,
Dolby Digital, 108 minutes, Japan, Japanese (English
subtitles) / Image courtesy: Celluloid Dreams, Paris
102 103

Ang Lee
Quiet! The film is about to start
Although Ang Lee’s oeuvre appears to be disparate and lacking a
‘signature style’, there is something that unites his films: a quality of
silence. According to Whitney Crothers Dilley in her discussion of
The Ice Storm 1997: ‘Silence is an actual medium of the movie — the
film is all about what is unsaid — and the unexpressed thoughts fill the
movie like a picture highlighted in relief’. 1 Many of Lee’s films open
with visually rich, dialogue-free scenes — from his first feature film,
Tui Shou (Pushing Hands) 1992, which opens with an elderly Chinese
man calmly practising Tai Chi, while a disgruntled American tears
at her blond hair in front of a computer in the adjacent room; to his
Academy Award-winning Brokeback Mountain 2005, where two young
cowboys wait next to an office trailer, catching glimpses of each other
only when gazes are averted.
Disconcertingly, when these characters do eventually speak, they have
great difficulty communicating their messages. English as a second
language is a source of mis-communication in a number of Lee’s
films. The disconnection created by the lack of a common language
is most obvious when characters gather around the table during meal
times. In both Tui Shou and Xi Yan (The Wedding Banquet) 1993, the
dinner conversation is censored by the character translating. The
censor’s intention is to avoid conflict, but, of course, their actions only
contribute to an escalation of the dispute. Even when characters do
share a common language, there are still considerable barriers to
real communication. Socially imposed silence surrounding desire,
homosexuality, interracial relationships and female ambitions hinder
attempts at expression.
Upon breaking their silence, Lee’s characters often place physical
barriers between themselves and the people with whom they speak.
They speak from behind closed doors, under bed sheets, with their
backs to one another or from behind masks. 2 In Se, Jie (Lust, Caution)
2007, Miss Wong Chia Chi is a university student posing as Mrs Mak Tai
Tai as part of an espionage plot. Miss Wong contributes little dialogue
to the film; she does, however, speak under the guise of Mrs Mak. It
remains ambiguous whether these lies stem from the illusory web
surrounding Mrs Mak, or if her expressions are the true desires of Miss
Wong under the guise of a fictitious character.
this, as he is on the verge of telling Yu Shu Lien the reason that he has
come to Beijing has nothing to do with recovering his prized sword,
but he is interrupted by a servant and does not finish his sentence.
As conversations do little to further the storyline, Lee employs visual
metaphors to carry his films. Creating mouth-watering banquets in
Yin Shi Nan Nu (Eat Drink Man Woman) 1994 is the only way that
characters in a traditional Taiwanese home are able to express their
love for one another. 3 Lee’s visual metaphors extend to the landscape;
in The Ice Storm, set in middle-class, suburban Connecticut, icicles
cover every surface and the shattering of this ice is a metaphor for the
disintegration of the nuclear family and the Nixon administration in the
1970s; while mountains with rocky outcrops, as well as vast fields, are
used to materialise the isolation felt by the two main characters living
in intolerant middle America in Brokeback Mountain.
In reference to Hulk 2003, Lee once said: ‘So far, repression has been
my biggest source of creativity’. 4 Yet, the film is concerned with finding a
way to resolve what Bruce Banner has previously subdued: the character
of the Hulk provides a cathartic vehicle for his repressed desires.
Perhaps, part of the reason why Hulk was critically less successful than
Lee’s other films is because Banner is able to discuss his problems, like
a therapy session. As the characters in the other films remain silent, a
visual smorgasbord fills the screen. That is what is so compelling about
Lee’s films — the story is told when the actors do not speak.
Ellie Buttrose
Endnotes
1 Whitney Crothers Dilley, The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the Screen,
Wallflower Press, London, 2007, p.102.
2 Dilley, p.102.
3 ‘Eating is about what you put on the table. Desire . . . is about what lies beneath
it, which is never available for discussion’, Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh and Darrell William
Davis sum up the dining etiquette in Yin Shi Nan Nu in Taiwan Film Directors: A
Treasure Island, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p.202.
4 Ang Lee, quoted in John Lahr, ‘Becoming the Hulk’, The New Yorker, vol.79, no.17,
30 June 2003, p.72, ,
viewed 5 August 2009.
Ang Lee
Taiwan b.1954
Production still from Se, Jie (Lust, Caution) 2007 /
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 157 minutes, USA/China/
Taiwan/Hong Kong, Mandarin/Japanese/English/Hindi/
Shanghainese/Cantonese (English subtitles) / Image
courtesy: Universal Pictures International, Sydney
Just when real communication appears to be taking place, it is
interrupted, severed and suppressed. In Sense and Sensibility 1995,
when Margaret, the youngest of the Dashwood sisters, announces
her delight with Mrs Jennings (who doesn’t limit the conversation to
the weather), she is hushed by Mrs Dashwood. Similarly, when Alma
confronts Ennis in Brokeback Mountain about what he and Jack did
during their ‘fishing trips’, he abruptly silences her. In Wo Hu Cang
Long (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) 2000, an old friend of Yu Shu
Lien’s father laments the fact that Yu Shu Lien and Li Mu Bai have never
expressed their feelings for one another. Li Mu Bai arrives soon after
104 105

Mansudae Art Studio and art in North Korea (DPRK)
Driven, I suppose, by a spirit of curatorial curiosity, the Queensland
Art Gallery approached me in early 2005 to find out more about the
art and culture of North Korea, or the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea (DPRK). On hearing of my long-term interest in the DPRK
through my involvement in a number of film projects, this initial
conversation ranged from peering at my collection of propaganda
posters and brush-and-ink paintings to talking about the relationships
built over 15 years with filmmaker and artist friends. After several
meetings, I approached my artist colleagues in the DPRK to discuss the
Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) project, and to explore
the possibility of presenting work in Brisbane.
Almost five years on, these discussions have resulted in an extensive
exhibition of art from the DPRK for APT6. At the core of this selection
are 13 ambitious new commissions made by eight artists from the
Mansudae Art Studio. These are augmented by a significant group of
works from my personal collection to provide an added, important
context. Few of these works have ever been on public display before,
the exception being some of the prints, which are among the most
well-known works from Korea to have circulated internationally.
A brief history
Art today in the DPRK occupies a distinct place within the texture of the
culture and is powered by the principle that art contains knowledge —
about revolution, for education, for socialism — and takes various forms,
from propaganda to images that instruct children about respecting
their parents and Korean custom. Art is also made simply to enrich life.
After the three-year Korean War stalled in an armistice stalemate in
1953, much art was influenced by the Soviet Union and China through
socialist realist styles, until Korea developed its own national style after
1966. Reflecting the state’s ethos of juche (self-reliance), Leader Kim IL
Sung instructed the DPRK art world to develop juche art: ‘Let’s develop
our national form, with socialist content’. 1
With China and Russia immediately to the north and Japan, separated
by the waters of the Korea Strait, to the east, Korea has substantial
pressures to accommodate, and also extensive cultures to draw on.
The peninsula was essentially ruled — by different dynasties, political
powers and ethnicities — as one political entity for over 1000 years,
until mid twentieth century conflicts separated it into two. This complex
interchange of power and territory has contributed to a long and vital
history of art and culture in the region.
The Japanese occupation from 1910 to 1945 led to many Korean artists
undertaking training in Japan during this period before returning to
Korea to practice and teach. Japan, meanwhile, had been exchanging
influences with European and North American artists, which affected
Japanese practice and teaching.
Art education
Today, art education is the only method of becoming an artist in the
DPRK. The most prestigious art university is the Pyongyang University
of Fine Art, which was established in 1947. The main areas of study
are brush-and-ink painting or chosunhua — considered to be the most
important art form, due to its traditional roots — calligraphy, oil painting,
printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, mural painting and the industrial arts.
There are other specialist universities, such as the Pyongyang College
of Handicrafts, which is responsible for teaching embroidery and
lacquer work; the Pyongyang University of Construction and Building
Materials, specialising in architecture; and the Pyongyang University of
Cinema, which teaches film and film production.
Young artists are selected from around the country and, if judged to
have sufficient skill, are invited to study at the Pyongyang University
of Fine Art. In Pyongyang and the hinterland, there are a number of
local colleges for artists who do not reach the grades necessary for
admittance to the university. These institutions are not strictly fine
art academies as they include other art forms such as dance and
design. The Pyongyang University of Fine Art requires a minimum of
six to eight years of study. Three years of undergraduate study are
followed by postgraduate courses. The usual age to enter university
is between 15 and 23 years. Currently, the oil painting department
and the chosunhua department enrol 20 students each annually.
In total, around 150 students graduate every year in the fine art
department (including all arts, from embroidery and ceramics to
chosunhua). After finishing university, students are then selected
by the various art studios, the most recognised being Mansudae,
Paekho, Minye and Central.
While female painters are in a minority in the chosunhua and oil
painting departments, women can obtain revered status as ‘People’s
Artist’, like Kim Sung Hui, whose work has a very distinct style.
Art studios
Artists are employed by the art studio system. Art studios are
headed by a director, supported by a first assistant director, and
assistant directors, who are responsible for overseeing the creation,
organisation, production and distribution of the art.
The studios are places where younger members learn from their
peers and their more experienced colleagues. For example, in the
ink painting department of Mansudae Art Studio, there are around
100 artists assigned to 5 teams, and a team leader is responsible
for the development of the artists’ work. Every morning, artist teams
participate in a life-drawing class with artists either posing or sketching.
Artists share a studio with others (around two to five artists per room),
with some highly regarded artists having their own studio.
Choe Yong Sun
North Korea (DPRK) b.1958
The construction site 2005
Linocut on paper / 65.5 x 52.5cm /
Collection: Nicholas Bonner, Beijing
106 107

Im Hyok
North Korea (DPRK) b.1965
Breaktime (detail) 2009
Ink on paper (chosunhua) / 200 x 200cm /
Commissioned for APT6 / Collection: Nicholas Bonner,
Beijing / Courtesy: The artist and Nicholas Bonner
Opposite
Kim Yong IL
North Korea (DPRK) b.1971
Study for In the face of the flame (detail) 2009
Oil on canvas / 54 x 63cm / Commissioned for APT6 /
Collection: Nicholas Bonner, Beijing / Courtesy:
The artist and Nicholas Bonner
An artist’s week generally sees them work eight-hour days from
Monday to Friday, with Thursdays often set aside for technical practice
to improve and hone skills. Saturdays are devoted to political study.
Unless working on a government commission, artists are free to paint
what they wish, although they need approval for trips out of the city.
Artists often arrange trips to scenic areas throughout Korea to sketch,
and may travel with their spouses, often camping in the countryside or
billeted by members of a local community.
While the number of works an artist is required to produce in a year is
not stipulated, there is an obvious pressure to produce works of high
quality. Artists receive a fixed salary, with basic items such as painting
equipment and related materials supplied by the studio. Individuals
can earn additional money by exhibiting work at the National Exhibition
with the Ministry of Culture, which pays fees. Artists are awarded
various accolades during their lifetime — titles include ‘Merited’ and
‘People’s Artist’ — while winning the Kim IL Sung prize and obtaining
membership of the Korean Artists Union are some of the achievements
for which they strive.
They are also allowed to specialise, depending on their skill and
where their talent lies. For example, some prefer landscape, others
chuchehua (art on a revolutionary theme), others wildlife or dance.
At some point in their careers, most artists will paint one chuchehua
piece for society, revolution and education, even if it is not their
speciality. Individual creativity and freedom of expression are most
often articulated through choice of subject matter and technique.
Mansudae Art Studio
The Mansudae Art Studio was established in November 1959 by
Leader Kim IL Sung and placed under his direct supervision. In 1970,
control of the studio passed to Leader Kim Jong IL, who took a great
interest in art and cinema. That the studio is under the guidance of the
Leader is considered an enormous honour, and it is therefore the most
sought-after for artists to join.
In 2009, the Mansudae Art Studio enlisted around 1000 artists,
craftspeople, designers, sculptors, ceramicists, embroiderers, mosaic
and propaganda artists. Mansudae’s chosunhua department has over
100 artists, while its oil painting department has 80 artists. These
departments enjoy a fair degree of autonomy, with final decisions on
projects being made by the director.
Mansudae is well-known for projects such as the sculpture of the
Chollima Horse, completed in 1961; the 22-metre bronze statue of
former Leader Kim IL Sung, completed in 1972; and the mosaics of the
Pyongyang Metro and various government buildings. Artists who are
not commissioned by the studio via state projects can select themes
based on their artistic lives and loves. When a request is made by the
government or other institutions for a specific work of art, subjects
are based on the brief. This was the process undertaken for the 13
commissions for APT6, and it was conducted via consultation with the
artists exploring subject matter, styles, scale and media.
Commissions for APT6
From the start, it was considered imperative that chosunhua should be
included in APT6. Oil painting and mosaic are also included, as they
reflect the important position these practices occupy in the broader
artistic vocabulary of contemporary DPRK art. The mosaic takes the form
of the chuchehua, and it is the only work in this suite of commissions to
be developed in this way.
The overarching subject for the seven commissions in the main display
was developed around the theme of work and the everyday. In this
sense, the revolutionary subject is a genuine one; it encompasses
an aspect of the everyday for Koreans, as well as the mundane work
of the foundry. The five two-metre-square brush-and-ink paintings
are rare undertakings, demonstrating a willingness to experiment
with both form and content. The unusual square format in this scale
tested the usual bounds of chosunhua paintings. Each work observes
different aspects of the everyday, from the workplace to home, from
young workers to the aged. These inks are a meditation on interior and
exterior lives, humble illustrations of a familiar scenario expressed in an
unpretentious manner.
Im Hyok, the painter of Breaktime 2009, describes the process of arriving
at the composition, and his thoughts about making the work in this way:
I was working from a photograph that Mr Kim Dong Hwan (head
of the Korean painting section) had taken from another steelworks
a year previously. There are many problems working from a
photograph. The photo is small so it is only a small reference.
So I used my site visits to Kangson Steelworks to complete the
picture. But also it was so important to meet the workers and get
an understanding of their life . . . a photograph is after all only this
thin [demonstrates with the tiny gap between his fingers] so it is
important to get behind the eyes of the subject. 2
He explains how he envisaged the audience’s thoughts on
encountering such a portrait:
When people see this painting I want them to first of all ask [the]
question, ‘Why is he drawing this face so big?’ Secondly I want them
to see the details and see the skill. I hope to give the feeling of this
man to whoever is looking at my painting but any point of view is
acceptable — it is up to you to take from it what you want. Perhaps in
Australia people should be surprised as they know only their own life
— and they are thinking they have come to a gallery to observe art,
but it is in fact a shock for them to be observed by a Korean worker. 3
Rim Ho Chol — who painted On the way to work 2009, showing a
scene of factory workers as they stream into work in the morning
— discusses his work:
Most people would concentrate on the factory but I went outside — for
in art it is important to take different viewpoints and perspectives and
many artists tend to concentrate just on the inside. For some artists they
see life too directly in that they go straight for the subject but I think in
108 109

Kim Chang Gil
North Korea (DPRK) b.1943
Portrait of merited artist Hong Bu Un 1980
Oil on canvas / 35.5 x 25.4cm /
Collection: Nicholas Bonner, Beijing
Won Song Ryong
North Korea (DPRK) b.unknown
Figure of harmony 1981
Oil on canvas / 58.5 x 42.5cm /
Collection: Nicholas Bonner, Beijing
Opposite
Kang Jae Won
North Korea (DPRK) b.1947
Going to work undated
Linocut on paper / 43.5 x 81cm /
Collection: Nicholas Bonner, Beijing
Next page
Hwang In Jae (attrib.)
North Korea (DPRK)/China b.1943
Potato flower smell in the Daehongdan
Highland (detail) 1999
Linocut on paper, ed. 1/5 / 41 x 80cm /
Collection: Nicholas Bonner, Beijing
making art it is important not to think directly and I wanted to show the
feeling of the workers heading to their jobs in winter time. The feeling of
comradeship, morning, winter . . . I created my own perspective, viewed
from above. I wanted to exaggerate the feeling of a river of people.
Often when ink artists draw winter scenes they use shell powder to
place on top of the paper before painting and when removed it leaves
white spots — but I prefer to use my skill to paint around leaving the
paper showing through — it’s more natural, more truthful. 4
The oil painting In the face of the flames 2009 by O Sung Gyu is set
around the white heat of the furnace at the heart of the foundry. It takes
an almost scroll-like format, and encompasses the calm of the foundry
interior, depicting crouched foundry workers and those tackling the
untamed energy of the fire. O Sung Gyu describes his work:
This is the first time I have worked on anything this size — so that has
been a challenge. Also I am surprised to work on something with
such contrasts. If you look at the painting there are three distinct areas
all with varying intensities. I captured the intense heat in my original
sketch and the furnace creates vibrant light with a life of its own
appearing in strange places but also contrasts with the calm and the
cool light from the skylights. Both lights require your eyes to adjust.
This is the first time I have painted faces without all the detail — in both
cases of the bright furnace and deep recess of the building you get a
very interesting way of how your eyes see people — the intense heat
distorts your vision in real life and when you look back into the dark
away from the light again the figures are not all that clear. 5
The mosaic Work team contest 2009 is virtuosic and monumental
in scale. Most murals and public sculptures in the DPRK today adopt
themes of great and often overt narrative power. Designed by the
artists Kim Hung IL and Kang Yong Sam and produced in collaboration
with others from the Mansudae Art Studio, Work team contest is a
tribute to the industriousness of workers in various sites of production.
The scene is meticulously planned; a border of magnolias (the national
flower) frames the scene and above the workers is a banner which
reads, ‘Let’s support our Party by iron’. The workers themselves are
decorated with flower garlands or hold bouquets; beaming, jubilant
and curiously uniform in their demeanour, they appear radiant in
their moment of glory. This image of striving for common prosperity,
of ‘unbounded joy’, is typical of various forms of visual culture in
the DPRK. Featured across media, including posters, film, television
and billboards, this imagery reinforces the far-reaching influence of a
singular creed in North Korean society.
Prints
The woodblock has a respected revolutionary history in Korea; a cheap
and fast method of delivering propaganda during the anti-Japanese
Liberation War, this genre of printmaking continues to be a distinct
and recognisable art form advocating social and political messages.
The woodblock has an immediacy and vitality easily understood and
accepted. The linocut was introduced in the 1970s and has overtaken
woodcuts in popularity due to its low cost, the ease with which it can
be used, and the effects achieved by the use of heavily oiled inks in
the printing process.
The selection of prints in APT6 ranges in date from the late 1980s
to the present. They illustrate technical skill and encompass typical
subject matter, including rural landscapes, labour, the workplace and
the city. They provide a particular picture of DPRK, as they encompass
conceptions of daily life, work, family, propaganda and the ‘Fatherland’.
Portraits
In APT6, a display of portraits is placed in proximity to the monumental
mosaic Work team contest. The succession of faces is positioned
deliberately in counterpoint to the topic of the mosaic, which is realised
in the manner of chuchehua. Dating from as early as 1956, these
works illustrate an intimate perspective. Portraits result from the
artist’s personal attachment to the sitter, as practice or as studies for
incorporating into future work. Here, it is worth noting that the artists’
painting in oil has been influenced by the Japanese occupation of the
country, when artists were exposed not only to Japanese but also to
European schools of painting.
The platform of the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art offers an
important context for bringing this selection of works together. APT6
presents the chance to consider the many forms that art takes in the
DPRK today, and to exhibit these for the first time in Australia. The most
satisfying aspect has been the opportunity to work with the various
artists at the Mansudae Art Studio, and to develop this suite of new
works on show here.
Nicholas Bonner
Endnotes
1 Jane Portal, Art Under Control in North Korea, The British Museum Press and
Reaktion, London, 2005, p.124.
2 Author’s unpublished notes from artist interviews conducted at the Pyongyang
studio, July 2009.
3 Author’s unpublished notes.
4 Author’s unpublished notes.
5 Author’s unpublished notes.
Further reading:
Philippe Chancel, North Korea (including texts by Michel Poivert and Jonathan Fenby),
Thames and Hudson, London, 2006.
Jane Portal, Art Under Control in North Korea, The British Museum Press and Reaktion,
London, 2005.
Pier Luigi Tazzi, The Hermit Country: Today’s Art from the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea, Petra, Padova, Italy, 2007.
Yoo Jae-kil, ‘The past of North Korean art: Focusing on before and after 1950’ and
Kim Chan-dong, ‘Northern Korean art today’, in Kwangju Biennale 2000: Man +
Space [exhibition catalogue], Kwangju Biennale Press, Kwangju, 2000, pp.340–85.
110 111

Rudi Mantofani
What is aslant and what is oblique
To know what is aslant and what is oblique
To know where the shadow of a word lays
Clarity comes even before shown
A glimpse of fish in the water
Its mysteries unfold
A traditional Minangkabau aphorism 1
Rudi Mantofani makes beautiful objects and paintings whose crisp
surfaces and precise facture suggest absolute certainty. One imagines,
at first glance, that these assured works are completely legible. Look
again: for every one of his sculptures, like the series of eccentric guitar
works shown in APT6, or his detailed ‘representational’ paintings, is
aslant, oblique, bent — to use current parlance.
It’s not just that the guitars themselves are wickedly unplayable, with
their multiple necks positioned so it would be impossible for the
suggested number of players to strike a note. One instrument is cut
in half, another curves improbably, the necks of others are too long
for human arms. Perfectly inaccessible, these guitars frustrate our
desire to hold them, play our fingers across the strings, release their
magnificent chords. The guitars are gorgeous, and Mantofani has
fastidiously crafted them himself, from scratch, so these impossibilities
are deliberate: these are not transformed ready-made objects, they are
custom-made affronts to common usage and common sense. What
are we to make of these glossy enigmatic objects, which seem on one
hand to be so straightforward, yet on the other so perverse?
The sturdy ambiguity of Mantofani’s sculptures, together with the
resolute refusal of his Jendela Group to issue manifestos, has played
brilliantly to the didactic, politically committed strain in Indonesian
contemporary art. A critical storm raged over the meaning or, more
precisely, what seemed a problematical lack of clear meaning in
Jendela Group works, with their focus on everyday, overlooked,
even banal, objects and subjects; veteran curator Jim Supangkat
astutely noted the characteristic ‘silence’ of Jendela works. 2 The
artists, including Mantofani, have been accused of errors ranging from
formalism to lack of ‘soul’ to failure of social commitment, the latter a
particularly grievous charge given they trained in Yogyakarta, the hub
of politically committed art in Indonesia. 3 If artists from Bandung, the
other important contemporary art centre, are stereotyped as Westerninfluenced
formalists, where does this leave artists like Mantofani?
Occupying a carefully chosen position that eschews singular meanings
in favour of a plethora of open possibilities, of open allusions — the
word Jendela itself means ‘window’ in Bahasa Indonesia. What is
aslant, as the Minangkabau aphorism wisely implies, is not the same
as what is oblique. One is merely a fact, the other an intention.
Mantofani evades the simple opposition of Yogyakarta figuration
versus Bandung abstraction. I am struck by the wide range of art
history references in his guitar series: Pop art, with his deadpan
presentation of perfect simulacra; Cubism, since Picasso and Braque
used guitars for experimental still-life compositions before World
War One; and his paintings, which often disturb exquisite landscapes
with non-representational blocks of colour, gesture to Yogyakarta’s
enduring fascination with veristic Surrealism, as much as to abstraction.
As several writers noted, Mantofani works with a multiplicity of cultural
sources and signs. 4
Here, Mantofani plays around with music. More often than not,
outsiders associate Indonesian music with gamelan orchestras
from Bali or Java, making assumptions that perplex contemporary
Indonesians who play music ranging from local traditional forms to
European classics, and whose younger generations are fans of rock
music. Rock uses electric guitars, and Mantofani’s perfect yet estranged
versions evoke a complex of tensions in contemporary Indonesia:
between imported versus local cultures, expensive consumer goods
and unrealisable desires for ownership and status, the growth of mall
culture and the persistence of traditional cultural and social values.
Life is full of contradictions: Mantofani recently said that for him the
guitars are ‘symbols of exaggeration, distortion and amplification, in a
negative sense . . . symbols of the distortion of reality.’ 5
I regularly pass a guitar shop in Brisbane. The electric guitars hanging on
its walls make one bright shiny silent promise, in unison: the possibility
of immense noise, of harmony or discord. Mantofani’s title for many
guitar sculptures is Nada yang hilang — ‘The lost note’. Potentiality does
not ensure action, then, and imagination must summon what is lacking.
Rudi Mantofani’s art may be oblique, but his invitation remains open.
Let the band play on.
Julie Ewington
Endnotes
1 Quoted in Enin Supriyanto, ‘Seeing through the window’, in Jendela: A Play of
the Ordinary [exhibition catalogue], NUS Museum and Gajah Gallery, Singapore,
2009, pp.10–19, 15. Supriyanto argues Minang word play is crucial for Kelompok
Seni Rupa Jendela (KSRJ), or Jendela Fine Art Group, all of whom come from West
Sumatra and, as Minangkabau people, speak Minang as their preferred language.
2 Jim Supangkat, ‘Exploration into the world of things’, in The Culture of Things: Solo
Exhibition by Rudi Mantofani [exhibition catalogue], CP Artspace, Jakarta, 2006, p.1.
3 Critic Agus Dermawan T, writing in Kompas in 2000, accused KSRJ of being
‘indecent’ and ‘lazy’. See Supriyanto, pp.12–13.
4 Ahmad Mashadi in Jendela: A Play of the Ordinary, pp.3–8, and Wang Zineng,
‘Wondrous visions, simple truths’, Asian Art News, vol.18(2), March–April 2008,
pp.91–5.
5 Email from Gajah Gallery, Singapore, 22 October 2009. See also Wang Zineng,
p.94–5; the original inspiration for the guitar works was when Mantofani saw rock
musicians playing at a New York charity concert in 2005 and reflected on the
contradictions between this and US foreign policy.
Rudi Mantofani
Indonesia b.1973
Nada yang hilang (The lost note) 2008
Wood, metal, leather and oil / 30 x 122 x 14cm /
Image courtesy: The artist and Gajah Gallery,
Singapore / Photograph: Agung Sukindra
114 115

Mataso Printmakers
When Australian artist Newell Harry, in collaboration with Carl Amneus
and Jack Siviu Martau, established a series of workshops with the Mataso
community in Ohlen village, Port Vila, Vanuatu, he recognised that a
fluid and flexible model was necessary to achieve creative outcomes.
Workshops and creative initiatives in such communities are successful
when relationships and partnerships — based on respect and trust — are
formed between artists and teachers, communities and participants.
The Mataso community consists of permanent residents on the island
of Mataso and Ohlen village on the main island of Efate. Movement
between the two locations is frequent and relatively easy. Younger
members have inevitably spent more time on the larger island, where
television, reggae and soul music and other influences from popular
culture have merged with traditional beliefs and lifestyles. This postindependence
(July 1980) generation constituted the majority of the
artists involved in the workshops.
As a medium, printmaking, in particular screenprinting, is often a
technique of choice for collective workshops. The ability to generate
multiple prints of substantial scale marks it as a cost- and time-effective
means to explore creative solutions in a group context. Its industrial
origins set it slightly apart from more technically demanding and timeconsuming
techniques, such as stone or zinc plate lithography, wood
engraving and intaglio methods of engraving, etching and aquatint. 1
particular locale. Imagery used and adapted by the artists includes
fish, butterflies, fruit, turtles and hybrid creatures. Other sources, such
as packaging, tourist imagery and advertising, have provided initial
impetus for the designs.
The kastom of sand-drawing is an indigenous graphic tradition
practised mainly in the northern islands of the archipelago of Vanuatu,
such as Pentecost, Malakula and the Banks Islands. Sand-drawing has
increasingly been adopted as a graphic branding for Vanuatu, while
its cultural and communicative role has somewhat diminished. The
linear geometry of the designs drawn with the fingers into the sand
can be complex and relates to both ritual and practical knowledge,
cosmologies and song cycles.
While there are vestiges of the practice in some of the imagery
produced by this younger group of artists, its stylistic application
in the works has largely been appropriated from the commercial
sphere. Works by Saires Kalo and Herveline Lité, for example, draw
on the geometry of sand-drawing as a framework for images fusing
cultural traditions with contemporary observations and practice. The
contemporary nature of these prints is particularly evident in works
such as David Kolin’s Mi laekem kae kaeman 2006 and Weetbix-boy
2006, which are inspired by popular magazines and contemporary
music culture, particularly reggae and hip-hop.
Sepa Seule
Vanuatu b.1983
Popo (from ‘Bebellic’ portfolio) 2007
Screenprint on magnani paper ed. 1/45 / 56 x 76cm /
Purchased 2008. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Stanley Firiam
Vanuatu b.unknown
Pig tusk 2005
Screenprint on arches paper / 56 x 76cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
In its simplest form, screenprinting is essentially stencil printing; using
cut paper stencils, bold graphic designs are possible, which are suitable
for packaging, posters and advertising. Resist techniques produce a
more autographic image in which the design is drawn directly onto
the silkscreen using a solvent or water-resistant crayon or emulsion.
As the technique evolved and was increasingly coopted by artists in
the late 1950s and early 1960s, photographic stencils and emulsions
were developed. A generation of artist–printmakers in England and the
United States expanded the language of screenprinting to incorporate
the modern aesthetic of collage, overlays and found imagery to
produce some of the defining ‘Pop’ images of the twentieth century. 2
The Mataso artists used transparent acetate sheets as the ‘original’
support for their designs rather than working directly onto the
screens. Freely drawn, these designs also functioned as stencils when
transferred with light-sensitive emulsions to the screen mesh. Each
colour was printed using a separate acetate sheet design to build the
matrix of up to four colours in the final print. The acetate designs were
produced by the artists, while the specific technical and mechanical
preparation of the screens (requiring a darkroom facility) was managed
in Australia for the majority by master printer Theo Tremblay. With a
combination of painterly, hand-drawn imagery and the layering of bold
colours and textural effects, the Mataso Printmakers have produced
a body of work that is refreshing, expressive and rooted in their
These freely adopted and adapted images represent the visual
language of a generation born into a more commercialised culture
than their parents. The strength and vitality of the works resides in the
individual artists’ intuitive and unique views of their world in transition.
David Burnett
Endnotes
1 One of the first collective deployments of the technique was in the 1930s in the
United States under Franklin D Roosevelt’s Federal Arts Project.
2 This generation of artist–printmakers included Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton,
Joe Tilson, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.
116 117

Sepa Seule
Vanuatu b.1983
Afokka and mango (Avocado and mango) 2008
Screenprint on arches paper / 76 x 56cm /
Purchased 2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Opposite top
Sepa Seule
Wota melon (Watermelon) 2006
Screenprint on arches paper / 76 x 56cm /
Purchased 2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Middle
David Kolin
Mi laekem kae kaeman 2006
Screenprint on arches paper / 76 x 56cm /
Purchased 2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Below
Stanley Firiam
Vanuatu b.unknown
Batta flae 2005–06
Screenprint on arches paper, ed 1/20 / 76 x 56cm /
Purchased 2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
David Kolin
Vanuatu b.1983
Weetbix-boy 2006
Screenprint on arches paper / 76 x 56cm /
Purchased 2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Saires Kalo
Vanuatu 1983–2009
Kavaman (from ’Bebellic’ portfolio) 2007
Screenprint on magnani paper ed. 1/45 / 76 x 56cm /
Purchased 2008. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Simeon Simix
Vanuatu b.1981
Mataso coconut-man, Port Vila 2008
Screenprint on arches paper / 76 x 56cm /
Purchased 2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
David Kolin
Tomatto 2006
Oil on paper / 33 x 25cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Priscilla Thomas
Vanuatu b.unknown
Kava bowl 2006
Screenprint on arches paper / 76 x 56cm /
Purchased 2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Simeon Simix
Vanuatu b.1981
Paw paw/breadfruit (from ‘Bebellic’ portfolio) 2007
Screenprint on magnani paper ed. 1/45 / 76 x 56cm /
Purchased 2008. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
118 119

Mapping the Mekong
The source
In 2005, I received the Martell Contemporary Asian Art Research
Grant through the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong. My project involved
studying the relationship between economic development and
civil society, and their combined influence on the development of
contemporary art production in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS),
which includes the nations of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma),
Thailand and Vietnam. Using the Mekong River as a metaphor for the
flow and re-flow of arts knowledge, the project — entitled Mediating
the Mekong — was intended to be a starting point not only for my
personal investigation into emerging contemporary arts communities
in South-East Asia, but also to provide a guide, if incomplete, for future
curators, artists and scholars. 1
At the time of my initial research, the Japan Foundation had published
two editions of the guidebook Alternatives: Contemporary Art Spaces
in Asia, and Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar were unrepresented in
both. 2 Much has changed in the few years since the publication of
the last Alternatives guide in 2004, and Mediating the Mekong in
2006. The apparent art vacuum, then, has now been replaced with
vibrant art communities, their programming and spaces increasingly
well-organised. In August 2009, the Japan Foundation published
an updated guide focusing exclusively on the Mekong region, with
contributions from each of the GMS nations. GMS artists are more
frequently represented now in international art exhibitions, fairs and
galleries. Recently established spaces, such as the New Zero Art Space
in Yangon (Rangoon), the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, and San
Art in Ho Chi Minh City, continue to encourage and support local
emerging arts communities.
Downstream
The Mekong River, one of Asia’s longest rivers at over 4000 kilometres,
begins in the Tibetan plateau in China and ends in the southern
deltas of Vietnam. Among the richest regions in the world in terms
of biodiversity, the zone south of China has historically been a site
of the complex interweaving of cultures, particularly in terms of its
assimilation of, and resistance to, religious, political and cultural
influences from India and China, spanning many centuries.
As a distinct region, the Mekong is a construct in which definitions
have largely been created for convenience or specific utility:
The Mekong region is often referred to through a variety of organisational
frameworks including historic–cultural areas, sociolinguistic zones, and
by the borders of the nations themselves. It has always been a shifting
territory — an ebb and flow of conflict and cooperation, modernisation
and preservation, exploitation and conservation. Each struggle can be
found documented in the arts, whether in historical artefact or in the
contemporary work featured in APT6.
In APT6, The Mekong project features work by eight artists in the GMS,
including internationally established, locally significant and emerging
practitioners. It is also the first time that the APT will present works by
artists from Cambodia and Myanmar. Looking back in order to move
forward seems to be one element common to each of the works in
The Mekong: from the use of traditional materials and references to
historical figures and events, these artists have used their cultural and
intellectual inheritance to apply individual interpretations to works that
clearly and powerfully speak to a contemporary audience.
The Mekong as a concept is one that we have looked at broadly. Akin
to the Mekong River itself, life in this region is complex and changes
quickly. Even since the last APT, in 2006, a world of change has
occurred, fundamentally shifting the Mekong’s social, economic and
cultural dynamics. Thailand seems to be at an internal political stalemate,
while externally at loggerheads with Cambodia over contested land
at Preah Vihear; 4 Myanmar has announced its first elections in over 20
years, despite the continued incarceration of Aung San Suu Kyi and
2007’s violent crackdown on public demonstrations; and while Vietnam
continues toward its goal of integration into the global community,
it remains firm in its domestic policy of cultural and political control.
The artists in this project have confronted regional and global change
— sometimes turbulent, often subtle — in terms of their individual
connection to place by creating works that can be read, understood and
appreciated by local communities and international audiences alike.
Through the documentation of the everyday in the photography of
Manit Sriwanichpoom and Vandy Rattana, we begin to appreciate the
tensions beneath the image that are frequently obscured by stylised
media representations — clichéd scenes of teeming global cities and
grinding poverty on the one hand and, on the other, of charming rural
life promoted by the nations themselves. In a way, the artists challenge
representation itself.
Although the concept of ‘the Mekong’ as a region . . . appears
everywhere in documents on development cooperation, the term
requires critical analysis because many fundamental questions
remain about what it connotes . . . More fundamentally, do the
societies in the geographical area we refer to as the Mekong region
possess any distinct cultural identity? 3
Artists and married couple Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu of Myanmar
have chosen a unique strategy in their photographic series ‘Blurring
the boundaries’; they speak about the process of creating work in an
environment often hostile to the creative process. They have created
a series of photographs of models for exhibitions that have yet to,
and may never, be realised. The simulacrum reaches full maturity in
that the models replace the need for physical space and become
Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba
Japan/United States/Vietnam b.1968
The Ground, the Root, and the Air: The Passing of the
Bodhi Tree (still) 2004–07
High-definition digital video, single channel, colour, sound,
14:30 minutes / Image courtesy: The artist; The Quiet in the
Land, Laos; Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo; Lehmann Maupin
Gallery, New York / Photograph: Yukari Imai
120 121

Svay Ken
Cambodia 1933–2008
Leaving the meat and chewing the bone leads one
to ruin (from ‘Sharing knowledge’ series) 2008
Oil on canvas / 80 x 100.2cm / Purchased 2008.
The Queensland Government’s Gallery of Modern Art
Acquisitions Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Wah Nu, Rich Streitmatter-Tran and Tun Win Aung
review art work in the studio, Yangon, Myanmar,
November 2008 / Photograph: Aung Ko
Sopheap Pich
Cambodia b.1971
Binoculars with Buffalo (from ‘1979’ series) 2009
Bamboo, rattan, plywood, paint, wire, wood / 2 pieces:
171 x 61 x 61cm (each); 21 x 28 x 9.5cm / Project for
APT6 / Image courtesy: The artist / Photograph:
Vandy Rattana
the exhibition of the exhibition. The works redefine ‘space’ in a place
where many have lamented its shortage for art, and suggest that, no
matter the conditions, the artist and the imagination still have the
power to move forward.
In my role as co-curator and as an artist living in the region, I believe it
is not a matter of defining what the Mekong essentially is, but where it
is now. The river will always reinvent new paths, and the communities in
turn must adapt to ever-changing conditions. We might reconsider art
as response and responsibility. Some of the artists have been witness to
generations of change and, in certain cases, the formation of the modern
states that exist today. Svay Ken, the most senior artist represented in
the project, inspired a new community of Cambodian artists before
his passing in 2008. His series ‘Sharing knowledge’ 2008 was painted
to transfer moral messages to the young generation of Cambodians.
Borrowing from the timeless forms of Buddhist temple paintings and
moral teachings, these works read like a manual for modern living,
urging the viewer to consider their responsibility to society.
Other artists have returned to live and work in the region after years
abroad, such as Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, based in Ho Chi Minh City; and
Sopheap Pich, based in Phnom Penh. Nguyen-Hatsushiba’s work is central
to the display, comprising a video projection filmed along the Mekong
River in Laos. Produced in collaboration with students from the School
of Fine Arts in Luang Prabang, The Ground, the Root, and the Air: The
Passing of the Bodhi Tree 2004–07 conveys the growing tide of economic
development and its effect on traditional life and Buddhist values.
Sopheap Pich and I returned from the United States to Cambodia
and Vietnam, respectively, around the same time. We first met in
2006, when we collaborated on an installation for the Java Cafe and
Gallery in Phnom Penh. It has been interesting to see his work evolve
into what is shown in The Mekong, in which his earlier experiments
with material and form have taken a much bolder conceptual leap.
The sculptures in bamboo and rattan — signature materials in Pich’s
work — recall objects from childhood memories of the traumatic
period at the end of the Khmer Rouge era in 1979. Vietnamese
artist Bùi Công Khánh also works with traditional materials with his
blue-and-white porcelain vases. Imagery of daily urban life in Ho Chi
Minh City is interwoven with traditional motifs of dragons, flowers
and birds, placing the contemporary situation of Vietnam within the
flow of its history.
Two streams
The pairing of ‘curator’ and ‘local expert’ encourages an equitable
process and signals a clear move toward sustainable arts development
and exchange for the future. It says that each has a voice that can
best be articulated through conversation and dialogue, undermining
a history of authority, and configuring a metaphor for negotiating a
river rather than exploring it. A ‘mutual Mekong’ could form the
foundation for an adaptable model, the future development of
which might flourish using a number of cultural initiatives, particularly
where there is a lack of a developed institutional infrastructure for
contemporary arts and culture currently.
The Mekong region, and South-East Asia broadly, has yet to establish
a curatorial studies program at university level. While we may not
see such a university program in the short term, education-centred
and community-focused initiatives have occurred in lieu, such as the
Rockefeller Foundation-supported Mekong Art and Culture Project in
2007. 5 Artists from the region know only too well that their individual
practices can move forward only as fast as other developments fall into
place. More artists are investing time in the creation and maintenance
of shared spaces and collectives, as well as assuming different hats
depending on needs, at times becoming writers, critics and curators.
Artist Nguyen Nhu Huy, for example, has for the last few years invested an
enormous effort in translating international art texts into Vietnamese, as
well as curating local exhibitions and writing criticism for online journals.
An important component of The Mekong is the display of children’s
drawings from four cities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and
Australia. Titled My River, My Future, the display presents drawings
by the younger generation about their connection to their local rivers
— the Saigon in Ho Chi Minh City, the Sangker in Battambang, the
Irrawaddy in Yangon and the Brisbane River. Drawings not selected
for display will be redistributed among the three other communities
to complete a loop of mutual exchange.
As an artist, I feel that my investment in the Mekong region has been
affirmed by working with the Queensland Art Gallery for both The
Mekong and the children’s project. Cooperation proves to be a model
that I hope can be replicated in future activities, and I am pleased to
be able to share our region with a broader community in Brisbane.
What started out for me as a research project has become more fully
realised here, and more closely developed my relationship with the
arts and artists of this region. Through the works of the artists, writers
and children involved in this project, The Mekong invites audiences to
make new connections, which extend beyond tropical temptations, to
this unique region. There are still many rivers to cross.
Rich Streitmatter-Tran
Endnotes
1 Rich Streitmatter-Tran, Mediating the Mekong [2005 Martell Contemporary Art
Research Grant for the Asia Art Archive report], Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 2006.
2 Furuichi Yasuko (ed.), Alternatives 2005: Contemporary Arts Spaces in Asia, The
Japan Foundation/Tankosha Publishing Co., Ltd., Tokyo, 2004.
3 Maria SI Diokno and Nguyen Van Chinh (eds), ‘Introduction: Mother of waters’, in
The Mekong Arranged and Rearranged, The Mekong Press, Chiang Mai, 2006, p.2.
4 Preah Vihear is a Khmer temple on the Cambodian side of the Cambodia–Thai
border. It has been the location of a century-long border dispute between the two
countries, erupting again in 2008 when Cambodia sought World Heritage Listing
for the site, leading to a military standoff. See Jonathan Head, ‘Modern conflict
near ancient ruins’, BBC News Online, 15 October 2008, , viewed 18 October 2009.
5 The Mekong Art and Culture Project comprised lectures, artist and curatorial
workshops, art camps, research awards and scholarships run in collaboration with
eight art institutes in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam during the period
2006–08. It resulted in a regional touring exhibition in 2008. See Dr Toeingam
Guptabutra (ed.), ‘Underlying’: Contemporary Art Exhibition from the Mekong
Subregion [exhibition catalogue], The Mekong Art and Culture Project, Silpakorn
University, Bangkok, 2008.
122 123

Bùi Công Khánh
Contemporary story
Bùi Công Khánh’s painted porcelain vessels feature the ubiquitous sights
and sounds of Vietnamese daily life: motorbike riders, street signage,
advertising and romantic interludes. By combining what he calls ‘the
character of the present’ with the traditional form of the porcelain vase,
Bùi places the culture of modern life into the flow of history. 1
Bùi’s ceramic work draws particularly on traditional Vietnamese blueand-white
pottery, which is decorated using an underglaze technique
— cobalt blue oxide is applied to the porcelain vessel and covered with
a translucent glaze before being fired in a kiln at high temperature.
The use of cobalt blue underglaze, for painting classic images such as
landscapes, dragons, flowers, fish and birds, began in Vietnam during
the fourteenth century, about the same time as it did in China. 2 Blueand-white
porcelain, whether Chinese or Vietnamese, soon became a
trading commodity in markets in South-East Asia and the Middle East,
and eventually worldwide, versions of which are still made today for
international markets. 3
Despite the layers of images and texts, Bùi says he wants to present
modern life as simply as possible: ‘like when we close our eyes and
we can hear the noise on the streets’. 8 Life in Vietnamese cities has
altered dramatically over the last 20 years, starting in 1986 with Ðôi
môi (literally, change and newness), when Vietnam began transforming
itself into a market economy with a socialist direction. Since then, the
country has seen amazing economic growth accompanied by cultural
changes including tacit acceptance of personal freedoms. 9
It is this new life in Vietnam that Bùi comments on in his art. ‘I paint the
life calmly like writing my diary’, he says. Bùi Công Khánh’s ceramics
— as well as his paintings, performances and sculptures — skilfully link
contemporary society in Vietnam to history. But, even as he draws on
traditional practice, what he cares most about ‘is the present life,
I don’t want to sponge the past, I don’t want to use the past like a
way to preserve the “national cultural character”’. 10
Bùi Công Khánh
Vietnam b.1972
A contemporary story 2 2008
Porcelain, hand-painted / 58 x 20 x 20cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Vietnamese porcelain was mainly off-white in hue, and the subtle
contrast between the blue decoration and white clay body was
considered a distinguishing feature. 4 Vietnamese potters also benefited
from smooth-textured clays, enabling them to produce light vessels
with thin walls. 5 Both qualities are apparent in Bùi’s vases, but he has
subverted traditional practices and designs to suit his own purposes.
In APT6 there are two large vases (over a metre high), as well as a
series of seven smaller vases (around half a metre high), one for each
day of the week, creating a kind of diary of life in Vietnam, ‘life that
seems never to be interrupted’. 6 Bùi’s graphic, figurative images drawn
on the porcelain, woven with traditional elements, portray the artist’s
personal stories mixed with frenetic city life. As he explains, one vase,
titled A contemporary story 1 2008, includes his own face along with
his mother’s because ‘my knowledge, my artistry were supported
by my mom and her hard work’; another, A contemporary story 2
2008, includes an image of a man submerged in a container of water,
‘swimming in his puddle of life and thinking that it is as huge as [an]
ocean’ — a familiar predicament. 7
Bùi’s often humorous stories are, however, more intriguing than these
descriptions might suggest; the vases present layered narratives,
composed of multiple images. A contemporary story 2, for example,
has an image of a second man sitting on a toilet and holding a plate
with a hamburger and a can of soft drink. Writ large above the figure
are the words ‘Live to eat’, which comments on far-reaching Western
consumerist society — a recurrent theme in Bùi’s art. He also incorporates
texts taken from propaganda banners or street signage, such as:
‘Attention please!’, ‘No gathering and no trading’ and ‘Culture quarter’,
while the words ‘Tonight I celebrate my love’ are taken from the Peabo
Bryson and Roberta Flack song, popular in Vietnamese karaoke bars.
Ian Were
Endnotes
1 Bùi Công Khánh, email to Russell Storer, Queensland Art Gallery, 8 February 2009.
2 Blue-and-white ceramics prospered in Jingdezhen, China, during the Yuan dynasty
(1271–1368) and were introduced to Vietnam towards the end of the Tran dynasty
(1225–1400). See Tokyo National Museum, , viewed August 2009; see also the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York, ,
viewed August 2009.
3 See Asia Society, New York, , viewed August 2009.
4 See Tokyo National Museum, , viewed August 2009.
5 Allison Eckardt Ledes, ‘Vietnamese ceramics’, The Magazine Antiques, vol.150,
no.3, September 1996, pp.238–9.
6 Bùi, email to Russell Storer.
7 Bùi, email to Russell Storer.
8 Bùi, email to Russell Storer.
9 See San José State University Department of Economics, ‘The political and
economic history of Vietnam’,
viewed August 2009; and The Star Online, , viewed August 2009.
10 Bùi, email to Russell Storer.
124 125

Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba
Breathing is free
Central to Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba’s work is the socioeconomic change
brought to postwar Vietnam by the rising tide of globalisation. In
considering this issue, however, the artist takes a broad view; he does
not identify himself with one single country making up his heritage —
Japan (his mother’s country, and where he was born), the United States
(where he was raised), or Vietnam (his father’s country and where he
has lived since 1997). Rather, he moves fluidly between them, drawing
on all three cultures. Nguyen-Hatsushiba’s memorials to the plights of
his compatriots — the ‘boat people’ who left Vietnam to seek freedom,
only to become refugees — are attempts at ensuring the problems of
refugees worldwide are in the forefront of peoples’ minds.
Nguyen-Hatsushiba’s practice has taken multiple forms since
1994, with his drawings, sculptures, performances and installations
consistently referencing local motifs such as rice, mosquito nets,
dragons and cyclos. His ‘Memorial project’ video series, a suite of
four films shot between 2001 and 2003, is particularly noteworthy 1 —
Nguyen-Hatsushiba aligned imagery of figures floating underwater
with acts of mourning victims of war and environmental destruction.
This poetic approach, alerting audiences to social concerns, has
brought him wide acclaim internationally.
The video work The Ground, the Root, and the Air: The Passing of
the Bodhi Tree 2004–07 was realised in cooperation with 50 students
from the School of Fine Arts in Luang Prabang in Laos, an ancient
city experiencing the influence of global market forces. However, it
differs from Nguyen-Hatsushiba’s ‘Memorial project’ series in that
its social messages are treated more abstractly, contributing to its
beauty and lyricism.
Hatsushiba aims to run the shortest distance to the other side of the
earth (12 756.3 kilometres, the earth’s diameter), as a metaphor for
the refugee’s unfulfilled wish to escape to the polar opposite of their
circumstances. The bodies of his performers are subjected to tough
conditions, entering territory somewhat beyond their control. Air is a
metaphor for freedom in Nguyen-Hatsushiba’s work; breathing is free,
indeed. People struggle underwater, on the ground, or in the river, to
release themselves and to find freedom, and when they finally do, it
offers a vision of hope for the future.
Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba encourages a realist approach to his work:
‘My work might look political, but I am not here to take sides on
which perspective is correct’. 2 The magic of art does not lie in political
correctness or in the direct quotation of a real situation. It is far more
effective to engage viewers through beauty based on reality and
tangibility. In examining society’s realities, Nguyen-Hatsushiba says,
‘what I need to create at the end must present itself as magic’. 3
Shihoko Iida
Endnotes
1 Memorial Project Nha Trang, Vietnam: Towards the complex — For the courageous,
the curious, and the cowards 2001; Happy New Year: Memorial Project Vietnam II
2003; Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas: Battle of Easel Point — Memorial Project
Okinawa 2003; and Memorial Project Minamata: Neither either nor neither — A love
story 2002–03.
2 Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, interview by Fernando Galán, art.es, no.1, 2004, p.59.
3 Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, email to the author, 4 July 2008.
The film features the students sketching the spectacular landscape
along the Mekong River as they sweep along it on their wooden
motorboats. When the boats near a sacred Bodhi tree on the
riverbank, some of the students suddenly leap into the water and swim
towards it, as if led by the Buddhist chants on the soundtrack. This act
may be interpreted as the silent will of the Laotian people to maintain
the flow of Buddha’s spirit, even as multinational capital pours into
the country. It could also be read as an attempt to locate oneself in
the great cycle of life, recognising that each one of us is a part of it.
As the work approaches its serene yet dramatic climax, we gradually
see these tensions appear and disappear in the drift of eternal time
that the Mekong symbolises.
The work of Nguyen-Hatsushiba both recognises history and steps
into the future. He has worked with the people of Nha Trang in
Vietnam, and Okinawa and Minamata in Japan — who bear the
historical scars of war and pollution — inviting them to perform in his
underwater works. In his ongoing running project, Breathing is free:
12,756.3 for global refugee crisis, which he began in 2007, Nguyen-
Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba
Japan/United States/Vietnam b.1968
The Ground, the Root, and the Air: The Passing of the
Bodhi Tree (stills) 2004–07
High-definition digital video, single channel, colour,
sound, 14:30 minutes / Courtesy: The artist and Mizuma
Art Gallery, Tokyo / Images courtesy: The artist; The Quiet
in the Land, Laos; Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo; Lehmann
Maupin Gallery, New York / Photographs: Yukari Imai
126 127

Sopheap Pich
1979
Sopheap Pich creates sculptures that respond to his surroundings,
landscape and history. Central to Pich’s practice is how we perceive
and experience the world, and his works reflect his upbringing and
contemporary experience in Cambodia, as well as his years living
and studying in the United States. Working with rattan, bamboo and
burlap — materials used in Cambodian craft and agriculture — his
refined, expressive sculptures move between abstract and figurative
representations of forms and phenomena, observed in the natural
environment and in daily Cambodian life.
For the installation ‘1979’, made for APT6, Pich has created a series of
evocative sculptures that recall objects he observed in the landscape
during the journey back to his hometown of Battambang, shortly after
the fall of the Khmer Rouge. 1 When the Vietnamese army defeated
the regime in January 1979, families began to drift out of the village
communes they had been imprisoned in and return home. Pich and
his family walked for several days across country roads and rice fields,
encountering others like themselves, making their way back to places
and lives they had once known.
Drawing on this experience in ‘1979’, Pich provides a personal context
in which to consider this pivotal period of Cambodian history, and the
complex function of memory in narratives of the past. Eight years old at
the time, Pich recalls the journey as a surreal introduction to the unknown:
These objects were alien to me at the time but in seeing them I
realised my world was bigger, that Cambodia was bigger, and that
I was seeing things for the first time. 2
evoking an aeroplane turbine. Its pierced burlap surface allows light to
enter, revealing internal segments and cavities. Binoculars with Buffalo
(from ‘1979’ series) is an oversized pair of field-glasses realised as
finely structured conical shapes which are wall-mounted, exaggerating
its redundancy as a tool. Hundreds of strands of rattan are knitted
together with wire to create the sculpture, which cast shadows onto an
upward-gazing buffalo below. Buffaloes are celebrated in Cambodia
for their endurance and strength, and Pich draws parallels between
them and the state of the Khmer people at the time: ‘We were thin and
laboured and we had endured . . . we were like buffaloes, we had been
deprived’. 5 Like fragments of memory, his reconfigured forms reflect
the intangible components of human perception.
At the end of their journey, Pich’s family settled temporarily in the
grounds of Wat Ta Mim temple in Battambang town before being
repatriated to a refugee camp in Thailand. Buddha (from ‘1979’ series)
marks the significance of the journey, its twists and turns echoed in
the contours of the sculpture’s body. The willowy curls of the rattan,
its tips stained with red dye, produce ethereal patterns on the floor
and wall. Citing the fragments of pillaged statuary throughout the
countryside, it is a sombre finale. Sopheap Pich recalls his experience
upon entering the temple:
. . . there was a feeling of fear, of haunt. Inside the temple, on
the ceiling, and floor, red all over. On the other end was ghostly,
shadowy shapes of different objects unclear to me at the time, but
this was a place where statues are located. 6
Sopheap Pich
Cambodia b.1971
Buddha (from ‘1979’ series) 2009
Rattan, wire, dye / Installed dimensions:
220 x 110 x 30cm / Project for APT6 / Image courtesy:
The artist / Photograph: Vandy Rattana
While the anticipation of a changed world was palpable, the sudden
surfacing of incongruous forms in the countryside was equally
disquieting. Rusted, burnt, and in various states of disuse, of these
forms he notes, ‘I didn’t know what they were or where they came
from. From the sky? From the war?’. 3
Pich’s characteristic rattan sculptures are reworked here with opaque
and transparent materials. In ‘1979’, landmines, military equipment,
machine parts and bombshells — meticulously crafted from rattan,
bamboo and burlap — are assembled in the gallery space as if
discarded in a field. Buffaloes carved by village craftsmen are reduced
by the enormity of the objects scattered nearby. Textured with burlap
and coloured with paint, the forms evoke what the artist refers to as
‘the vagueness of memory . . . these are weighted memories and they
are also unclear’. 4 The variations in both scale and proportion of these
combined elements suggest a forensic investigation of the remnants
of war from the vantage point of a child.
Pich’s Machine (from ‘1979’ series) appears as a large curvilinear
remnant of a formerly functional object, its worn, punctured lining
Mellissa Kavenagh
Endnotes
1 In 1975, when the Khmer Rouge seized power, Pich and his family were
relocated from their town of Battambang in north-western Cambodia, near the
border of Thailand, to a labour camp in a village commune known as Macleaur.
See Cambodian Artists Speak Out: The Art of Survival (Occasional Papers on
Democratic Development), Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, vol.4, 2008, pp.53–7.
See , viewed 8 July 2009.
2 Sopheap Pich, conversation with the author, Brisbane, 3 July 2009.
3 Pich, conversation with the author.
4 Sopheap Pich, email to the author, 12 June 2009.
5 Pich, conversation with the author.
6 Sopheap Pich, email to the author, 22 August 2009.
128 129

Manit Sriwanichpoom
The agony of waiting
In 2006, the 60th anniversary of Thailand’s revered King Bhumibol
Adulyadej’s accession to the throne was marked by celebrations across
the country. Also known as Rama IX, Bhumibol is the world’s longest
serving head of state and Thailand’s longest reigning monarch. Yet,
this figure of remarkable consistency and respect sits above a deeply
divided and volatile nation: Bhumibol’s reign has seen 17 military
coups and 29 prime ministers. Although a constitutional monarch,
the king has played a crucial, if ambiguous, role in Thai politics,
notably supporting the 1992 transition from military rule to an elected
government. For a country experiencing endemic political corruption,
and facing widening gaps between the urban middle classes and the
rural poor, the king offers a model of detached integrity and a symbol
of social cohesion and moral authority.
On the surface, Manit Sriwanichpoom’s 2006 series of photographs
‘Waiting for the King’ is a straightforward record of crowds gathered
for the king’s birthday at the Royal Ground in Bangkok on 5 December.
The photographs are black and white, but it is clear that most of the
subjects are wearing the canary yellow shirts — the colour representing
Monday and the king’s day of birth — produced for the 60th jubilee,
which many Thais continue to wear today. 1 However, the people do not
look particularly jubilant, appearing alternatively bored, stern, tired,
wary or even slightly hostile. Many have waited for hours in Bangkok’s
humid heat, some sleeping overnight to gain a position for only a few
seconds’ glimpse of the king as his motorcade passes on its journey
from his residence to the ceremonial Grand Palace.
urban environment are featured in the book Bangkok in Black and
White (1999) 3 , and the series ‘Dream interruptus’ 2000 records the
abandoned and unfinished buildings left behind in the wake of
the financial crisis, like the ruins of a war zone. Protest 2002–03 was
produced from a year of weekly visits to the gates of Bangkok’s
Government House, where protestors from all over Thailand, from laidoff
city workers to displaced farmers, come to make their cases heard.
With poignant directness, these works convey the effects of rapid
economic transformation on individual lives, and the failure of public
institutions to assist and support them.
‘Waiting for the King’ continues this documentary approach in a less
overt but equally powerful manner. Sriwanichpoom brings to the
dynamic action and immediacy of street photography the deep focus
of portraiture, its pared-back style strengthened by his use of blackand-white
film. The frieze of 14 photographs in this series extends over
seven metres, yet we are drawn instantly to individuals. The stationary
nature of waiting, and the stillness of the work, makes it appear as if
these people are posing for the artist. We see the apprehensive, yet
direct, stares of a couple with their arms folded, her spotted hat, his
tattooed forearms; a young man in his camouflage pants, seemingly
faraway; and a mother and her young son, in his unwittingly graceful
pose. With elegant simplicity and clarity, Sriwanichpoom captures the
anxiety of a nation looking toward an uncertain future — its beloved
king cannot always be counted on to arrive.
In a culture where confrontation is traditionally frowned upon,
Sriwanichpoom has made political commentary and social activism
the driving force for his work. He is perhaps best known for staged
photographic tableaux exploring the effects of Thailand’s economic
booms and busts, fuelled by the forces of global capitalism and
Western influence. In This bloodless war 1997, he reworked famous
war photography to portray a society in meltdown during that year’s
Asian financial crisis, brought about by the devaluation of the inflated
Thai baht. His ongoing series featuring the Pink Man (performance
artist Sompong Thawee) considers the globalised world through the
eyes of a contemporary Thai consumer, embodied by Thawee with
his lurid pink suit, mobile phone and empty pink shopping cart. He
appears against postcard-perfect landscapes and religious sites —
internationally renowned images and lucrative resources of Thailand
— or inserted into media images of violent uprisings and crackdowns
that have occurred all too frequently in Thai history. ‘Fat and happy’,
the Pink Man epitomises what Sriwanichpoom views as an apathetic,
consumerist populace, continually failing to learn from its mistakes. 2
Alongside these acerbic constructions, Sriwanichpoom, who has
worked as a press and advertising photographer, also makes images
in a photojournalistic mode. His photographs of Bangkok’s changing
Russell Storer
Endnotes
1 Yellow shirts are still worn by many Thais on Mondays, and have also been taken up
by the People’s Alliance for Democracy, a movement constituted largely by royalist
members of Bangkok’s middle classes. This movement was behind the street
protests which led to the overthrow of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006,
and of the Thaksin-aligned Somchai Wongsawat government in 2008. Thaksin
supporters, mostly from rural Thailand, are known as ‘red shirts’.
2 Chawadee Nualkhair, ‘The politics of art and the art of politics’, Bangkok Post,
28 September 2008.
3 Manit Sriwanichpoom, Bangkok in Black and White, Chang Phuak Ngadam,
Bangkok, 1999.
Manit Sriwanichpoom
Thailand b.1961
‘Waiting for the King (standing)’ series 2006
Gelatin silver print, ed. 1/9 / 50 x 49.5cm / Purchased 2008
with funds derived from the Bequest of Grace Davies
and Nell Davies through the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
130 131

Manit Sriwanichpoom
Thailand b.1961
‘Waiting for the King (standing)’ series (details) 2006
Gelatin silver prints, ed. 1/9 / 14 sheets: 50 x 49.5cm (each) /
Purchased 2008 with funds derived from the Bequest of
Grace Davies and Nell Davies through the Queensland Art
Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
132 133

Svay Ken
Painting from life
Svay Ken
Cambodia 1933–2008
One who is rich but neither feeds nor looks after one’s
parents is subject to ruin (from ‘Sharing knowledge’
series) 2008
Oil on canvas / 80 x 100.2cm
One who is rich and has abundant food but hides
delicious food for himself is subject to ruin (from
‘Sharing knowledge’ series) 2008
Oil on canvas / 79.5 x 99.8cm
Purchased 2008. The Queensland Government’s
Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Svay Ken’s powerfully honest and vivid observations of daily life forged
a new path for Cambodian contemporary art, in which self-expression
and personal history merge with the Khmer artisan tradition of the
cheang salapak gor, or worker–artist. 1 His subjects include still lifes,
portraits, moral allegories and everyday scenes, often drawn from
memory and photographs. During his 15-year painting career, Svay
was internationally renowned as one of the few Cambodian artists
to have openly depicted life under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime
(1975–79); in 2000–01, he painted a significant 128-canvas cycle
tracing his wife’s life, from birth to her death from cancer — in the
process encompassing 60 years of modern Cambodian history. Before
his own death in 2008, Svay completed a final series of paintings
entitled ‘Sharing knowledge’, a selection of which is featured in APT6.
Svay Ken was born in 1933 into a family of farmers and temple painters
in the southern province of Takeo. He was sent to a monastery as a
youth, where he studied Buddhist scriptures and philosophy, as well
as the Khmer alphabet. As a young man he moved to Phnom Penh,
and worked as a porter at the prestigious Hotel Le Royal until he and
his family were forced out of the city in 1975, under Pol Pot’s Maoinfluenced
regime, to work as rural labourers. The family survived but
were separated, and did not reunite until four years later, following the
Khmer Rouge’s defeat by the Vietnamese army, when Svay returned to
Phnom Penh and resumed work at the hotel, remaining there until his
retirement in 1993.
To continue supporting his family, Svay Ken began painting
shortly before his retirement, at first selling works to hotel guests.
Although self-taught, he quickly gained local attention, and his
first exhibition was held at the New Art Gallery in Phnom Penh in
1994. He subsequently began showing regularly in Cambodia and
internationally, and became a role model for younger artists. With
the destruction of much Khmer culture during the Pol Pot era, the
visual arts in Cambodia was, and still is, largely comprised of slick
landscapes and traditional imagery produced for the tourist market.
Svay Ken’s paintings differ markedly, using raw, direct brushwork and
an intuitive palette to depict quotidian experience, even under harsh
circumstances. His Khmer Rouge period paintings, for example, include
scenes of violence and warfare, but also of people cooking, eating and
working. These recollections are unique and significant; as so much
individual and collective memory was lost, the era remains largely
unrepresented, particularly from a local perspective. Svay once stated:
I don’t want people to forget how life was. I make my paintings so
that future generations can ponder the question: ‘How was life then
and how is life now?’ 2
The ‘Sharing knowledge’ series was also conceived as a message
for the future. It illustrates Buddhist religious and moral statements,
offering guidance to the young for living a good and honest life.
The works reflect Svay’s early temple education and lifelong ethos,
and indicate his concern with the decline of morals and tradition
in contemporary Cambodian society. They warn against greed,
selfishness, and the neglect of parents and those in need, as well as
affirming the importance of respecting elders. As the artist has said:
I didn’t choose to share many lessons on prosperity. I want the young
people to know more the causes of self-ruin. Sometimes one’s nature
is good, but one commits sins absentmindedly. 3
Svay Ken’s selected statements are painted in a flat, structured format
evoking traditional temple murals. The elaborate Khmer script forms
a distinctive and central feature of each work, and the images are
comprised of group portraits and tableaux. Set against monochromatic
backgrounds of dark greens and blacks — and, in one startling work,
sickly yellow — the paintings communicate the artist’s moral advice
directly and assertively. While located in time-honoured religious
teachings, they are also grounded in contemporary life; a recurrent
theme is the growth of a wealthy urban middle class in Phnom Penh,
who often come from farming families and increasingly leave their
poorer rural relatives behind. As with all of Svay’s paintings, the
apparent simplicity and immediacy of the ‘Sharing knowledge’ series
is underpinned by keen observation, a deep understanding of the
function of painting in Cambodian society, and a belief in the role of
the artist as witness and storyteller.
Russell Storer
Endnotes
1 Erin Gleeson, ‘Where I work: Svay Ken’, Art Asia Pacific, no.59, July–August 2008,
p.172.
2 Svay Ken, quoted in Erin Gleeson, ‘Svay Ken: Home and country’, Art Asia Pacific,
no.46, fall 2005, p.61.
3 Svay Ken, ‘Artist’s statement’, in Svay Ken: Sharing Knowledge [exhibition
catalogue], Bophana Audiovisual Resource Centre, Phnom Penh, 2008, p.7.
134 135

Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu
Between the two
The Asia Pacific Triennial continues to connect artists and communities,
this year including artists from the Union of Myanmar (sometimes
referred to by its former colonial name, Burma) 1 for the first time in the
series’ 16-year history. Featured in The Mekong project of APT6 is the
photography series ‘Blurring the Boundaries’ 2007–09, a collaborative
work by artists and married couple Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu, based
in Yangon (Rangoon).
Myanmar is perhaps the most restrictive among the states of the
Greater Mekong Subregion in terms of control over internal cultural
and political activity. Information for and about contemporary arts is
severely limited, while all exhibitions, publications and performances
must receive official permission. People of the ASEAN (Association
of South-East Asian Nations) member states can generally travel
without the need for visas, however, Myanmar is the exception in
that its citizens must obtain visas for nearly every venture outside the
country. In the past, this has made it difficult for many of its artists
to connect with the larger South-East Asian and international arts
communities. In spite of this, Myanmar has developed a bold new
generation of artists that has increasingly attracted attention from
international galleries and curators.
When I started to do my video work, at that time, I never saw video art
before . . . That kind of art is very new for [our] country till that time.
But I know about this technique, because I grew up in [a] film industry
family. I know where I can find the materials such as cameras. This is [a]
good reason why I can present my idea with this new media. 4
While artists from Myanmar continue to struggle to find their place at
home and as part of a larger arts community, their honest and inspiring
‘do-it-yourself-by-any-means-necessary’ work ethic demonstrates that
the imagination cannot be bound.
Rich Streitmatter-Tran
Endnotes
1 The socialist republic of Burma officially adopted the name Myanmar (formally
the Union of Myanmar) in 1989.
2 Jean Baudrillard, The Simulcra and the Simulation, University of Michigan Press,
Ann Arbor, MI, 1995.
3 Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu, email to the author, 30 September 2009.
4 Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu, email to the author.
The relationship between fiction and reality has always been complex.
Theorist Jean Baudrillard, known for his work on simulation and the
complications that arise from it, posited that a simulacrum is a thirdgeneration
copy where reality is ultimately replaced — the simulacrum
is the reality. 2 The photographs in ‘Blurring the Boundaries’ trace this
phenomenon. Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu have referred to original
works in scaled simulations. These simulations are then photographed,
in effect becoming the third-generation simulacra and, for this
exhibition, they replace the original work, obliterate the reference, and
become the art work itself. In certain photographs, the illusion is so
convincing that the viewer is hard-pressed to identify the model at all.
When asked why they created the models, the artists responded:
Tun Win Aung: This is a very simple reason. I want to see my idea as
an actual work. But most of my ideas are difficult to see realised.
Wah Nu: Sometimes I have an idea but I can’t do the final installation.
But I want to see it by myself. I want to show it to another person. And
I want to know how my work is going to affect them when they finish
seeing it. This is not only something special, but also to see and tell. 3
Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu, trained in sculpture and music
respectively, and graduated from the University of Culture in Yangon
in 1998, where they met. Since then, both artists have become freer in
terms of the media and the forms they explore. While Wah Nu studied
music, she had inclinations for the visual arts:
Tun Win Aung
Myanmar b.1975
Wah Nu
Myanmar b.1977
Blurring the Boundaries #5 2009
Digital print / 42 x 59cm / Image courtesy: The artists
136 137

Vandy Rattana
Fire of the year
Vandy Rattana
Cambodia b.1980
Fire of the year 8 2008
Digital print / 105.5 x 63.5cm / Image courtesy:
The artist
Cambodian photographer Vandy Rattana’s ‘Fire of the year’ 2008 is a
poignant series of images of a blaze on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.
The fire razed the district of Dteuk Tlah (Clear Water), where 300 families
lived cheek-by-jowl in wooden homes above a polluted lake. Most
of the buildings in the district perished, although some were saved
through bribes and negotiations with the fire police. 1 Fires are common
in today’s Cambodia, as Vandy notes: ‘they are part of our lives, like
eating or playing sports’, 2 implying that the most unsettling aspect
of this tragedy is its familiarity. ‘Fire of the year’ powerfully gestures
to a deeper political condition in Cambodia — its expanding urban
populations, and the limited infrastructure available to support them. 3
With their careful composition, these photographs provide a vital
context in which to consider the reality of contemporary life in
Cambodia, a concern which sustains the artist’s practice. These
images are made all the more compelling through their visual
finesse — specifically, the artist’s attention to detail, and his play with
composition and depth of field. In one photograph, a fireman emerges
from a cloud of smoke, framed by the grille of a security door and the
tightly cropped head of an observer in the foreground. In another
image, a fire hose spouts an arc of water into a billowing smoke stack,
while another almost moves into abstraction, with its dense haze of
smoke filling the frame, the outline of a TV antenna barely visible.
There is a moment of sobering gravity — and perhaps precarious hope
— in the final photograph of the series, where a small child, almost out
of frame, fossicks among the debris floating on the lake for materials to
sell on the streets.
Vandy’s photographs evoke the rhythm and pulse of life in Cambodia.
Working in series, he uses light, composition and subtle layers of
colour to build associations between images. Photography is a
practice unique to his generation of artists; his travel within the region
as a resident artist and his experience as a press photographer has
deepened his resolve to represent everyday realities. Vandy’s serial
approach recalls the long history of narrative composition in Khmer
art, where epic stories and legends are vividly illustrated in the fresco
paintings and bas-reliefs of ancient temples. His images also have
an intensely cinematic quality; the frame-by-frame approach and
finely constructed compositions reveal situations of great drama
and consequence, and are perhaps informed by the artist’s strong
appreciation of film culture.
Vandy’s evocative and sharply observed studies of his environment,
however, suggest a passionate commitment to influence and
communicate, rather than to simply document:
My goal is to show life and invite people to examine life. I want my
pictures to have the smell of my mother’s food and the sound of my
father’s stories. 4
This intimacy can be seen in earlier works which portray quiet domestic
interiors and social routines, such as games of chess in the street, as
well as portraits of friends and family. His first solo exhibition, ‘Looking
in My Office’, was a wry and candid portrayal of corporate behaviour. 5
When employed at a telecommunications company, Vandy captured
the inner workings of the office environment by furtively snapping
pictures of his colleagues — applying makeup, draped wearily across
keyboards, and filing, endlessly filing.
More recently, Vandy has undertaken a rigorous exploration of the built
environment of Phnom Penh, where the changing cityscape has been
supported by a meteoric rise in foreign investment. 6 Canadia Building
2007 documents the construction of the capital’s first skyscraper,
while his collaborative project The building 2008 considers the social
and demographic transformation of the city’s first public housing
development, an iconic structure now slated for demolition. 7 As with
‘Fire of the year’, these images are considered observations of daily life
that make critical connections between present-day narratives and the
historical value inherent in chronicling the contemporary moment. As
Vandy Rattana says:
. . . it is important to create images because in Cambodia we lack
an archive. Documentation is both a reflector and creator of history.
We need documentation to help us understand the changes from
generation to generation. 8
Mellissa Kavenagh
Endnotes
1 The fire brigade is colloquially referred to as the ‘fire police’ in Cambodia, as cited
by the artist in an email to the author, 22 August 2009.
2 Vandy, email to the author.
3 The various implications of population expansion, land management and urban
planning in the capital are outlined further in Vann Molyvann, Modern Khmer Cities,
Reyum Publishing, Phnom Penh, 2003, pp.111–15.
4 Vandy, email to the author.
5 ‘Looking in My Office’ was held at Popil Gallery in Phnom Penh, Cambodia,
November 2006 – January 2007.
6 In recent times, Cambodia has experienced remarkable change, due in part to the
dual quest for foreign investment and increased economic growth. See Adrian
Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, ‘Country for sale’, The Guardian, 26 April 2008.
7 Designed by architect Vann Molyvann, ‘The building’ is an example of the school
of Khmer Modernism that flourished briefly under King Norodom Sihanouk in the
1950s and 1960s. Part of an ambitious city planning scheme, it has an important
place in the history of modern Khmer architecture. See Ly Daravuth and Ingrid
Muan, Cultures of Independence, Reyum Publishing, Phnom Penh, 2001, p.11.
8 Vandy Rattana, quoted in Erin Gleeson, ‘Avant-garde blaze new trails’, Phnom Penh
Post, 12 August 2009.
138 139

Tracey Moffatt
Plantation
In film, an establishing shot sets up a location, a scene, often an entire
scenario that allows the narrative to unfold. When that first image is a
point-of-view shot, as in Tracey Moffatt’s photo series ‘Plantation‘ 2009,
we pay attention. A guide directing our gaze, Moffatt’s protagonist
appears in 9 of the 24 images and immediately tells us, even though
his back is turned to us, especially because it is, that he wants to see
the interior of the graceful white plantation house before him; even
more, he longs to be inside. If lack drives desire, as the psychoanalysts
tell us, this will be a story of deprivation and unfulfilled longing. 1
Who is this man? What is he doing here, what does he want? The
entire suite suggests a narrative that eludes one’s grasp — literally, as
the man’s hand holding a tree at the perimeter of two images makes
plain: he can see the house but cannot grasp it or what it signifies, what
he so ardently desires. As ‘Plantation‘ unfolds, as one walks along the
paired images, we see that this is not a simple story; it is profoundly
ambiguous. The cane glows golden; skies become ominously red; we
see glimpses of the great plantation, its glamour and squalor separating
owners and workers; other-worldly lights dance unexplained; we sense
an unspecified menace lying hidden.
Burning flames, ardent desire: this is a classic tale of the tropics,
where beauty and grace are rooted in bounteous soil and nourished
by inequity. Its dark Gothic tone recalls the literature of the American
South, a distinguished modern canon with tales of passions fuelled by
injustice, at once sad, dignified, and ultimately ferocious. 2 Wherever
sugar has been planted (the Caribbean, Africa, the American South,
the Philippines, northern Queensland, Fiji), the politics of the industry’s
economy invariably plays out to the disadvantage of its labour —
usually imported, indentured men. Moffatt’s man is alone, as so many
were, transported without their families and left to make a future. (As
a commentator recently remarked about migrant labour, ‘We asked
for workers. We got people instead’.) 3 As the storyboard of images
in ‘Plantation‘ reveals, the protagonists in this drama, both seen and
unseen, are not yet entirely aware of what is happening — they are only
beginning to discover the nature of their predicament.
In ‘Plantation‘, one is simultaneously in the past and the present. The
elegant old house speaks of the authority of past generations and
established privilege, of desiccated glamour under the burning sun.
But the work’s cinematic immediacy places us firmly in the present.
There is no easy nostalgia, no faded touristic glamour for its own sake.
Moffatt is an astute student of cinema, hypersensitive to its languages,
conventions, genres and iconic moments. She reads them carefully,
though she collects scenes from fiction as well, and ‘Plantation‘ has
been richly nourished. 4 Here, Moffatt also borrows louche allure from
vintage photography, the studied pairing of the images suggesting
late nineteenth-century stereoscopic photographs, though hers don’t
coalesce into one image as stereotypes do; on the contrary, each
counterpoised pair offers a partial and carefully calibrated glimpse
into a larger and more complex narrative. This strangely present past
derives directly from Moffatt’s use of old black-and-white photographs
that have now been hand-coloured, printed on delicate bamboo paper
and cropped in archaic vignettes. These stylistic discrepancies register
subliminally, like memories.
What does this man desire so ardently, that the country eventually
burns up? To belong to this place? Is it finally a question of not what,
but who is planted — or implanted — in this unsustainable economy?
The ‘plantation’, then, is not only a place, a house, a property; it is also
a set of actions, a history that is not fully played out.
In a completely different tone, at APT6 Moffatt is also debuting OTHER
2009, the last in a suite of seven video works that take key themes in
cinema as their topics. 5 Witty, sexy, fast-paced, OTHER reminds us that
popular films create compelling images of relationships across race and
gender lines. In the contemporary world, people migrate, meet, love
and part in unexpected ways that underline our ‘other-ness’, but, at the
same time, also rely on our common humanity. Desires are implanted
in our hearts by forces beyond our control, yet acting them out always
remains our decision, our responsibility, our hope for redemption.
Julie Ewington
Endnotes
1 Influential theories on the operations of desire in cinema are indebted to the
revisionist French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, especially in writings by Laura
Mulvey and other Anglophone and French film theorists. See Mulvey’s classic,
‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’, originally published in Screen, vol.16, no.3,
Autumn 1975, pp.6–18.
2 William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and Harper Lee are amongst a group of authors
who took American literature to international prominence by focusing on
entrenched privilege in the American South and using the vernaculars of white
and black Americans. Faulkner’s cinematic style, rooted in theatre, transferred
immediately to Hollywood, where he wrote screenplays; Lee’s novel To Kill a
Mockingbird (1960) became, in 1962, one of the most celebrated films of the
modern civil rights movement.
3 Dr Khalid Koser of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and the Brookings
Institution, Washington, DC, from a conversation recorded in July at the 2009
Adelaide Festival of Ideas about borders, human rights, the economics of
migration and its consequences, broadcast on ABC Radio National’s The National
Interest, 9 and 11 October 2009. Koser was quoting Swiss writer Max Frisch in 1986
on the Swiss guest worker experience.
4 Moffatt’s favourite mid twentieth-century authors include southerners Carson
McCullers, Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote. Email to the author,
November 2008.
5 The complete series is Lip 1999, Artist 2000, Love 2003, Doomed 2007,
Revolution 2008, Mother 2009 and OTHER 2009.
Tracey Moffatt
Australia/United States b.1960
Diptych no.2 (from ‘Plantation’ series) 2009
Diptych no.11 (from ‘Plantation’ series) 2009
Digital prints with archival pigments, InkAid, watercolour
paint and archival glue on handmade Chautara Lokta
paper / 45.5 x 50cm (each) / Images courtesy: The artist
and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
140 141

Farhad Moshiri
Hybrid confections
The vast city of Tehran, with its rich cultural and visual art traditions
and volatile recent history, inspired Farhad Moshiri’s three ‘candy
store’ paintings in APT6. A vibrant modern city with a strong art scene,
Tehran has been shaped by numerous turbulent events over the last
30 years — from the 1979 revolution, which saw the overthrow of the
Pahlavi dynasty and the politicisation of Islam, to the war with Iraq in
the 1980s, and the recent troubled elections of 12 June 2009, which
reinstated conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It is a city
characterised by a productive clash between tradition and modernity,
and the desire to find a uniquely Iranian way of negotiating such
discord. Accordingly, Moshiri has described Iran as ‘a gigantic art
project’: ‘you feel like this whole country is an experiment, trying to
do something different’. 1
Moshiri studied in the United States at the Californian Institute of the
Arts (CalArts) in the 1980s, returning to Iran a decade later. His aesthetic
language is formed by a pop sensibility, a keen eye for vernacular
culture and a consciousness of Persian cultural heritage. American
conceptual artist John Baldessari was Moshiri’s mentor at CalArts, while
Japanese artist Takashi Murakami is also an influence. His interests are in
‘consumption and cultural hybridity’ and, ‘using the embedded cynicism
in the material’, he often lets his subjects and materials speak for
themselves. 2 A versatile and multifaceted artist, Moshiri’s practice has
encompassed painting, photography, installation and the occasional
curatorial project. His materials and motifs range from Farsi script,
Persian poetry, Swarovski crystals and gilt furniture and weaponry, to
post-revolution architecture and commercial household items.
The architecture of Tehran forms the unlikely starting point for Mobile
Talker 2007, Soldier 2007 and Magic White Horse with Gold Saddle
2008. Inspired by ‘the mall, the bazaar, the decorative and ornamental,
and wedding culture in Iran’, 3 these paintings were initially prompted by
the excess of the popular post-Islamic revolution style of architecture:
layered wedding cake and modern drapery, adorned with red roses.
Although they refer to items which are significant in Persian culture —
the red rose of Rumi’s thirteenth-century poetry and fabric — they are
emptied of obvious importance to become satiric signifiers of kitsch
wedding culture and nouveau riche aspirations. Over this imagery,
Moshiri draws the outline of a figure formed using his acrylic ‘icing’.
In Mobile Talker, a veiled young woman is outlined in bright hues,
her mobile phone pointing to the tension between tradition and
modernity in Iran. Soldier shows a moustachioed soldier in a style
suggesting Persian miniature painting. The third work, Magic White
Horse with Gold Saddle, plays on the idea of the minimal or op art
canvas; this idea is subverted both by the title (which refers to a classic
Persian tale), and by the textural detail of the work’s surface, which is
covered with sculptural, jewel-like confectionery. The white horse of
legend is almost buried by the abundance of ornamental food and
scintillating colour.
Farhad Moshiri’s works are beautiful, hybrid objects, which undermine
attempts to stereotype either the exoticism of the East or the
consumerism of the West. Complex and multilayered, they combine
local and global references to take a light-hearted, yet penetrating,
look at the paradoxes of contemporary life in Iran.
Abigail Fitzgibbons
Endnotes
1 Farhad Moshiri, in Deborah Campbell, ‘Unveiled: Can Iranian artists depict the real
Iran?’, Modern Painters, no.56, October 2005, p.58.
2 Farhad Moshiri and Antonia Carver (interview), ‘Every society has its taboos’, Arts
Newspaper, vol.17, no.191, May 2008, p.49.
3 Moshiri and Carver, p.49.
4 Farhad Moshiri, in Jyoti Kalsi, Gulf News, 10 May 2007, , viewed 10 September 2009.
To me the white buildings decorated with layers of baroque, Roman
and Iranian carving look like cakes. The idea of people living in a huge
wedding cake and their ostentatious lifestyle, especially the extravagant
weddings, was the starting point for a cake series that took a tongue-incheek
look at high society and the hybridisation of cultures. 4
Farhad Moshiri
Iran
Mobile Talker 2007
Oil, synthetic polymer paint and glitter on canvas /
170 x 140cm / Private collection, Dubai / Image
courtesy: The artist and The Third Line, Dubai
All three paintings are associated with a group of works referred to as
Moshiri’s ‘candy store’ works, after the kitsch, evocative name of the
solo exhibition in which they appeared, and for their characteristically
sculptural surfaces of acrylic ‘confectionery’ created with a cakedecorating
tool. Subsequent exhibitions were titled ‘Sweet Dreams’
and ‘Threshold of Happiness’.
Soldier and Mobile Talker use two layers of imagery. Backgrounds are
formed by a flat hyperrealist painting of an ornamental, elaborately
142 143

Kohei Nawa
Seeing is believing
Kohei Nawa’s creations reveal ‘the uncertainties of reality between
seeing and perception’. 1 Nawa’s works take various forms, from
ink drawings to works made with materials such as silicone oil or
polyurethane foam. But his most eye-catching sculptures, produced
since 2002, transform pre-existing objects through the addition of a
new surface layer of transparent glass or resin beads. In focusing on
the outer layer, or epidermis, of things, Nawa creates poetic visions
that draw from, and reflect, our new information society.
Nawa is fascinated with how we gather information from our
environment with the senses of sight and touch. To the sense of
sight, everything around us is a series of light-reflecting surfaces, and
everything we can perceive by touch is covered by some kind of skin.
Nawa is acutely aware of how we identify with, and are made conscious
of, the world at the level of these skins or membranes. He is interested
in probing the interface between our senses and external objects, and
how our understanding of the world is formed from this interplay.
In realising his sculptures, Nawa undertakes a formalised process
that meshes virtual images from the internet with real objects. First,
through online searches using keywords, he finds an item and captures
it as a digital image on a computer screen; he considers this the ‘first
contact’ with the item. Describing his interest in this initial encounter
with the image and how it changes with the physical reality of the
object, Nawa states:
I believe that the image one sees is different from the actual thing
in many ways. The thing has a weight and an odour. By judging the
thing at the image stage, one ends up rejecting its physical reality. 2
Once the object has been acquired and physically received, Nawa
proceeds to the ‘second contact’ stage. After altering the appearance
of the physical object through the transformative effect of applying
glass and resin beads in various sizes, the object is presented as the
third stage: a work emerging from, and informed by, the new order of
the information society. 3 Here, the structure engages reality through
the cyber world: in using the resin beads, Nawa tries to recapture the
properties of the virtual image in physical form. In this context, each
bead becomes a component in a project to recapture something of the
original, pixelated computer image. Nawa calls the result a ‘PixCell’. 4
A way of intervening in or manipulating reality, the PixCell becomes a
new kind of visual medium, another way to fix an image in time. Nawa
likens the PixCell to ‘storage formats, such as JPEG or MPEG. All works
that are added automatically become part of the PixCell world’. 5
In APT6, Nawa’s creation PixCell-Elk#2 2009 transforms the body of
an elk purchased through an internet auction site. 6 Although this
species (Cervus elaphus) is native to parts of North America and East
Asia, it is found in other countries around the world, and this particular
specimen — preserved through taxidermy — originated in New
Zealand. The transparent glass and resin beads dramatically change
our perception of the original creature. The surface of the animal is
fractured, magnified and distorted through the images captured inside
the spheres, transforming it into particles of deconstructed light that
create an effect of enchanting effervescence. Viewed through this shell,
the elk’s textures and colours are filtered through, and dissipated into,
a myriad of individual surfaces, like the pixels on a computer screen.
There is an overwhelming desire to touch the beaded structure to see
if the beads will dissolve, like blown bubbles. The surface also conveys
something elemental, organic or even fungal in appearance, as though
the unfortunate creature has been consumed by some fantastic
alien cellular organism. Nawa’s use of this medium has the effect of
destabilising our sense of what is real and what is virtual.
In Japanese Shinto belief, deer are considered to be divine
messengers. Perhaps in the twenty-first-century world, Kohei Nawa’s
PixCell-Elk#2 is a harbinger of a new kind of creative potential.
Michael Hawker
Endnotes
1 SCAI The Bathhouse , viewed 6 August 2009.
2 ‘Interview with the artist’, Galerie Vera Munro, , viewed
7 August 2009.
3 SCAI The Bathhouse website.
4 This term was devised by the artist from the words ‘pixel’, which is the smallest
element of an image, and ‘cell’, a biological cell; ‘PixCell’ thus means the cell of
an image. See ‘Interview with the artist’, Galerie Vera Munro.
5 See ‘Interview with the artist’, Galerie Vera Munro.
6 Researching ‘deer taxidermy basics’ on the internet, it is interesting to note that only
the hide of the animal is retained (apart from the antlers), and this is stretched over
an armature, usually a polyurethane foam mould. Paradoxically little remains of the
original animal’s body, but we still very much perceive the object as the ‘real thing’.
See , viewed 6 May 2009.
Kohei Nawa
Japan b.1975
PixCell-Elk#2 (detail) 2009
Taxidermied elk, glass, acrylic, crystal beads /
240 x 249.5 x 198cm / Work created with the support
of the Fondation d’enterprise Hermės / Image courtesy:
The artist and SCAI, Tokyo / Photograph: Seiji Toyonaga
144 145

Shinji Ohmaki
Dissolving into light
It is often said that artists ‘transform spaces’, yet their approaches
vary greatly. The works of Shinji Ohmaki transform space, but not by
assimilation; rather, by dissimilation. 1 Aristotle wrote that ‘Art imitates
nature’; Ohmaki’s works neither imitate nature nor try to be natural.
Instead, they make us recognise that we, as human beings, are ‘others’,
existing outside the natural laws of space.
I remember the first time I walked into Ohmaki’s 2002 installation
ECHO. I felt a sense of dislocation as the bright flowers drawn with
food colouring on the floor began to blur and disintegrate from the
impact of my own footsteps, and were left as a stain on the floor. I was
the one who destroyed the beauty of the work.
Works that encourage audience participation, and require viewers
to complete them, tend to be united under the banner of ‘relational’
or ‘interactive’ art. In the case of ECHO, however, the installation
dissimilates us, making us aware that the beauty of the flowers
is artificial on several levels. It is created by human hands and,
furthermore, drawn in artificial food colouring, the result of human
desire to make natural colours and flavours more intense. It is the
viewer who collapses this artificiality.
According to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, flowers and
plants are not intended to be beautiful; it is nature’s rationality that
gives them beauty. However, beauty created by people is motivated
by a desire that Kant called ‘purpose’. 2 At first glance, Ohmaki’s
works often appear seductive and serene, perhaps because of their
accessibility and use of appealing motifs, such as flowers, soap
bubbles and light. On the other hand, the works gently point out
that human life and energy motivated by desire or ‘purpose’ can
sometimes be violently transformed — and this transformation may
not always be welcome.
anime film Akira, in which the lead character’s spirit becomes fused
with his body, which dissolves into light and then transforms into energy.
The white ropes and white light surround viewers in the glass space,
merging them into the glowing installation like the character in the
film. Liminal Air – descend – 2007–09 is a work inviting an experience of
dissolution, in which we become fused with our environment.
In Ohmaki’s most recent installation, Vacuum Fluctuation 2009, shown
at Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya, the dregs of consumer society —
represented by tonnes of industrial slag — gradually fell to the floor
from a small hole in the ceiling during the course of the exhibition.
Like a grisly hourglass, the work registered how human beings are
consuming the earth’s energy and rapidly destroying its environment.
Shinji Ohmaki’s practice is beautiful. The seductiveness and serenity
of his work may perhaps overshadow the fact that his practice also
works as a warning to contemporary society. Human beings are a part
of nature, but will be dissimilated easily, as Ohmaki’s work tells us, if we
do not pay it enough attention. Yet Ohmaki never becomes cynical. He
maintains hopes and dreams, and tries to encourage us to coexist with
our natural environment — by communicating through art.
Shihoko Iida
Endnotes
1 ‘Dissimilation’ means to become dissimilar or less similar to one’s environment. In
this essay, the word means that a viewer becomes alien in the installation space by
invading and destroying its spatial harmony, and comes to realise his/her isolated
existence in the environment.
2 See Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement, 1790, trans. Shinoda, Hideo,
Iwanami Shoten, Japan, 1964.
Shinji Ohmaki
Japan b.1971
Liminal Air – descend – 2007
Nylon string, fluorescent light, glass / Installation view,
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa /
Image courtesy: Tokyo Gallery + BTAP / Photograph:
Tadasu Yamamoto
Still, Ohmaki does not place us in a double bind; rather, his works offer
multifarious viewpoints, particularly in his ‘Liminal Air’ series started
in 2003. These massive installations invite us to experience multiple
ideas of ‘liminality’, including the reversal of inside and outside, the
visible and invisible, body and spirit, and life and death. In 2003,
Ohmaki played with physiological and spatial liminality, covering the
entire ceiling of the Tokyo Wonder Site Hongo gallery space with a
large cascade-like structure made of plaster, which reached down
to the floor. Later that year, at Gallery A4 (A-quad) in Tokyo, Ohmaki
constructed a new version of the work by suspending approximately
120 000 braided nylon ropes from the ceiling. In 2007, at the 21st
Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, this work was
developed further to create Liminal Air – descend – 2007. Here, Ohmaki
hung approximately 120 000 braided nylon ropes from the ceiling in
a specially constructed glass space filled with subdued lighting. The
work crystallised a concept he drew from a scene in the 1988 Japanese
146 147

The One Year Drawing Project
‘The One Year Drawing Project’ is an artist book commissioned
by the imprint Raking Leaves and involving the Sri Lankan artists
Muhanned Cader, Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan, Chandraguptha
Thenuwara and Jagath Weerasinghe. 1 Consisting of 208 individual
drawings, this suite of works is one of the most fascinating, revealing
and significant artistic undertakings produced in Sri Lanka. These are
senior practitioners who have made distinct contributions to Sri Lanka’s
burgeoning contemporary art scene through teaching, curating, art
criticism, design and anti-war activism.
The project began in May 2005, with each of the four artists creating
one drawing which was then posted to one of the others. On receiving
a drawing, each artist then produced another and sent this on. In this
way, the body of drawings was made, exchanged, scrutinised, added
to and developed, forming a group of original art works reflecting
on an array of subject matter. As Raking Leaves founder and curator
Sharmini Pereira describes it:
For each of the participating artists drawing represents an indispensable
investigative tool. Used as a reflective process, practised vehemently,
privately and repeatedly, their drawing practices occupy a much overlooked
side of contemporary Sri Lankan art. What binds them in this
respect is their use of drawing as a visual short hand for scrutinising a
range of subjects from popular culture to current affairs through the
idiom of mark making and figuration. 2
Like the surrealists’ use of the ‘exquisite corpse’ technique, ‘The One
Year Drawing Project’ exploits its method’s openness to accident
and interruption, the absurd and the workings of the subconscious.
Exquisite corpse (in French cadavre exquis) was based on an old
parlour game called Consequences, in which players would, in turn,
write a sentence or phrase on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal the
writing, and pass it to the next player for a further contribution. The
unexpected and playful nature of this game appealed to André Breton
and his surrealist colleagues, and they adapted it to drawing. A suite of
hybrid images was soon produced, the first of which was published in
the journal La Révolution Surrealiste, in October 1927. 4
‘The One Year Drawing Project’ differs from the surrealist endeavour
in that the works are individually signed and can be followed as a
linear sequence. The project also includes a timeline compiled from
each artist’s contributions, ranging from personal events through to
political incidents. Like the exquisite corpse, however, which began
after World War One, this suite of drawings uses elements of free
association and play in response to an atmosphere of political and
military violence, and mobilises the ability of the subconscious to
express deeply personal responses.
Suhanya Raffel
The artists’ studios are located across Sri Lanka, from Jaffna in the
north to the outer suburbs of the capital, Colombo, on the south-west
coast. Based on a process of exchange, what is described in the title
as a ‘one-year’ project in fact took two and a half years, ending in
October 2007. The optimism of this exchange continued a dialogue
and mode of cooperation, characterised by persistence, which was
undertaken against a backdrop of the civil war that began in the early
1980s. Importantly, the four artists conducted this project with care,
understanding the legacy of years of ethnic violence and despite their
different ethnicities. The extended completion time was, in part, due
to ongoing violence and instability (concentrated in the north and
east and, periodically, in the capital), which inevitably affected daily
life. As Pereira notes:
Each of the artists brings his own approach, style and sensibility to
the project. Cader’s drawings are characterised by the repeated
use of a tightly drawn abstract yet whimsical form whose changing
persona becomes a leitmotif throughout the project. Shanaathanan
uses the male nude figure to explore experiences of human
suffering, loss and dislocation. Thenuwara’s drawings move
between figuration and abstraction, often using the iconography
of camouflage — a symbol of military presence — to reflect on the
conflict ridden situation in Sri Lanka. While Weerasinghe creates
expressive, fervently composed drawings that combine and overlay
political satire with the anxiety of the individual. 3
Endnotes
1 Raking Leaves is an independent publisher of contemporary artist book projects,
established in 2006 by the curator Sharmini Pereira.
2 Sharmini Pereira, in material sent to the author, May 2007.
3 Didactic material produced by Raking Leaves for presentation of ‘The One Year
Drawing Project’, 21 August – 1 November 2009, at the Devi Art Foundation,
Gurgaon, India.
4 See William S Rubin, Dada and Surrealist Art, Museum of Modern Art,
Harry N Abrams Inc., New York, 1968.
The One Year Drawing Project
Muhanned Cader
Sri Lanka b.1966
Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan
Sri Lanka b.1969
Chandraguptha Thenuwara
Sri Lanka b.1960
Jagath Weerasinghe
Sri Lanka b.1954
The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007 2005–07
Pencil, synthetic polymer paint, pen and gouache
on paper / 187 sheets: 29 x 21cm (each) / 21 sheets:
21 x 29cm (each) / The Lekha and Anupam Poddar
Collection
Muhanned Cader
Sri Lanka b.1966
Drawing A5 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
The Lekha and Anupam Poddar Collection /
Image courtesy: The artists and Raking Leaves
148 149

Muhanned Cader
Sri Lanka b.1966
Drawing B4 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
Muhanned Cader
Sri Lanka b.1966
Drawing B7 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan
Sri Lanka b.1969
Drawing B5 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
Chandraguptha Thenuwara
Sri Lanka b.1960
Drawing B8 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
Jagath Weerasinghe
Sri Lanka b.1954
Drawing B6 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
Muhanned Cader
Sri Lanka b.1966
Drawing B9 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
The Lekha and Anupam Poddar Collection /
Images courtesy: The artists and Raking Leaves
Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan
Sri Lanka b.1969
Drawing C1 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
Chandraguptha Thenuwara
Sri Lanka b.1960
Drawing C4 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
Jagath Weerasinghe
Sri Lanka b.1954
Drawing C2 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
Jagath Weerasinghe
Sri Lanka b.1954
Drawing C5 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
Muhanned Cader
Sri Lanka b.1966
Drawing C3 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
Muhanned Cader
Sri Lanka b.1966
Drawing C6 (from The One Year Drawing Project
May 2005-October 2007)
The Lekha and Anupam Poddar Collection /
Images courtesy: The artists and Raking Leaves
150 151

Pacific Reggae
Roots Beyond the Reef
Reggae is everywhere in the Pacific, from Honiara to Honolulu, Papeete
to Port Moresby. In a region covering a third of the world’s surface — with
vast distances between population centres and profound historical,
political and linguistic differences — few other contemporary cultural
imports (except maybe spiced ham in a can and various brands of
Christianity) have achieved the near ubiquity of reggae. For APT6, Pacific
Reggae: Roots Beyond the Reef offers a snapshot of the grassroots
dynamism marking reggae’s fairly recent indigenisation in the region,
with an emphasis on the Melanesian islands of the western Pacific.
In the Pacific, reggae booms from backyards, bars and cars, embellished
by distinctively Pacific elements like tight vocal harmonies sung in local
language, or maybe pidgin, and clattering log drums or cha-lang-a-lang
ukulele. It’s a neighbourhood sound and part of the fabric of island
life — almost traditional to many, while dismissed as an inappropriate
foreign import by certain guardians of tradition. 1
Now, more than ever, reggae artists — veterans and young hopefuls
alike — are appearing on TV and online, offering contemporary Pacific
music to a global audience. Videos are often simply documents of
performances; at times, they take on the high production values of
international cinema or advertising, but frequently they represent
artists in their chosen milieu — at home in their family village,
shantytown or recording studio. Current affairs, community politics,
traditional words of wisdom, advice for changing times; all are
rendered as a ‘performance’ for a reggae video. Even in light-hearted
or romantic songs, a connection to ‘roots’ is evident, with everyday
people or places momentarily transformed into pop iconography.
And it is in these slices of contemporary island life — beyond, but not
excluding, the tourist imagery of palm-fringed beaches and smiling
faces — where a web of affinities between the Caribbean and Pacific
becomes apparent. They make reggae a shared form of expression
and pleasure, and a way of dealing with postcolonial realities without
abandoning the deeper rhythms of local life. According to Emmanuel
Narakobi, editor of rokrokmusic.com:
On a cultural level Papua New Guinea could identify with Jamaica
because both are developing nations. So the song content in terms
of talking about struggle and hardships were identifiable with the
PNG market. 2
As Solomon Islands reggae luminary Sharzy (Sammy Saeni) says,
‘We feel reggae music belongs to us, black people’. 3
This sense of the appropriateness of Jamaican culture to Pacific
conditions and sensibilities runs through Pacific Reggae’s broad
sampling of local artists. The occasional complaint of ‘imitation’ or
‘Jafaikin’ accents hardly registers when it comes to the local adaptation
of reggae. It simply fits, and reggae’s musical appeal, coupled with
its framework for social commentary and spiritual yearning, has tied
it to the Pacific world, just as US rhythm and blues and soul once
functioned for Jamaican audiences. David Nalo, from Vanuatu band
26 Roots, notes:
. . . reggae rhythms are similar to kastom (traditional) rhythms and
other similarities include . . . colonialism, the idea of independence,
similar environments (bush, living off the land). We have our own
culture, reggae is parallel to it. 4
Since 1979, when Bob Marley and the Wailers toured Australia, New
Zealand and Hawai‘i, the Jamaican avatar’s famous approach to roots
reggae, black history and identity has prospered in the Pacific, and
was reinforced by visits by the late South African reggae star, Lucky
Dube. Whatever international music trends wash over the region —
hip-hop, techno, R & B — a familiar second and fourth ‘skank’ beat of
guitar or keyboard, a steady bassline, inclusion of Jamaican patois
and Rastafarian terms (which might hail Jah, confront injustice, or
delight in the joys of love) signify an abiding respect for the early
innovations of Jamaican musicians.
In Pacific Reggae, you can hear and see the legacy of Uncle Bob and
roots reggae. The young lions of JVDK (Justice et Vérité des Droits
Kanak) from Kanaky/New Caledonia defend ‘Rastakanaky’ 5 , the fusion
of indigenous Kanak cultural and political rights with notions of
Rastafarian redemption from their particular colonial ‘Babylon’, which
they chant down in pure Marley fashion. 26 Roots — who debuted at
Fest’Napuan, the foremost live event in Melanesia, in 2008 — like many
local bands, use a ‘one drop’ drum pattern (stressing the third beat of
the bar) made famous by the Wailers’ drummer, Carlton Barrett, and
incorporate traditional ni-Vanuatu tam tam log drums. Hawaiian Paula
Fuga performs Bob’s ‘Stir it up’ with fellow Hawaiian Jack Johnson at
the annual Kokua Festival. In her recordings, Paula combines reggae
with powerful R & B vocal stylings and Hawaiian language and
instrumentation (including nose flute), to further the native Kanaka
Maoli agenda of cultural and political self-determination.
That reggae roots are ever present doesn’t mean they’re unchanging.
Also from Vanuatu, XX Squad, led by Marcel Meltherorong aka Mars
Melto, have employed ni-Vanuatu percussion and bamboo flute, as
well as ska, rock and folk arrangements to augment their repertoire.
Sunshiners (Vanuatu/France) have made a name for themselves on the
European tour circuit by covering ‘70s and ‘80s English pop standards
with a mixture of reggae and indigenous string band music — tea chest
bass and ukulele feature prominently. In their pitch to fans in Europe,
they describe Vanuatu as a ‘tropical paradise whose very name invites
you to dream. U2 is not known, nor is The Cure. Bob Marley is the only
one who has left his imprint’. 6
Marcel Meltherorong (aka Mars Melto) (New Caledonia/
Vanuatu b.1975) performing at Fest’Napuan, Port Vila,
Vanuatu 2008 / Image © Marke Lowen
152 153

Not that ‘strictly roots’ approaches contradict the growing enthusiasm
of young Pacific artists for blending reggae with hip-hop; dance music,
in its myriad sub genres; and the electronic pulse of reggae’s Jamaican
offspring, dancehall. Artists such as O-shen and Chief Ragga (both
based in Hawai’i), and Zennith from Kuranda in far north Queensland,
add their own spin on hip-hop and dancehall, but are still identifiably
reggae acts. O-shen, in particular, has created a unique pan-Pacific
form of contemporary reggae rooted in his use of tok pisin and
regional dialects from his childhood home in Papua New Guinea.
The new variants of reggae are often invitations to dance, and
nothing stops Anstine Energy, from Malaita in the Solomon Islands,
from partying. With ‘fro and aviator shades in place — and moves
to prove his moniker — Mr Energy gets down around Gizo town in
Western Province. ‘Me wari’ exemplifies the creative possibilities (and
pitfalls according to some critics) of popular Melanesian music which,
like much of the current crop of Jamaican dancehall, is based on
synthesiser- and sampler-based arrangements, assembled quickly in
digital home studios by entrepreneurial producers who probably also
edited the accompanying video. ‘Me wari’ is built around a two-note
techno-style keyboard riff and looped drum pattern which settles into
a bouncy reggae rhythm for Anstine Energy’s catchy choruses and
lyrics, alternating between Jamaican-influenced English and Solomon’s
pidgin. The colour-saturated video and the singer’s irrepressible sense
of style make for a tropical pop explosion.
Brent Clough
Endnotes
1 See John Berger, ‘’02 not the year Jawaiian dies, but watch out’, Honolulu
Star-Bulletin, 1 January 2002.
2 Emmanuel Narakobi, email to the author, September 2009.
3 Sammy Saeni, email to the author, September 2009.
4 David Nalo, email to the author, September 2009.
5 User ‘Geronimo2967’ in text comments for JVDK YouTube video for ‘Nu Me Kade’,
, viewed September 2009.
6 Sunshiners, , viewed September 2009.
7 Tiki Taane, , viewed September 2009.
Maybe the most ambitious inclusion in Pacific Reggae is the video
by the proud Māori artist Tiki Taane, who has spent many years
performing dub reggae with the band Salmonella Dub. Tiki received
considerable recognition in Aotearoa New Zealand for mixing
dancehall, UK drum ‘n’ bass and kapa haka, or posture dance and
chant, into a te reo Māori lesson on history and the environment in the
song ‘Tangaroa’. According to Taane, this song expresses ‘the anger
and rage Tangaroa [the Māori god of the sea] had towards mankind as
we have shown no respect for the ocean and its inhabitants’. 7 Reggae
and its offshoots are arguably the most popular styles of music in
Aotearoa New Zealand today, and the attention to cultural detail in
the ‘Tangaroa’ video demonstrates the sophistication at work.
Performer Paula Fuga (United States b.1978)
Image courtesy: Paula Fuga, Pakipika Productions LLC /
Photograph © Sean M Hower
Whatever its forms, reggae continues to ‘make sense’ in the Pacific.
For 30 years, it has become a focus of popular culture for the young
and a vehicle for social and spiritual expression. With its sinuous and
potent rhythms, driven by the proliferation of small-scale recording
and editing facilities and online diffusion via YouTube and other online
outlets, reggae offers geographically isolated Pacific communities
a vital way of negotiating a broader sense of the world — remaining
rooted in island homes yet projecting far ‘beyond the reef’.
154 155

Rithy Panh
Gestures of protest
Rithy Panh’s compelling documentary and feature films explore
Cambodia’s recent traumatic past and its uncertain present. His body
of work eloquently contributes to the reconstruction of Cambodian
identity, which was largely stripped away during the Khmer Rouge
regime (1975–79). His early feature film Neak Sre (Rice People) 1994
focuses on a family’s struggle to eke out a living from the rice paddies,
while One Evening After the War 1998 looks at the love between a
returned soldier and an indentured prostitute. Exploring deceptively
simple situations, Panh’s cinematic works present quiet understandings
of the complexities surrounding love, loss, hope and frustration in
contemporary Cambodia. Panh uses film as a way for survivors to
record their memories, both personal and cultural, and to restore a
semblance of identity and social cohesion in a country disconnected
from its rich past.
As a young child growing up in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh,
Panh dreamt of becoming an astronaut like his hero Neil Armstrong,
or an educator like his father. The ascension of the Khmer Rouge to
power and the subsequent decimation of both population and culture
— including the death of Panh’s parents, sister and nephew — would
forever change his aspirations. After fleeing to France as a refugee,
he took up painting, and then writing, in an attempt to piece his life
together. However, it was not until he was handed a camera that he
faced the memories of his past: 1
films about the Cambodian genocide do not focus on the broader
political and historical context of the regime. Instead, he articulates
the psychological trauma associated with genocide through the
recollections of those who survived. Even Panh’s S-21: la machine de
mort Khmère rouge (S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine) 2003, in
which a survivor of the regime’s most feared extermination facilities
confronts his former guards and torturers, is carefully focused on
the personal memories and experiences of individuals within the
collective history of genocide. Uninterested in the usual conventions
of documentary — archival image montages and accompanying
voice-over — Panh relies on the camera to record, to interrogate and,
above all, to listen.
Through each intimate remembrance and historically inspired story,
Panh interweaves evidence of human dignity and memory, utilising the
camera to both record and actively listen to the unfolding narrative.
Each film is a gesture of protest to awaken a nation still traumatised. 4
With his sparse observational style and uncompromising lens,
Panh’s filmmaking resolutely challenges the status quo, prompting
Cambodians to give voice to the lost — both dead and living— and to
embrace the importance of culture, identity, memory and dignity. 5
Amanda Slack-Smith
Rithy Panh
Cambodia/France b.1964
Production still from Neak Sre (Rice People) 1994 /
35mm, colour, stereo, 125 minutes, Cambodia/France/
Switzerland/Germany, Khmer (English subtitles) /
Image courtesy: CulturesFrance, Paris
Production still from S-21: la machine de mort Khmère
rouge (S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine) 2003 /
35mm, colour, Dolby, 101 minutes, Cambodia/France,
Khmer/Vietnamese (English subtitles) / Image courtesy:
CulturesFrance, Paris
Without genocide, without wars, I would probably not have become
a filmmaker. But life after genocide is a terrifying void. It is impossible
to live in forgetfulness. You risk losing your soul. Day after day, I felt
myself sucked into the void. As if keeping silent was capitulation,
death. Contrary to what I at first thought, to relive is also to take back
your memory and your ability to speak. 2
Empowered by his experience, Panh enrolled in the influential
L’Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques (Institute for
Advanced Cinematographic Studies) in Paris, and directed his
first documentary film Site ll in 1989, which examined the story of
a displaced Cambodian woman living in a refugee camp on the
Cambodia–Thai border. It was through these early works that Panh
began to understand the need to reclaim identity through memory.
This philosophy was further inspired by the work of French New Wave
director Alain Resnais, once a student of the same film school.
Having just emerged myself from genocide, Alain Resnais’ work on
Night and Fog [1955] and Hiroshima Mon Amour [1959] really moved
me. Resnais was the filmmaker who made me realize that filmmaking
is a tool of expression I could use to express my own story. 3
Unlike Resnais’s Night and Fog, which was one of the first films to take
a confronting look at the Nazi concentration camps in Poland, Panh’s
Endnotes
1 Sophie Boukhari, ‘Directors in exile’, The UNESCO Courier, October 2000, p.37.
2 Rithy Panh, ‘Je suis un arpenteur de mémoires’, Cahiers du Cinéma, February 2004,
pp.14–17, trans. and quoted in William Guynn, Writing History in Film, Routledge,
New York, 2006, p.187.
3 Michael Guillen, ‘TIFF08: Un barrage contre le Pacifique (The Sea Wall) —The
Evening Class interview with Rithy Panh’, The Evening Class, 21 September 2008,
,
viewed 1 September 2009.
4 The trial of Kaing Guek Eav, the first of five former Khmer Rouge leaders, began
in August 2009. He was the head of the notorious Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison camp
in Phnom Penh, presiding over the death of approximately 17 000 people. Young
Cambodians are often unaware of the genocide due to a selective educational
curriculum, while ageing generations are still fearful of former leaders yet to be tried.
5 With the assistance of Leu Pannakar (cinematographer for former leader King
Norodom Sihanouk) and selected international supporters, Panh has created the
Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center in Phnom Penh, named after a woman
whose torture and death was the focus of his early documentary Bophana:
A Cambodian Tragedy 1996. Ten years in the making, the centre is dedicated to
the preservation of Cambodian filmic, photographic and audio histories.
156 157

Reuben Paterson
Pathways through history
In the monumental Whakapapa: get down upon your knees 2009,
created for APT6 and installed on the soaring wall of the Gallery of
Modern Art’s Long Gallery, Reuben Paterson combines his well-known
motifs of fabric patterns, glitter and optically dazzling structures.
Paterson is a young Auckland-based artist of Ngati Rangitihi and Scottish
pakeha (non-Māori) descent. His practice draws from a combination of
popular culture references, Pacific kitsch and Māori ancestral symbolism.
Whakapapa: get down upon your knees is comprised of 16 richly
patterned canvases abutted in a grid to form a work eight metres
square. Its motifs relate to fabric patterns Paterson has encountered
throughout his life, from sources as diverse as wallpaper, Hawaiian
shirts, women’s frocks and men’s ties. Bisected diagonally, each
module is comprised of two different patterns, arranged so that the
final composition resembles a kaleidoscope. Glitter and diamond dust
are incorporated into the paint, creating shimmering surfaces. The art
work’s title suggests its concern with Māori whakapapa (genealogy).
Papa means anything broad, flat and hard, such as a flat rock, slab or
board; while whakapapa is to place in layers, or lay one upon another,
and to name and recite one’s genealogy in proper order. 1
While exuberant in appearance, the painting also refers to sad and
sober events in Paterson’s life. His fabric motifs pay homage to his
mother’s whakapapa, in particular to her mother, whom he never met.
Many of the patterns are drawn from fabrics popular in the 1960s,
when Paterson’s kuia (grandmother) was known for her fashionable
party frocks, before depression and alcoholism led to her suicide.
sequential recital of the various names for the first states of existence
designated Te Kore (the void), Te Po (the dark), and Te Ao Marama
(the world of light). Te Po, as the celestial realm, relates to the aeons
of time when the earth came into being and is the phenomenological
state these new works issue forth, divide and then unify from. 3
Reuben Paterson layers a personal symbology that melds Māori
traditions with Western cultural modalities into cultural forms,
reinventing cultural specificity and symbolic power. In his fabrications
and reconstructions, working through genealogies interrupted by
marginalisation and social malaise, Paterson constructs new pathways
through history.
Angela Goddard
Endnotes
1 Reuben Paterson, email to Maud Page, Queensland Art Gallery, 13 October 2009.
2 Paterson, email to Maud Page. Paterson continues: ‘Kowhaiwhai is most often
found in the whare, or meeting house ridgepole (tahu) and on the rafters (heke).
The patterns most often represent tribal genealogy. The main line of descent,
beginning with the founding ancestor, is depicted as a single continuously flowing
pattern. On the rafters, patterns depict diverging branches of descent. The fact
that kowhaiwhai is used to depict tribal lineage carries with it associations of
“authority by descent”’.
3 Paterson, email to Maud Page.
In some of the patterns, stylised versions of kowhaiwhai are
discernable. Paterson consistently invokes Māori customs in his
practice, such as these sacred and special patterns, to denote familial
groups and alliances. He explains:
The black kowhaiwhai pattern is called Puhoro. It is found on the
waka (canoe), which links directly to whakapapa in that they brought
our ancestors to Aotearoa, and also to swift movement. I use this
kowhaiwhai to recite and create the motion of time, like that of
whakapapa, and that of a turning kaleidoscope. 2
The red–black–white pattern that sits against this kowhaiwhai design
is from a Pucci fabric reworked by Paterson to contain more koru (the
unfurling frond of the silver fern, a frequent motif in Māori culture).
The kaleidoscopic structure enfolds and refracts the individual fabric
patterns. Paterson describes the resulting form in terms of the Māori
concept of the dark centre:
A central concept in these new works reiterates my gratitude to
life and acknowledges life’s juxtaposition to misdeed through the
Reuben Paterson
New Zealand b.1973
Whakapapa: get down upon your knees 2009
Glitter and synthetic polymer paint on canvas /
16 canvases: 200 x 200cm (each) / Image courtesy:
The artist and Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland /
Photograph: Schwere Webber
158 159

Campbell Patterson
Intimate videos
There is a disarming moment in Old clothes 2009, by New Zealand
artist Campbell Patterson, when his performance before the camera
is momentarily disrupted. Someone passes by and he must feign a
casual stance, halfway through removing his clothing and dropping it
into a rubbish bin in a quiet corner of a public space. The possibility
that he may be sprung in the act haunts his videos — for they are mostly
made in secret.
Like the adolescent reader consuming something scandalous by
torchlight under the bedcovers, Patterson works furtively in an intimate
relationship with his camera.
It’s important for me to perform to the camera only. If there is
someone else watching it may change the way I act (unless this is
part of the work). In a way the secrecy takes the performance directly
to the audience. I don’t do live performance. 1
However, the work is not confessional, revelatory nor expressly
exhibitionistic. It does not share these intentions — the capture of
something ‘real’ — with user-generated content found in abundance
on the internet. What it does share is that style: an uncontrived use of
the camera that is rough and immediate. Patterson is also heir to the
performance art tradition of Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman and Marina
Abramović, and the videos documenting their actions. His work draws
on the possibilities opened up by post-object art, but synthesises them
with the DIY aesthetic of YouTube. As he says:
It is my job as an artist to think of ways to turn myself and my
surroundings into compositions/art works. The way I behave in a
situation, the things in my room, the interiors that belong to my life
all can be used. It’s a process of turning nothing into something. 2
who could, or would, never do. Patterson’s actions, however, are simple
enough for the viewer to feel that he or she could take his place,
lending a particular intimacy to his work.
The viewer can also feel drawn in by the latent eroticism of works such
as Glue balls 2004, in which Patterson rubs white glue between his
hands. As the glue dries, its sound becomes less and less allusive, until
finally it becomes a sphere in his palms. Again, Patterson suspends
the work between the carnality of life and the abstraction of art. So,
while the act of undressing, and all that it implies, is conventionally
understood to lead to nakedness rather than nudity, in Old clothes
Patterson is nude.
Patterson performs his nudity, wearing it like a layer to be imparted
to the digital medium, recalling Balzac’s notion of a spectral sphere
transferred to the photographic plate like a shed skin. 4 Patterson’s
camera effects the transformation of bodily experience into abstraction
and, accordingly, he sees his filmed self as a separate entity rather than
an extension of his own persona.
. . . when I’m in the same room as the works while they are playing I
don’t feel embarrassed, in fact I can kind of relax as if the video body
is doing my work for me. 5
Campbell Patterson’s videos are a tender transfer of the real into
the artificial, of life into performance and, as in the photographic
darkroom, they must be made in isolation.
Francis E Parker
Campbell Patterson
United Kingdom/New Zealand b.1983
Old clothes (stills) 2009
High-definition digital video, single channel, continuous
loop, colour, 4:28 minutes, ed. of 3 / Courtesy: The artist
and Michael Lett, Auckland
Glue balls (still) 2004
Digital Betacam transferred from digital video, single
channel, colour, sound, 56:14 minutes, ed. 3/3
Tickle (still) 2005
Digital Betacam transferred from digital video, single
channel, colour, sound, 2:47 minutes, ed. 1/3
Purchased 2008. The Queensland Government’s
Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Patterson’s compositions are therefore abstract, with little narrative
beyond task accomplishment or repetition. This emphasis on action
over narrative and the treatment of his body as an object are both
approaches that Patterson identifies with pornography. His videos
also do not suture the viewer into an illusion of reality, because the
presence of the camera is constantly registered by direct glances and
adjustments while the camera is running. Nor do they present reality
in the manner of ‘gonzo porn’, for example, because his actions are
devised for the camera rather than sourced from the repertoire of daily
life. 3 The paradox of his work is that its stylistic references speak of
contemporary ‘realism’, while its content is formally artificial.
Patterson’s actions take place between real life — the nearest to which
might be Tickle 2005, where he is tickled until he rolls out of shot —
and the extreme examples of performance or endurance art in which
the artist’s wellbeing is compromised. The latter starkly separates the
performer from the audience, dividing the one who does from those
Endnotes
1 Campbell Patterson, email to the author, 3 August 2009.
2 Patterson, email to the author.
3 Taking its name from ‘gonzo journalism’, an innovation in journalism pioneered
by Hunter S Thompson in 1970 in which the reporter is a participant in the story,
gonzo porn derived from amateur pornography where the camera is operated
by the participants.
4 See Anne Marsh, The Darkroom: Photography and the Theatre of Desire, Macmillan,
Melbourne, 2003, p.92.
5 Patterson, email to the author.
160 161

Wit Pimkanchanapong
In-between spaces
Most of my work focuses around the ideas of mapping, distortion,
unfolding, hypertext, and the space in-between. I intend to practice,
work and live in Bangkok, and circumstantially, most recent works of
mine are aware of ‘accessibility’ for local public audiences, and how
this works together with the global art context. This has been done
through multidisciplinary practices including time-based media,
digital media, diagrams and graphics, and architecture. 1
Interactivity is inherent to the development of Wit Pimkanchanapong’s
works. He continually explores innovative multimedia technology for
new ways to connect people with their contexts. Google Earth, for
example, was the inspiration for Singapore 2008, an immense floorbased
digital image of the city printed on vinyl, produced for the 2008
Singapore Biennale. Visitors were invited to walk over the image, and
to place notes and comments highlighting places of significance.
By combining his experiences of shared technology with intelligent
considerations of architectural spaces, Pimkanchanapong extends his
work beyond the usual and everyday and into the spectacular and
interactive. Cloud 2009 — the artist’s commission for APT6 installed in
the Gallery of Modern Art foyer — is based on a ceiling installation first
designed in 2005 for a Bangkok concert by Pru, a progressive Thai
rock band. It has since morphed beyond the initial, practical necessity
to baffle the venue’s roof, to enhance the acoustics of the concert, into
various site-specific installations and animations. 2
In APT6, Cloud appears as a heaven of billowing forms made from
thousands of sheets of standard A3 white printing paper, wire and
bulldog clips. The arcs of paper create a repeating motif across the
Gallery ceiling. 3 Paper is a prominent material in Pimkanchanapong’s
work — economical, versatile and dynamic. Soaring high above
visitors as they enter the Gallery, Cloud partially obscures the interior
architecture, focusing our attention instead on the often unnoticed
beauty of this ordinary material. The work also enhances the features of
the building by accentuating the long lines of the grand interior space.
That Cloud can be viewed from multiple levels within the Gallery is
crucial to the experience of the work. Looking up from the entry, the
work is all-encompassing in its scale and breadth. As visitors ascend
the building’s stairs and escalators, there is a sense of soaring through
clouds, re-orientating visitors already familiar with the building.
Pimkanchanapong’s Fruits features photographic reproductions of
fruit skins, including bananas, apples and pears, mangosteens and star
fruit. Through computer modelling, the fruits are deconstructed and
represented as a kind of map, offering an unexpected perspective. To
make the fruits, participants join small tabs depicting the names of the
fruits in different languages. As these tabs join, the words literally meet,
and a linguistic exchange takes place between the visitor and artist,
and between people from different cultures.
The simulation of the real object through technology highlights
Pimkanchanapong’s broader considerations of the ‘in-between’, such
as the processes of exchange, commodification and communication.
These affect us daily in ‘virtual’ and ‘actual’ contexts and can differ
dramatically between cultures. Wit Pimkanchanapong’s works involve
astonishing physical and visual transformations of materials, objects
or places. The artist exposes the mechanics and artifice of technology
and, in doing so, brings his viewers closer to the reality of their
surroundings, creating new spaces and means for shared interaction.
Donna McColm
Endnotes
1 Wit Pimkanchanapong, , viewed September 2009.
2 Pimkanchanapong’s 21-second animation Test sequence formed part of his
installation of Cloud for the exhibition ‘Animated Painting’, referencing the 8000
sheets of paper used to create the installation. ‘Animated Painting’, San Diego
Museum of Art, 13 October 2007 – 13 January 2008.
3 There are over 6500 sheets of paper in Cloud in APT6, with the installation
taking approximately one week, reinforcing the importance of the handmade in
Pimkanchanapong’s work.
In addition to his art practice, Pimkanchanapong is a founding member
of the collectives Soi Music and Soi Project, established in 2002 with
Japanese architect Jiro Endo. Soi initiates collaborations between
artists, musicians, designers and architects, melding art forms in
temporary projects including concerts, events and exhibitions. One
of Soi Project’s key works is Fruits, first presented in the 2007 Sharjah
Biennial in the United Arab Emirates, and also featured in APT6, where
visitors can make three-dimensional fruits from printed templates.
Wit Pimkanchanapong
Thailand b.1976
Test installation (detail) for Cloud 2009, Gallery of
Modern Art
Site-specific work for APT6 / Photograph: Ray Fulton
Fruits (detail) 2007
Installation view, Sharjah Biennale 2007 /
Image courtesy: The artist
162 163

Qiu Anxiong
The new book of mountains and seas
There is an animal on this mountain which looks like a horse, but it
has a white head and stripes like a tiger, and a scarlet tail . . . There
is a bird on this mountain that looks like a chicken, but it has three
heads, six eyes, six feet, and three wings . . . There is an animal on this
mountain that looks like a fox, but it has nine tails. It makes a noise
like a baby. It can devour humans . . . 1
In the immediacy and transience of contemporary life, it seems
improbable that a book about strange places, and even stranger
animals, has the power to survive some 2000 years. Yet, this is the
case for Shan Hai Jing (The Classic of Mountains and Seas), an ancient
work of Chinese geography and mythology. The text is no less than
an attempt to ‘provide a comprehensive survey of the whole world’ 2
— some 400 Chinese mountains and rivers (and corresponding plant
and animal life) are explored, as well as the regions beyond.
China’s many fanciful, mythological creatures have inspired
artists throughout the ages, and Qiu Anxiong’s The new book of
mountains and seas 2006–09 continues in this vein, though more as
a contemporary reinvention than as an illustrative response. Like its
centuries-old counterpart, Qiu’s hour-long, painstakingly handpainted
animation — which is produced from some 6000 individual ink
drawings — is a disconcerting mix of the everyday and the impossible.
It is dreamily symbolic and, as in a lucid dream, we are protected from
the tragic absurdities of the modern world it presents: environmental
degradation and self-annihilating warfare in the first part and, in the
second, mad cow disease, human organ farming, industrialised animal
farming, and China’s controversial damming of the Yangtze River.
Qiu’s fragmented and often beautiful imagery records the visions of
an interested but objective third party; possibly a visitor from the past.
Such a person would likely conceptualise modern machines as the
strange hybrids depicted here: tank-like elephants with buffalo bodies,
submarines come to life as bizarre whales, and galactic unicorns with
satellite-dish heads. (The exception is the rat with the human ear
growing on its back — a modern-day reality that would be equally
at home as one of Shang Hai Jing’s impossible creatures.) Curator
Chang Tsong-zung writes of this sense of distance as a perspective
Qiu has reached by ‘stretching his vision into the horizon, where all
the world’s dramas are but distant tremors, and all human strife are
inconsequential disputes within the greater order of the universe’. 3
The artist haunts us, rather than confronts us, with the evidence of our
failings, frailties and oddities.
traditional things’. 5 The new book of mountains and seas is a powerful
representation of the meeting of old and new in Qiu’s practice, which
also encompasses large-scale sculpture. The much-lauded debut of
part one of the work at the 2006 Shanghai Biennale announced Qiu
Anxiong as an artist with a richly lyrical vision — a vision that continues
to unfold across the world art stage, not unlike the wings of one of his
strange, beguiling creatures.
Sarah Stutchbury
Endnotes
1 Anne Birrell, ‘Introduction’, in Anonymous, The Classic of Mountains and Seas,
trans. Anne Birrell, Penguin, London, 1999, pp.3–4.
2 Anonymous, p.xvi.
3 Chang Tsong-zung, ‘The world seen from afar’, in Qiu Anxiong: The New Sutra of
Mountains and the Seas [exhibition catalogue], Contemporary Art Centre of South
Australia, Adelaide, 2007, unpaginated.
4 Qiu Anxiong studied at Germany’s University of Kassel in the early 2000s.
5 Maggie Ma, ‘Biennale wonder boy: Qiu Anxiong’, , viewed 26 July 2009.
Qiu Anxiong
China b.1972
The new book of mountains and seas (part 1) (stills) 2006
Digital hand-painted animation, AVI file, 3 channel
projection, continuous loop exhibited from PC, 4:1,
black and white, sound, 30:15 minutes, ed. 1/10 / Images
courtesy: The artist and Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong
Qiu Anxiong and contemporaries such as Yang Fudong are part of
a growing number of Chinese artists looking to their cultural past to
make sense of the modern world and their place in it. Reflecting on
his experience of living and studying outside China, 4 Qiu said that:
‘The best thing I could do to keep my own identity was to begin
reading [revered Buddhist teacher] Nan Huaijin’s books and learn
164 165

Kibong Rhee
There is no place
In order to be able to set a limit to thought, we should have to find
both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to
think what cannot be thought). It will therefore only be in language
that the limit can be set, and what lies on the other side of the limit
will simply be nonsense. 1
Like many contemporary artists, for Kibong Rhee the limits of Western
philosophy’s ‘grand narratives’ of representation and truth provide rich
subject matter. Rhee’s recent installations use metaphysics as a basis
for developing an ecological relationship between nature and human
intervention in art.
mediated by a screen, which relates to the intuitive processes of the
artist’s drawing practice. Human presence is positioned as diminutive
against the natural world and its inherent mysteries. Rhee explains this
relationship in his approach to drawing:
The surfaces, in endless transformation and combustion, together
with the quivering outline, disappear into a void, leaving behind the
traces of a certain accumulation. This might be seen as a ‘pattern of
slowness’, another kind of generative energy, of recurrent production
and renewal, exerting influence on the totality of motion and flux
known as life. 5
In a previous work entitled Bachelor: The dual body 2003, Rhee
presented a leather-bound copy of Austrian philosopher Ludwig
Wittgenstein’s 1921 text Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus — which
proposed the impossibility of truth or objective representation —
trapped in an aquarium. Dense with the weight of history, this canonical
text was affected by the natural element of water, while air jets produced
currents inside the enclosure. The text and pages were therefore
subject to the whim of the water’s currents. Curator Park Kyung-Mee’s
suggestion of Rhee’s ‘free thinking acting upon objects’ is an apt
metaphor for the effect of such processes employed by the artist. 2
Wittgenstein was keenly interested in the representation of everyday
objects by the artificial framework of language or logic. He proposed
that we should examine the world through sets of propositions
or speculations in order to test the limits of representation: ‘In a
proposition a situation is, as it were, constructed by way of experiment’. 3
With this in mind, we might approach Rhee’s works as an ongoing
set of experiments or propositions about the world, mediated by our
individual experiences, language and preconceptions.
There is no place – Shallow cuts 2008, featured in APT6, is one such
experiment. Walking into a seemingly empty room, we are arrested by
the moving shadow of a willow tree behind a glass screen. A shadowy
mist partially obscures its boughs. As though taken from its natural
environment and placed within the gallery setting, the installation
reiterates the workings of Rhee’s Bachelor: The dual body; the artificial
tree becomes subject to a ‘natural’ element, produced through the
means of a mechanical fog machine. 4
Just as Wittgenstein exploited language’s artifice, Rhee is interested in
making works that are as much about the disappearance or obscurity of
objects as they are about their existence. Through the partial ‘vanishment’
of his objects in installations such as There is no place, Rhee asks us to
consider the natural spaces we inhabit and how we affect them.
The willow tree, for instance, is revered in traditional East Asian
painting and poetry. In this work, our impression of the tree is
The flux or energy that Rhee exploits through his works suggest
that logic alone cannot convince us of the objective reality of our
surroundings. The artist’s engagement with his immediate environment
and its contradictions — such as modernity’s insistent drive for progress
and preoccupation with so much visual, often empty, stimulus — is
crucial to our appreciation of his work:
Our history is racing toward a better new world with an unbelievable
speed. We used to be full of great expectations. However, we are now
left with a great deal of negatives as well: The universe became filled
with helpless images and symbols. Only empty feeling of non-existence
and aimless, mindless acts prevail in the contemporary world. 6
Kibong Rhee persuades us to shift our concerns from the global (‘infinite’,
philosophical questions) to the immediate (everyday locales, and the
objects and experiences constituting our daily existence), prompting
us to deepen our consideration of the objects occupying our lives.
Donna McColm
Endnotes
1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, author’s preface, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans.
DF Pears and BF McGuinness, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961, p.3.
2 Park Kyung-Mee, ‘When mind and matter meet: Towards minus entropy’, in
Rhee Ki-Bong: About Vanishment II 1997 [exhibition catalogue], Kukje Gallery,
Seoul, 1997, unpaginated.
3 Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.031f, p.43.
4 This element of Rhee’s installation recalls the canonical work by Marcel Duchamp,
The bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even, also known as The large glass
1915–23. In the work, an ‘illuminating gas’ is secreted from the abstracted bride
figure over her nine ‘bachelors’ below, instigating a schematic process of desire
and non-fulfillment.
5 Kibong Rhee, in Rhee Ki-Bong: About Vanishment II 1997, unpaginated.
6 Kibong Rhee, ‘Paint like a mirror, being erased by a painting’, Rhee Ki-Bong: Mind
and Mirror [exhibition catalogue], Gallery Meegun, Seoul, 1992, unpaginated.
Kibong Rhee
South Korea b.1957
There is no place – Shallow cuts 2008
Glass, fog machine, artificial leaves, wood, steel, sand,
motor, timer / Installation views, Kukje Gallery, Seoul /
Images courtesy: The artist and Kukje Gallery, Seoul
166 167

Hiraki Sawa
Active stillness
Hiraki Sawa’s video animations are eloquent reflections on ideas of
time and motion, home and place. Having lived in both London and
Kanazawa for many years, the themes of travel, mobility and distance
are important references for Sawa, and his works transport ordinary
objects into the realms of the subconscious and the surreal. Recurrent
motifs include aircraft, Ferris wheels and rocking horses, which trace
journeys ‘from one place to another, and back again’. 1
Sawa’s recent works are immersive, spatial installations of image and
sound which explore concepts of abstract motion or ‘active stillness’. 2
Hako 2006 is a six-channel work tracing changes in the landscape
through the imagery of a nuclear power station, model domestic
interiors, and an ancient Shinto shrine that is rebuilt every 20 years. 3
Out of the blue 2009 is a two-channel video installation. One is a
sequential narrative of shadows cast by isolated objects in a domestic
space, the other is a single continuous shot of people walking languidly
up and down a steep sand dune, its measured tracking shots in slow
motion highlighting the physical and perceptual interactions that occur
in one’s passage through a particular terrain.
as a whole and the minute and intricate details, where countless
patterns are revealed.
Complementing the vast, unpeopled spaces of the desert are scenes
of the dusty interiors of an abandoned house:
There is a home in the mountains near the river near the sea. It is tall
and it is old and its floors are of cracked, red clay. It is full of things in
piles and heaps and layers, yet empty of both absence and presence.
It has known too many people and framed too many lives to be
missing only one of these. 6
This focus on a neglected domestic space, once occupied and lively,
reflects on the cycles of life, and is augmented by an enchanting
exploration of the surface of the moon as it orbits the earth. Sawa’s ten
short films in O 2009 feature individual objects — a glass bottle, a brass
bell, a china bowl — which endlessly spin; an action which contradicts
their purpose. The china bowl jerkily rotating on its base, for example,
is an incongruous and comical inversion of its function.
Commissioned for APT6, O 2009 is a multi-channel installation
featuring a soundtrack by London-based composer Dale Berning.
It builds on the artist’s interest in journeys and cycles, while also
considering expression as a continuous flow, using the circle as a
poignant visual metaphor. The work is comprised of ten short films of
spinning objects, as well as a three-channel projection which traverses
the moon’s surface, the empty interiors of an abandoned house, and
the vast expanses of the Central Australian desert, which Sawa visited
in April 2009. Tracing a circuit starting and ending in Alice Springs,
Sawa travelled between the rust red ranges and the bleached spinifex
terrain of the desert landscape:
Hiraki Sawa’s emphasis on action over narrative creates an absorbing
and compelling study of momentum and balance, continuity and
repetition. The soundtrack reinforces the non-linearity of his
approach. It is a composition of spinning sounds and silences
played on rotating speakers. As Sawa says, ‘Coming full circle is
movement without displacement. In that time, you simply are, and
all change is in the looking’. 7
Mellissa Kavenagh
Hiraki Sawa
Japan/United Kingdom b.1977
O (stills) 2009
3 channel video projection, 10 short films on monitors,
5 channel sound by Dale Berning on spinning
speakers, colour and black and white, 8.00 minutes /
Commissioned for APT6 / Images courtesy: The artist
A round trip takes you on the same route twice but in opposite
directions. You end up where you began, and in between nothing
takes place. You drive up a road and see the world on either side as
it is. Driving back down again covers the same ground, the world
on either side does not move or change, yet seen from behind,
everything is different. I am interested in this active stillness . . . 4
Towards the end of his journey, Sawa encountered the ancient
meteorite crater of Tnorala (Gosse Bluff), a place of cultural
significance to the Western Arrernte people, as well as a site of
international scientific interest. 5 The projection depicts a bird circling
low over the seabed, as a tugboat travels across the frame against a
background of spinning wind turbines. The crater is depicted from
above, revealing the mounds and cracks in the rock walls. Inherent in
this sequence is the artist’s focus on the elemental: the wind, the sea
and the earth, all moving in an unbroken flow. Images of swaying grass
and rippling clouds shift the viewer’s focus between the composition
Endnotes
1 Hiraki Sawa, artist statement in an email to the author, 18 September 2009.
2 Sawa, artist statement.
3 The Shinto shrine in Ise, Japan, is completely reconstructed every 20 years as part
of the Shinto belief in the cycle of renewal in nature; it is also a way of passing
building techniques from one generation to the next.
4 Sawa, artist statement.
5 Tnorala (Gosse Bluff) is an ancient site over 142 million years old, and is located
175 kilometres west of Alice Springs. According to both Aboriginal culture and
scientific interpretation, the site is celestial in origin.
6 Sawa, artist statement.
7 Sawa, artist statement.
168 169

Shirana Shahbazi
A purely visual language
Shirana Shahbazi creates images that are at once ordinary and
beautiful. She has been described as an ‘ambassadress of the
unspectacular’, yet her carefully staged photographic and painted
tableaux are, by definition, dramatic. Her subjects are laden with art
historical references and resonate with today’s image-saturated world
but, in exchange for drawing attention to the ways these subjects have
been represented and reproduced, Shahbazi ‘manages to render their
symbolic meanings equivalent’. 1 In her contemporary reinterpretations
of the still-life genre, the artist traverses geography, history and media
to posit questions of translation and displacement.
Born in Tehran in 1974, Shahbazi immigrated to Germany as an
11 year old and now lives in Zurich. As an artist, her work is not marked
by exile, nor by nostalgic displacement, but is instead distinguished
by a tremendous ease with location. This sense of effortless transit is
evident in her monumental work for APT6: an installation of still-life
images, which mixes and deconstructs an array of seemingly disparate
referents. In an altogether fracturing experience, glossy prints of
varying size and composition are arranged in simple constellations
across the wall, while monumental paintings at either end serve as
quotation marks around this two-dimensional act of speech.
Shahbazi’s work inhabits a zone of non-specificity that defies
easy categorisation. Her lush imagery exploits iconographic and
compositional elements of seventeenth-century nature morte, where the
fleeting beauty of a blooming flower, for example, acts as a reminder
that life is short. Yet, her glorious fruits, flowers and birds also reference
tazhib a tashiri, a variant of the Persian miniature that incorporated
borrowings from China during the Kajar dynasty (1794–1925). 2 While
recalling painterly traditions from both the Middle East and Europe, in
their sharp, vivid colours, these photographs also reference the stock
pictures used to illustrate glossy advertising brochures.
In another gesture that speaks to the hyper-real language of
advertising, Shahbazi has commissioned a group of Iranian billboard
painters to translate her precise studio photographs onto blackpainted
canvas. These paintings employ the reductive style typically
used in advertising or to celebrate religious leaders in Iran today; the
handling of the paint is brushy and viewed to best advantage from a
distance. The dark backgrounds cultivate a funereal aura, while the
luminosity of the perishable blooms, fruit and skulls conjures vanitas
themes familiar from seventeenth-century Flemish painting. If, as
Roland Barthes wrote of that era’s guild portraits, ‘Depth is born only
at the moment the spectacle itself turns its shadow towards man and
begins to look at him’, here, that depth seems to ‘rise out of the past
and the multiple layers of mediation [are] uncannily reanimated’. 3
The basket of fruit and blooms in one painting is saved from glossy
blankness by incongruous elements nestled around its edges:
improbably glowing chrysanthemums, small pieces of sculptural
coral and strings of incandescent pearls. Jewellery suggests a human
presence, albeit an absent one, as does the trio of cheery skulls in
the second painting. Their glaring white domes hover atop a black
ground, keeping empty-eyed watch over gallery visitors. The gaptoothed
grimace may appear as a perversion of the grins of toothpaste
commercials, though these paintings aren’t selling anything.
Ultimately, the images Shahbazi produces and reproduces function as
‘placeholders’ — they are generic rather than specific. The artist takes
a bowerbird approach to image-making, and seamlessly intermingles
visual cues. While Shahbazi’s works mine these representational
conventions, they are not meant to act as citations. Each picture
prompts you to catch yourself in the act of looking. By playing with
‘types’, the artist simultaneously celebrates and exposes the clichés
that cling to them.
The overwhelming effect, then, is decentring. By arranging still-life
compositions to combine distance with proximity, the artist strips away
specificity and opens up a space of imagination. Irregular groupings
and juxtapositions create meanings that break apart and then reform
— like chapters in a book read from front to back, or back to front, or
indeed from any page. The effect recalls Faraj Bou al-Isha’s 2003 poem
Wait: ‘do not leave yet. / Let me rearrange the world / for you’. 4 This is
a nowhere place, but it is also everywhere.
Bree Richards
Endnotes
1 Christy Lange, ‘I am an image’, Frieze, no.113, March 2008, p.124.
2 Kate Bush, ‘Introduction’, in Meanwhile: Shirana Shahbazi [exhibition catalogue],
Swiss Institute, New York; Barbican Art Gallery, London, 2007, p.6.
3 Kristin M Jones ‘Chronicles of the everyday: Photographs, paintings, collectives
and cultural identity’, Frieze, no.90, April 2005, p.94.
4 Quoted in Cherry Smith, ‘Shirana Shahbazi’, Art Monthly, no.294, March 2006, p.32.
Shirana Shahbazi
Iran/Switzerland b.1974
[Voegel-08-2009] (from ‘Flowers, fruits & portraits’ series)
2003–ongoing, printed 2009
Type C photograph, ed. of 5 (+ 1 AP) / 90 x 70cm /
Image courtesy: The artist; Bob van Orsouw Gallery,
Zurich; and Cardi Black Box, Milano
170 171

Shooshie Sulaiman
Who’s afraid of the dark?
My father, of Scottish heritage, is a great storyteller, and I have many
eloquent memories of him telling stories about his life. My parents
have always been very open and no question was taboo in our
household. There was, however, one question I never posed — about
my mother’s life in Malaysia. She was born in Malaysia to Chinese
parents and came to Australia to attend university in the 1970s, but all
other details are shrouded in darkness.
I was the only child with Chinese heritage at my small primary school
in far north Queensland. Apart from my mother’s face, the faces on
the nightly news were the only representations of Chinese and Malay
people that I was familiar with. Many years later, I still feel a sense of
the unfamiliar while viewing Shooshie Sulaiman’s Darkroom 2009, an
installation of photographic portraits of men and women from around
Malaysia, posed alone, in pairs and in groups.
Sulaiman found these portraits of nameless people in second-hand
stores around Malacca. The portraits, dating from the 1950s and 1960s
with their sepia tones, reference the time preceding the 13 May 1969
race riots. 1 Sulaiman was born after the riots, but lives with their legacy as
a person of both Malay and Chinese heritage. In Darkroom, she brings
together approximately 50 portraits, transforming the faces of the portrait
sitters using flower petals, collage, ink and paint, and mounting the
images in found frames. The petals of pressed lily, lotus, poppy, tulip and,
particularly, the hibiscus are used to soften the faces of the male figures.
Hibiscus rosa-sinensis is the national flower of Malaysia, although
it is not native to the country. Its five petals represent the nation’s
five principles: belief in God, loyalty to king and country, upholding
the constitution, the sovereignty of the law, and good behaviour
and morality. These were first announced at Independence Day
celebrations in 1970 in response to the events of 1969. Sulaiman’s use
of single hibiscus petals in Darkroom is thus a subtle device through
which she questions Malaysia’s national principles and laws.
people. Single group photographs tend to display a false sense of
unity; although the family is all smiles, many other frames reveal frowns
and tensions. Portraits of a nation also tend towards a false sense
of unity. The Malaysian Government describes the nation as a place
where ‘Malays, Chinese, Indians and many other ethnic groups . . . have
influenced each other, creating a truly Malaysian culture’. 2 It may be
argued that Darkroom, as a collection of nameless faces, is better able
to display the diversity and multiplicity of stories — as well as hint at the
lost ones — that create the Malaysian national portrait.
The portraits of these nameless faces are installed in an ‘open house’, a
replication of the library in Sulaiman’s former Kuala Lumpur residence,
a small wooden building behind the National Art Gallery and the
National Theatre — two of Malaysia’s major art institutions. The ‘open
house’ is an ongoing metaphor in Sulaiman’s work — she makes herself
and her work accessible via open spaces. She opens her home for art
exhibitions, in keeping with the Malaysian festive tradition of opening
your home to family, friends and strangers to celebrate cultural or
religious festivities. For Darkroom, Sulaiman opens the doors of her
library to us, inviting us to join her in celebrating the ambiguous and
fractured nature of Malaysian identity.
Ellie Buttrose
Endnotes
1 On 13 May 1969, following the 10 May Malaysian general election, Chinese–Malay
race riots broke out in Kuala Lumpur. A state of emergency was declared, and there
were officially around 200 deaths, although unofficial figures are far greater.
2 Tourism Malaysia,
viewed October 2009.
Shooshie Sulaiman
Malaysia b.1973
Indian father + Indian mother = Chinese daughter 2009
Lily petal, ink, old photograph / 24 x 18.4cm /
Image courtesy: The artist
Women are chronically under-represented in some aspects of Malaysian
society, especially in politics, where they make up only ten per cent of
parliament. Sulaiman counters this by using flower petals to soften the
dominant representation of men, and brings women’s issues to the
surface by painting over the women’s portraits with red ink, with titles
like ‘menstruation’. Sulaiman is also interested in the slippage that occurs
in the process of trying to define genders, which, like race, dominates
identity politics. She creates ambiguity by partially covering female
portraits with paper laden with text and titling them ‘masculine’, and
using flower petals as a mechanism for feminising the male portraits.
My parents, sister and I have very rarely been captured in the same
frame. Our collection of photographs of us in pairs or trios is better
able to represent my family as a group of related but independent
172 173

Thukral and Tagra
Dream merchants
Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra offer a seductive and vibrant take on
contemporary Indian society and culture. Witty and colourful, Thukral and
Tagra’s refined aesthetic is applied to painting, sculpture and installation,
as well as graphics, interiors, fashion and product design, often under the
provocative label, Bosedk. 1 Their structured approach gives their projects
a high level of detail, finish and accessibility, with themes researched
and developed over time, and made adaptable to specific concerns
and contexts. Coming from a generation of Indian artists for whom
‘transcultural experience is the only certain basis for contemporary artistic
practice’, 2 Thukral and Tagra’s work ranges freely across many forms
and references, while maintaining a distinctly local perspective.
Thukral and Tagra’s ongoing series, ‘Effugio/Escape’, is inspired by a
particular aspect of Punjabi society in which young people, particularly
men, are encouraged to move abroad. While wandering and migration
are longstanding in Punjabi culture, emigration accelerated during the
second half of the twentieth century through increased global demand
for labour and more relaxed immigration policies, particularly in the
West. Local ‘push factors’, such as the 1947 partition of India, political
instability around Operation Blue Star in 1984, growing modernisation
and the decline of the rural economy, contributed to this trend; 3
along with persistent cultural forces, such as the high status bestowed
on those who migrate and, by extension, on their families at home.
Evidence of this is the Punjab’s massive industry of education and
migration agencies, leading, for instance, to the increased presence
of Indian students in countries like Australia. 4
Both of Punjabi background, Thukral and Tagra began to document
and analyse this situation around 2003, linking it to broader shifts in
Indian society. Drawing on personal experience, interviews with young
men, as well as their observations of rampant urban development
and consumption throughout India, the artists have constructed a
hallucinatory image world of hyped-up aspirations and burgeoning
wealth. Glossy paintings, fashionable clothing and shelves bursting
with packaging fill their installations, which are often configured as
retail or domestic environments. Adolescere Domus, their 2007 display
at the Basel Art Fair, depicted a teenage bedroom hung with portraits
of Punjabi ‘homeboys’ and included furniture, clothes and other
consumer goods. Each item featured the artists’ signature motifs of
flowers, trailing vines and invented logos. While the work reflected the
shiny new consumerism of the subcontinent, Adolescere Domus also
played up to the heady excesses of the Western art market at the time,
which had then recently expanded to include contemporary Indian art.
Thukral and Tagra’s work for APT6 comprises an imaginary living
room, dominated by a large, dreamlike painting of baroque buildings,
inspired by those being built across India. With their pastiche of
European styles, these fantasy villas and apartment blocks reflect the
desires of the growing middle class, yet are thoroughly unsuited to the
local climate and ignore the richness of India’s own architectural history.
The inner and outer walls of the room are lined with portraits of young
men who have left home to pursue a supposedly better life overseas. In
the centre, an enormous table rises from the floor like a plane taking off,
while two empty chairs indicate the parents left behind. Family is at the
heart of Punjabi society, and house and land ownership is of paramount
importance. Although having children abroad promises social prestige
and regular remittances, it also fragments the family unit and risks
serious economic repercussions, not least because the funds to support
emigration are often raised by selling property at home. 5
The gravity of Thukral and Tagra’s subject matter is conveyed with
directness and humour, reflecting empathy for their subject, while their
desire to communicate is facilitated by alluring design and the ‘dream
factory’ approach of advertising. For example, their 2007 exhibition, ‘Put
It On’ addressed the spread of HIV/AIDS in India with the printing of
logos and slogans encouraging condom use onto designer underwear,
rubber thongs and bed linen. As curator Trevor Smith noted:
Thukral and Tagra take their role as cultural entrepreneurs seriously.
For them, the marketplace is not simply a site of economic exchange
but exists as a forum for the contestation of cultural values. 6
Rather than observing consumer culture from a cool, comfortable
distance, Thukral and Tagra are utterly immersed in it, turning its fervent
language to their own ends. As in the commercial world, images and
objects are carriers of information, speaking broadly across borders at
the same time as appealing to us directly, as individuals.
Russell Storer
Endnotes
1 ‘Bosedk’ is an Anglicised version of a colloquial term of abuse in north India, with
differing nuances depending on region.
2 Ranjit Hoskote, ‘Signposting the Indian Highway’, in Indian Highway [exhibition
catalogue], Serpentine Gallery/Koenig Books, London, 2009, p.193.
3 See Gurharpal Singh and Darshan Singh Tatla, Sikhs in Britain: The Making of a
Community, Zed Books, London, 2006, pp.26–42. Operation Blue Star was the name
given to a military operation organised by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi against the
Sikh separatists gathered in Amritsar’s Golden Temple. It was a flashpoint in a long
history of tension between Sikhs and Hindus, and resulted in a series of anti-Sikh
riots. Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards four months later.
4 Following a spate of attacks in Melbourne and Sydney in recent months, the
situation of Indian students in Australia (in 2009, around 90 000) has received
unprecedented media and political attention in both India and Australia. See Sushi
Das, ‘Repairing damaged ties’, Age, 29 August 2009.
5 Thukral and Tagra, interview with Russell Storer, 3 June 2009, Queensland Art
Gallery Research Library artist file.
6 Trevor Smith, in Thukral & Tagra, Nature Morte/Bose Pacia, New Delhi/New York,
2007, p.40.
Thukral & Tagra
Jiten Thukral
India b.1976
Sumir Tagra
India b.1979
Immortalis (from ‘Effugio’ series) 2008
Synthetic polymer paint and oil on resin / 76 x 72cm /
Image courtesy: The artists and Gallery Nature Morte,
New Delhi
Next page
Thukral & Tagra
Dominus Aeris – The Great, Grand Mirage (detail) 2009
Synthetic polymer paint and oil on canvas / Triptych:
213.5 x 213.5cm (each) / Image courtesy: The artists
and Gallery Nature Morte, New Delhi
174 175

Charwei Tsai
A space of contemplation
Charwei Tsai’s art engages the viewer in a very direct and intimate
way. For Tsai, art is a type of meditation through which she explores
philosophical questions relating to ethical living and compassion. As
part of her practice, she often invites audiences to find their own space
of contemplation and possible connection.
This desire to share with the viewer is present in works such as
the ‘Mantra’ series, which imaginatively explores the Buddhist
prajnaparamita or Heart Sutra. Begun in New York in 2005, the ‘Mantra’
series involves Tsai writing the Heart Sutra onto flowers, mushrooms,
tofu and other organic materials that change form and gradually
decompose. Tsai memorised the Heart Sutra text as a child in Taiwan:
its central message relates to the transience of the individual and
the universe, the acceptance of which enables a meditative state of
emptiness and non-suffering. Tsai invites her audience to engage in
the materialisation of this spiritual lesson through the transformation of
the object on which she has written.
Tsai’s choice of materials for the works in the ‘Mantra’ series often
reflects the location in which the work is made, enabling direct
connections with the viewer. In Brisbane, she chose locally-grown
mushrooms, inscribed by monks from the local Buddha Light
Association as a form of performance during the course of APT6.
Tsai also created Sky mantra 2008–09 — writing the Heart Sutra onto a
large piece of glass which reflects the changing conditions of the sky
overhead. Tsai references a long tradition of calligraphy as a form of
meditative practice. By writing, she is able to establish the ongoing
presence of her body in relation to the work: the absent human
presence evident in the handwritten text, continuing to attract viewers
whether or not they understand its meaning.
Tsai gently evokes the perception of touch suggested by overlapping
hands to stimulate a sense of intimacy with absent others. The artist’s
engagement of her audience through touch creates opportunities for
more empathetic personal exchange.
I find it interesting that the cause of major social discriminations, such
as racism [and] sexism, all begin from a visual impact. 3
Charwei Tsai produces art which offers myriad connections between
artist and audience, and between viewers. Her intimate and meditative
works act to dissolve the barriers we erect between ourselves and others.
Ruth McDougall
Endnotes
1 Tsai only discovered the Zen tradition of ensō after creating Circle and likens it to
a visual manifestation of the Heart Sutra.
2 Charwei Tsai, email to Suhanya Raffel, Queensland Art Gallery, August 2008.
3 Tsai, email to Suhanya Raffel.
In the projection work Circle 2009, with its image of a circle drawn in
black ink on a block of melting ice, Tsai continues to reflect on ideas of
emptiness and transience, now articulated through the act of forming
a circle and watching it disappear. Used as a tool of meditation by Zen
monks, the calligraphic drawing of a circle, or ensō, involves emptying
the mind in order to let the body–spirit create. It is believed that the
way in which the ensō is drawn fully exposes the character of the
drawer. Inviting an audience to hold a projected image of her ensō as
the block of ice melts, Tsai places herself in their hands. 1
Charwei Tsai
Taiwan b.1980
Mushroom mantra 2009
Black ink on mushrooms / Installed dimensions
variable / Site-specific installation for APT6 /
Image courtesy: The artist
Tsai likens the handwashing in her work Hand washing project 2009
to that of a ritual cleansing. 2 Visitors to the Gallery of Modern Art wash
their hands in the bathroom basins, over which images of people of
different ages and cultural backgrounds washing their own hands are
projected. In this work, Tsai is interested in exploring the possibility of
unexpected interactions between people. The invitation to viewers and
visitors to place their own hands within Tsai’s Circle and Hand washing
project projections can also be seen as creating a network of touch —
178 179

Vanuatu Sculptors
Innovation and tradition
Spectacular Ambrym sculptures and drums, carved from the trunks
of black palm and breadfruit trees, are internationally recognised as
emblems of traditional ni-Vanuatu culture. Studied and collected by
anthropological museums all over the world, today these towering
forms — along with the intensely powerful temar ne ari (ancestor
spirit) sculptures and the ‘guardian of tabou house’ figures — are
created in reaffirmation of kastom (customary government, law and
religion) on the island of Ambrym. This strengthening has been
accelerated by the objects’ transformation to ‘art’, by the growing
economic needs of the artists, and by the success of Ambrym
as a tourist destination exhibiting ‘traditional’ culture. With their
presentation in APT6, we see the first appearance of a major group
of works coming from customary practice in this contemporary
international art exhibition.
North Ambrymese men increasingly had to compete for power with
colonists and with Ambrymese men who had embraced Christianity
and/or had familial ties with western Ambrym and Malakula.
Regardless, today the imported Malakulan system, which involves
the use of pigs and other valuables to acquire rank, has largely
replaced the indigenous mague rites and their associated ritual
objects. More secular and, many believe, more democratic in nature,
these imported rites have resulted in important and sometimes
contentious shifts in local power, as well as developments in mague
art. The most important of these is the Ambrymese adoption
and adaptation of a Malakulan copyright system (associated with
monumental Malakulan ranking black palm sculptures) to objects
used in imported mague and other ceremonies.
Strongly tied to male kastom, the powerful works carved by
artists such as Freddy Bule and Michel Rangie are also part of the
historical process of artistic creation and renewal lying at the heart
of Ambrymese life and tradition. 1 Some of the ceremonies involving
carved objects which are practised on Ambrym today are secular, and
have been adopted and adapted from neighbouring islands as part
of a centuries-old process of cultural exchange. While maintaining
a strong link to place and kastom, the Ambrymese enthusiastically
translated other cultural practices where they saw the advantage of
supplementing their own.
As anthropologist Kirk Huffman has noted, in the Malakulan copyright
system, everything — from a whole ritual to individual objects to
the designs used on objects — can be purchased or sold. Once an
individual has purchased the rights to copyright, they then have the
authority to resell. As a result, objects, ceremonies and designs from
one area are able to combine with those from another. This shows that
transformation and change is the norm, not the exception:
. . . the rituals themselves were, and are, thought to have a power
and spirit of their own that urges them to get up, move to other
areas, to stay there for a while, and then move on. 4
One of the most significant of these is the purchase, from the
neighbouring island of Malakula, of the rituals of status acquisition
known as mague, represented in APT6 by painted and carved
‘Mague (ranking black palm)’ figures. Mague is a hierarchical series
of initiations through which men are able to achieve higher levels of
status and authority within the community. While mague rites have
always been practised on Ambrym, this indigenous kin-based system
— ‘which acted as the creative basis for cosmological ideas’ 2 , as well as
indicating social status — has been augmented by a more hierarchical
system from Malakula over the past three or four centuries.
The introduction of a Christian missionary settlement, and the
destabilising effects of competing French and British political interests
within local Ambrymese politics in the first half of the twentieth century,
however, resulted in a decline in the practice of mague and particularly
its indigenous forms, berang yayan and fenbi.
Writing in 1914, ethnologist WHR Rivers (1864–1922) proposed that
the Ambrymese use of abstract design was a way of symbolically
engaging with others at the same time as concealing secret
knowledge. 3 The increasing visual presence of the Malakulan system
in North Ambrym since the 1940s may be an extension of this impulse.
Anthropologists continued to arrive in the area from this time, and
The skill and creativity of Ambrymese sculptors, such as Bule,
Rangie, Kilfan, Marakon and the Mansak family, are manifested in
the way they have creatively adapted the squat face and cropped
head of ranking black palm figures from the Malakulan rites into the
distinctive Ambrymese style.
The Mague (ranking black palm) figures and Atingting (slit drum)
demonstrate this with their deeply carved eyes and brows, their
elongated faces and mesmerising, disc-shaped eyes. With atingting,
the three rows of toothing represent hair around each figure’s face,
and with the mague, the inclusion of carved and painted fauna is
also a common feature of the sculptures, created by contemporary
Ambrymese artists who have the necessary copyright.
The continuing importance of the copyright system to objects made
for many Ambrymese rituals, including those deemed secret, is also
evident in restrictions on the use of new materials and techniques.
Artists must purchase and pass through the various levels of initiation
in order to gain the right to carve and decorate art works that signify
different rankings, or in the case of temar ne ari and ‘guardian of
tabou house’ figures, particular ancestors. Men who have achieved
the highest rankings administer local adherence to the copyright
Freddy Bule
Vanuatu b.1967
Atingting rom (slit drum) 2005
Carved breadfruit tree with synthetic polymer paint /
256 x 24 x 26cm
Michel Rangie
Vanuatu b.c.1981
Mague ne sagran (ranking black palm) grade 4
painted c.2005
Carved black palm with synthetic polymer paint /
250 x 38 x 50cm
Michel Rangie
Vanuatu b.c.1981
Mague ne hiwir (ranking black palm) grade 9
painted c.2005
Carved black palm with synthetic polymer paint /
255 x 35 x 45cm
Gift of David Baker through the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2008 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
180 181

system and are able to authorise innovations. On Ambrym, this has
included adaptations such as the use of brightly coloured trade paints
for the striking designs on ‘Mague’ figures, as well as the copyright of
knowledge to create blond hair for particular temar ne ari.
The arresting designs and bold colours of the works featured in
APT6 demonstrate the impressive results of the Ambrymese artists’
response to, and embrace of, change. They remind us that the
impulse for innovation lies at the heart of tradition.
Chief Michel Marakon
Vanuatu b.c.1950
Mague ne hiwir (ranking black palm) grade 9 c.1980
Carved black palm with synthetic polymer paint /
257 x 44 x 50cm / Purchased 2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Opposite
Mansak Family
Vanuatu b.unknown
Guardian of tabou house figure 2005–06
Carved coconut wood with natural dyes / 95 x 30 x 18cm
Guardian of tabou house figure painted, 2005–06
Carved coconut wood with natural dyes / 102 x 22 x 19cm
Gift of David Baker through the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2009. Donated through the Australian
Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Ruth McDougall
Endnotes
1 In his essay ‘Music in Vanuatu’, Peter Russell Crowe notes that the oral and
performative traditions of ni-Vanuatu also operate on the principle of ‘breaking
the rules’, always revising the text and context appropriate to the coming
performance. See Joel Bonnemaison (ed.), Arts of Vanuatu, Crawford House
Publishing, Bathurst, NSW, 1996, pp.147–8.
2 M Patterson, ‘Leading lights in the “mother of darkness”: Perspectives on
leadership and value in North Ambrym, Vanuatu’, Oceania, vol.73, 2002, pp.126–
42. See ,
viewed October 2009.
3 Discussed by M Patterson in ‘Mastering the art: An examination of the context of
the production of art in Vanuatu’, in Arts of Vanuatu, p.257.
4 KW Huffman, ’Trading, cultural exchange and copyright: Important aspects of
Vanuatu arts’, in Arts of Vanuatu, p.190.
182 183

Traditions and rituals in North Ambrym
Ambrym, the name given to the island by an early explorer, 1 which
means ‘Here is your yam’, is situated near the centre of the archipelago
of Vanuatu, with Pentecost to the north, Paama to the south and
Malakula to the west. At the centre of the island are two active
volcanos, called Marum and Benbow by the islanders. North Ambrym
is very remote and accessible only by sea. The nearest airstrip, an
hour’s flight from the capital, Port Vila, is situated on the south-western
side of the island. From there, it takes between two and three hours by
dinghy to reach the northern part of the island.
This remoteness and isolation has helped conserve many of North
Ambrym’s traditions and rituals, particularly in the face of the
challenges posed by the arrival of missionaries and settlers. However,
the fundamental structure of life on Ambrym — categorised into
the three major areas of family ties, rights, and sacred societies or
initiations — has been so well preserved that the art of the island has
gained regional and international recognition.
jealously guarded, being kept far from the villages or in tabou houses
belonging to the high chiefs.
Today, North Ambrymese traditions and rituals live in harmony with
Western culture. The latter has influenced all villages, but the former
remains deep in the minds and the hearts of North Ambrymese people.
Napong Norbert
Endnotes
1 The island of Ambrym owes its name to Captain Cook; see Destination Vanuatu,
,
viewed October 2009.
2 Agnate refers to being related through males or on the father’s side.
In the past, the Ambrymese traded with their neighbour islands, which
share many traditions and rituals: towbuan (boar killing ceremony) and
mague (a hierarchy of grades) are common on Malakula, Pentecost
and Ambrym. These ceremonies are the highest status performance
rituals of North Ambrym. They are performed according to family ties,
of which there are two key elements: te woren (the mother’s agnates)
and te mukuen (the wife’s and/or father’s mother’s and/or mother’s
mother’s agnates). 2 All life events — birth, puberty, circumcision,
marriage and death — are marked by ritual ceremonies performed to
either te mukuen or te woren, or both.
The towbuan is an important rite for conferring status, and both men
and women achieve titles and prestige through this rite. The boar tusks
sacrificed to te woren or te mukuen are returned to the sacrificer, to be
worn around the neck and the arms on public occasions. If the boar
is sacrificed to te woren, the tusks are worn on the right arm; if it is
sacrificed to te mukuen, then they are worn on the left arm.
The mague is another path for gaining prestige in North Ambrymese
society. It is the hierarchy of 15 grades, arranged into 10 ranks, where
men and women (only if a woman’s husband has achieved the 15th
grade) pay rights for either ‘stones’ or the rite of mounting onto a
platform over a carved tree fern to achieve titles. Initiates who attain
these high levels of prestige are influential and, by extension, so are
their wives and children.
Sacred societies and secret initiations also play an important role
in North Ambrym. These are respected men’s societies in which
initiates receive knowledge for objects such as masks or ‘stones’. The
Ambrymese believe these objects are sacred and require an intimate
knowledge of the ancestral spirit world. They are also honoured and
Top
Mansak Family
Vanuatu b.unknown
Temar ne ari (ancestor spirit) c.1995
Natural fibres, clay, synthetic polymer paint, ochres, pig’s
tusks, bamboo and sticks / 130 x 36 x 15cm
Temar ne ari (ancestor spirit) c.1995
Natural fibres, clay, synthetic polymer paint, coconut
shells, bamboo and sticks / 120 x 48 x 24cm
Below
Temar ne ari (ancestor spirit) c.1995
Natural fibres, clay, synthetic polymer paint, pig’s tusks,
coconut shells, bamboo and sticks / 94 x 45 x 50cm
Temar ne ari (ancestor spirit) c.1995
Natural fibres, clay, synthetic polymer paint, ochres, pig’s
tusks, coconut shells, bamboo and sticks / 94 x 34 x 13cm
Purchased 2008. The Queensland Government’s Gallery
of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection: Queensland
Art Gallery
184 185

Rohan Wealleans
Ritual and excess
Rohan Wealleans is fascinated by the processes through which a
society develops its own unique and distinctive material culture.
In fact, his own art practice might be read as an attempt to build a
visual culture from the ground up. Since around 2001, his oeuvre has
resembled something like a body of newly discovered artefacts from a
lost civilisation — any single object is notoriously difficult to pin down,
while collectively they suggest a greater system is at play, replete with
its own beliefs, aesthetic codes and influences.
Wealleans’s contribution to APT6 brings together three distinct
elements: ‘horrorgami’ collages, a ‘ritual painting’, and a sculptural
canoe. Each has ritualistic and fetishistic overtones, and shares in an
aesthetic of wild excess coupled with a neurotic attention to detail. Each
work resembles a self-contained, if perverse, archaeological dig, where
an object is methodically buried with the intention of excavating it back
out. The result is an extraordinary array of variegated surfaces, which
encourage the viewer’s gaze to shift between the whole composition
and minute details where countless interior strata are revealed.
At the opening of APT6, Wealleans performed a type of consecration
rite, in which the bulbous, lumpen form of a ritual painting was
disembowelled with a sharp blade, its interior liquid paint spilling
onto the floor of the exhibition space. Wealleans first exhibited a ritual
painting in Auckland in 2004. 1 In an action that has since taken on
mythical status — and sparked debate about the relationship of the
artist’s work to Māori and Pacific Islander visual culture — Wealleans
arrived at the exhibition opening wearing a Polynesian lava-lava and
proceeded to cut the work open in front of gallery visitors, catching
the paint that gushed forth in a ceremonial bowl. These performative
actions draw connections between diverse and seemingly unrelated
cultural and artistic practices — from ritualistic sacrifice and bloodletting
to ‘singing-in’ art works into the gallery space, as well as
Western art historical points of reference, such as Viennese Actionism
and Abstract Expressionism.
seed collector 2009 — a store-bought fibreglass kayak covered in
layers of paint and carved by the artist. Wealleans is keenly interested
in the ability of his works to spark diverse narratives concerning their
potential function and meaning, and Paikea decoy, seed collector — like
its 2007 counterpart, the black Death boat — seems poised to carry an
occupant into the next life.
Importantly, this allusive narrative running through Wealleans’s
practice emerges not from didactic elements, but from the artist’s
formalist, forensic approach to his chosen medium. There is a ‘truth
to materials’ attitude at play, but Wealleans shows us that the truth is
not what we might think. Paint, for example, has nothing to do with
flatness; in Wealleans’s hands it is an alchemical substance capable
of transforming objects, and not just their surfaces. His paintings have
shape, skin and guts.
Wealleans’s synthesis of formalist concerns with an array of crosscultural
references takes on particular significance within the context
of APT. The ongoing APT project provides a framework to consider
cross-cultural and inter-generational influences, without losing sight of
the cultural specificity of an artist’s work. In Rohan Wealleans’s practice,
however, cultural specificity is brashly disregarded, and instead
disparate chunks of visual cultures are sampled and combined into
totally new and compelling forms.
Nicholas Chambers
Endnote
1 The exhibition ‘Albino’ was held at the Ivan Anthony Gallery in Auckland in 2004.
Begun in 2005, the horrorgami collage works are indebted to the
aesthetic of B-grade horror films which, like Wealleans’s work, are
shocking not for their realism, but for their sheer excess. In the two
examples exhibited in APT6, the artist has enlarged trading cards
produced for Steven Spielberg’s seminal 1977 film Close Encounters
of the Third Kind, behind which he has placed many layers of paper.
When he carves through the surface of the image, the lurid insides
erupt outwards in an exuberantly controlled explosion. The collages
reveal arcane energies contained within seemingly innocuous bits
of pop culture, raising the spectre of beliefs in supernatural forces
operating subliminally via popular media.
The explosive energies of the horrorgami collages and ritual paintings
are tempered by the totemic and portentous presence of Paikea decoy,
Rohan Wealleans
New Zealand b.1977
The road to tomorrow (detail) 2009
Mixed media / 177 x 120cm / Image courtesy:
The artist and Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington /
Photograph: Vanessa McCabe
186 187

Robin White, Leba Toki and Bale Jione
A shared garden
Fijian masi (barkcloth) artist Leba Toki and New Zealand artist–
printmaker Robin White began their collaborative relationship in
2000. Drawing on a shared Bahá’í faith, with its precepts of harmonious
cultural interaction, their extraordinary works involve an extensive
process of community consultation and knowledge sharing to
manifest their rich layers of imagery and meaning. 1 A combination of
Bahá’í concepts, Indian motifs and traditional Fijian patterns, as well
as explorations of social practices common to different cultures, are
primary features of their collaborative works.
Begun in Leba Toki’s home in Lautoka in December 2008, Teitei vou
(A new garden) 2009 is Toki and White’s second collaborative project.
Involving an additional masi artist, Bale Jione, and consultation with
Indo-Fijian neighbours, the work acknowledges the complex histories
of cultural interaction resulting from the creation of a modern ‘sugar’
economy in Fiji. The sugar industry developed when the Australian
CSR company imported indentured Indian labourers between 1879
and 1919. The Indian community’s subsequent growth, its relative
economic success and access to land have proven complex and
divisive issues for Fiji, culminating in recent decades in a series of
military-led coups to reclaim power and land for indigenous Fijians. 2
Known locally as ‘sugar city’, Lautoka boasts the largest of Fiji’s four
sugar mills and its population is a complex mix of different cultures.
Consisting of six masi, one ibe vakabati (wool-fringed pandanus mat)
and two fabric mats, Teitei vou (A new garden) adopts the format in which
masi is displayed within a traditional Fijian wedding. 3 The artists describe
this as ‘representing a marriage of cultures and an acknowledgement of
the bounties and gifts that come from such a union’. 4
the artists’ shared Bahá’í faith — and proclaims in symbolic language the
appearance of a new garden in which those who strive can discover the
mysteries of love. 6 The importance of Bahá’í in the overall conception
of the work is also evident in the imagery on the large taunamu which
references the distinctive terraced gardens and the Shrine of the Bab
on Mount Carmel, in Haifa, Israel. Metaphors for growth and change
are suggested in the work’s title; gardens are regularly altered through
cross-fertilisation and the migration of different plant species. Bringing
together motifs representing Fijian, Indian and Middle Eastern flora and
cultural history in their ‘new garden’, the artists invite considerations
of an organic system dependent on diversity. This contrasts with
references to the House of the Bab in Shiraz, Iran (a Bahá’í place of
pilgrimage that was attacked during the Iranian revolution, and later
completely destroyed), as well as ominous snake and jackal motifs. 7
The less sustainable reality of monoculture sugarcane plantations
and the continued indenture of underpaid Indian workers to service
multinational industries are also suggested by the coupling of
sugarcane and Vodafone logo motifs in the work.
However, the complexities of these divergent cultural histories are not
represented here as unresolvable confrontations: Teitei vou (A new
garden) instead explores their intimate combination. Leba Toki, Bale
Jione and Robin White worked together, and with their communities,
not only to layer woven pandanus, fabric mats and barkcloths to
sanctify a union based on the peaceful precepts of the Bahá’í faith,
but also to celebrate the fruitfulness of diversity.
Ruth McDougall
Robin White New Zealand b.1946
Leba Toki Fiji b.1951
Bale Jione Fiji b.1952
Teitei vou (A new garden) 2009
Natural dyes on barkcloth, woven pandanus, commercial
wool, woven barkcloth, sari fabric mats / 9 components:
taunamu 390 x 240cm; butubutu 150 x 240cm; ibe
vakabati 180 x 240cm; 2 sulu 79 x 242cm (each);
2 oro 30 x 240cm (each); 2 woven mats 67 x 46cm (each).
Installed size variable / Purchased 2009. Queensland
Art Gallery Foundation Grant / Collection: Queensland
Art Gallery
For wedding ceremonies, masi fashioned into sulu (sarongs) and
oro (cummerbunds), often saturated with pigment to achieve a
symbolically powerful golden or brown hue, are worn by both bride
and groom, despite past injunctions against women wearing them. 5
As part of the butu (female gift exchange ceremony), the couple
stand on a pile of mats and masi layered by family members to form
the bridal bed. These layers are arranged according to their level
of importance; the ritual wool-fringed ibe vakabati sits just below
the uppermost butubutu (ritual masi), believed to sanctify both the
bed and the union. In Teitei vou (A new garden), a pair of fabric mats
created from pieces of masi, combined with fragments of wedding
saris, is placed on top, suggesting an Indian–Fijian union. The large
and richly stencilled taunamu (masi screen) forms a backdrop for the
bride and groom as they face family members.
Ideas of love and unity, achieved through the sharing of food often
sweetened with sugar, inspired the work; sugarcane is juxtaposed with
a pattern from the indigenous kumala on the butubutu. The title Teitei
vou, however, is derived from the writings of Bahá’ulláh — the founder of
Endnotes
1 Founded in the mid nineteenth century in Iran by Bahá’ulláh, Bahá’í preaches the
spiritual unity of mankind and espouses a vision of world peace.
2 Fiji has had four coups since 1987. See Craig Sherborne, ‘Coup-coup land’, in
The Monthly, October 2008, pp.44–8.
3 Only a selection of textiles from Teitei vou will be on display in APT6, including the
Taunamu, Butubutu, Ibe vakabati and two fabric mats.
4 Robin White, email to Maud Page, Queensland Art Gallery, January 2009.
5 See Rod Ewin’s discussion of masi as male ‘badge of virility’ in Rod Ewin, Staying
Fijian: Vatulele Island Barkcloth and Social Identity, Crawford House Publishing,
Adelaide and University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 2009.
6 Bahá’ulláh, The Hidden Words, Bahá’í Publishing Committee, New York, c.1932.
7 The House of the Bab was demolished in September 1979 and in 1981 the site was
made into a road and public square.
188 189

Yang Shaobin
X – Blind Spot
In X – Blind Spot 2008, Yang Shaobin takes the coalmining industry
in China as his subject, exploring its effects on the individuals who
make up its huge labour force. X – Blind Spot was developed as a
collaborative project with the Long March group, and consists of
documents, sculptures, paintings, installation and videos. 1 While the
first part of Yang’s project, 800 metres under, focused on the mine itself
and workers’ lives at the mine site, X – Blind Spot concentrates on the
repercussions of this industry.
Over a four-year period, Yang and members of the Long March visited
the four diverse coalmining districts of Shanxi, Hebei, Inner Mongolia
and Liaoning. 2 They went to the ‘high-tech, super-scale environment of
open-pit mines [as well as] the small, home owned operations’ where
they met with many individuals — from grassroots workers to highlyplaced
officials. 3 Although Yang was born into a coalmining family in
Hebei Province, he found his experience of the contemporary mines to
be very different from his family’s. He felt confronted and depressed by
what he saw:
When I was young, I felt coalmines were very clean and really nice
. . . [when I returned] the whole environment was hard to look at . . .
it was an earthly hell. 4
muscular, planar surfaces suggest heroism, yet its loosely hanging arm
and exposed wires imbue it with an air of melancholy and neglect.
Contrasting with this figure of heroism destroyed is the highly realistic
fibreglass and clay sculpture of a miner dressed in rubber boots,
reclining with his helmet at his side. Complementing these are four
paintings: a portrait in photographic negative style, evoking the ‘X-ray’
of the series title and suggesting the erasure of individuality; and
another, showing a group of faceless miners overshadowed by the
immense machinery surrounding them. Several works were painted
following Yang’s visit to the Qinhuangdao Beidaihe Coal Workers’
Pneumoconiosis and Recovery Centre, a hospital specialising in
treating pulmonary disease and chronic ailments. The blackened
specimens in these paintings represent the diseased lungs of
deceased workers.
A critical aspect of Yang’s project is its contrast with the heroic and
idealised depictions of workers in the art of the Cultural Revolution
era. X – Blind Spot presents the obverse of this revolutionary idealism
— the treatment of workers in a China increasingly motivated by
capitalist principles. While Yang uses the same painterly realism, the
bright colours and superficial surfaces are replaced with a dark and
penetrating vision.
China is the largest producer and consumer of coal in the world, and
its coalmines proportionately have the largest numbers of fatalities.
Recent figures show that approximately 6000 miners are killed every
year, or almost 20 per day. 5 Many are migrant peasants from rural areas
— one of the most vulnerable social groups in China, partially as a result
of the ban on independent worker unions. Lack of regulation, and an
unwillingness to invest in adequate safety equipment, exacerbates the
problems of an already unsafe industry. Many accidents go unreported,
and the long-term effects on the miners’ health are devastating.
While mourning the loss of a short-lived communist ideal, Yang’s
project also attempts to recapture some of the spirit of social
responsibility motivating communism. Through X – Blind Spot, Yang
Shaobin proposes an ambitious new mode of moral engagement for
art, and creates a visual experience which is both thought-provoking
and emotionally powerful.
Abigail Fitzgibbons
For APT6, a select group of six works represents Yang’s X – Blind Spot,
consisting of two sculptures and four oil paintings highlighting the
theme of labour exploitation. The title operates on a numbers of levels:
‘X’ suggests a kind of X-ray vision which Yang uses to great effect in
his phosphorescent paintings, while ‘blind spot’ refers metaphorically
to the public invisibility of the hardships the miners suffer, and to the
dark industrial caverns of the mines themselves. Literally, the title also
relates to a term used for a piece of mining equipment (Komatsu 170),
which allows the miners to see in the impenetrable underground
darkness. Yet, there is a blind spot at either end of the machine’s reach
(over 50 metres in diameter), which represents a real risk to those
working in the mines.
A poignant metaphor for the miners’ status is Yang’s fibreglass
sculpture X – Blind Spot No.16 2008, which replicates a statue
outside the Yanggeleng Village mine in Inner Mongolia. The statue’s
Endnotes
1 The Long March Project is a Beijing-based art-related initiative established in 2002
which uses the Long March (led by Mao Zedong in 1934–35) as a geographic and
discursive framework. Its founder and chief curator is Lu Jie.
2 Long March Writing Group, ‘Excerpts from Yang Shaobin’s notebook: A textual
interpretation of X-blind spot’, Yishu, vol.8, no.1, January–February 2009, p.67.
3 ‘A Long March Project: X-blind spot — Yang Shaobin solo exhibition’, , viewed 30 August
2009.
4 Yang Shaobin and Jin Yujie (interview), ‘The traces of concept: Interview with Yang
Shaobin’, Art Map, 13 August 2008, , viewed 30 August 2009.
5 Susan Watts, ‘A coal-dependent future?’, BBC News, 9 March 2005, , viewed 30 August 2009.
Yang Shaobin
China b.1963
X – Blind Spot No. 16 2008
Fibreglass / 250 x 90 x 80cm / Image courtesy:
The artist and Long March Space, Beijing
190 191

Yao Jui-chung
Wandering in the lens
Yao Jui-chung
Taiwan b.1969
Everything will fall into ruin (detail) 1990–2009
Black and white digital photograph, AP 1 / 100 x 150cm /
Gift of the artist through the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2009 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
A star, a grain of sand, a temple or a ruin — everything is just an idea
and a thought that reflects a secret landscape deep in people’s heart. 1
Yao Jui-chung belongs to a generation of contemporary Taiwanese
artists whose work underscores the ideological landscape of postmartial
law Taiwan. 2 Working across photography, performance,
video, sculpture and drawing, Yao explores the complicated terrain of
Taiwanese cultural identity, which was compounded by the country’s
entanglement with Cold War ideology during the martial law period,
its successful embrace of capitalism and democratic reform, and the
effects of corporate multi-nationalism on industry and trade. Yao’s work
simultaneously registers the political implications arising from these
histories and makes evident the irreverent use of political subtexts
in contemporary art, ‘unmask[ing] certain fantastic situations hidden
within the uncontrollable human will’. 3
Since the early 1990s, Yao has traversed Taiwan and its surrounding
islands, compiling hundreds of photographs of places abandoned as
a result of the social and economic development of modern Taiwan.
Everything will fall into ruin 1990–2009 brings together a selection of
48 photographs, grouped into four thematic sets of ‘ruins’ — derelict
sites of industry, abandoned civil dwellings, deserted military and
prison infrastructure, and the refuse of statuary scattered throughout
the countryside. These otherworldly images of destroyed, weathered
and forgotten sites — man-made, yet devoid of human presence — are
salient markers for shifts of power, and collectively reveal an enormous
black hole in Taiwan’s socio-political history.
The detritus of rapid industrialisation is captured in these photographs
of defunct factories and industrial plants. Many once profitable
industries, which aided Taiwan’s economic boom during the late
twentieth century, are now in decline. They have since been supplanted
by global competition, with many businesses relocating to mainland
China, where lower production costs have accommodated highpolluting
industries and reconfigured Taiwan’s export industries.
Residential areas have also been affected by migration patterns and
environmental change, leaving behind ghost towns and dilapidated
housing projects; for instance, homes in mountainous areas have
collapsed as a result of poor design and natural disasters.
Yao’s photographs of military bases on Taiwan’s west coast and
political prisons on its east coast recall the oppressive history of the
Kuomintang Party of China (KMT) and the Taiwan Garrison Command,
a secret police unit whose wide-ranging powers under martial law
allowed the trial of civilians by military courts on charges of sedition.
Offshore island bases that once functioned as Taiwan’s front line of
defence are now left barren as Taiwan and China reach cooperative
agreements in the ongoing process of rapprochement. Abandoned
theme parks littered with sculptures, along with discarded religious
deities, suggest both the reification of religious and commercial
icons and the ravages of contemporary consumption and waste.
The coexistence of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and capitalism
in Taiwanese daily life has produced visual clutter of discarded gods,
and surreal traces of faded hopes and material desire.
Yao provides little detail of the time and location for each image,
allowing the group to be interpreted through broader considerations.
Yao’s photographs — while responding to the complexities underlying
Taiwan’s relationship with China — also function collectively in
characterising ruination as an essential experience within the life cycle
of all things. As Yao describes it, all things ultimately fade:
After the decay and destruction of their physical being, they
reappear in another form and preserve the aura of the original being
as relics . . . Although our brief existence is accompanied by decay,
the silent ruins may be a symbol of the constant birth and death
process in nature. Too much commemoration and reconstruction will
distort the lesson hidden within. If we can understand this, ruins are
no longer just ruins, but are an essential experience in life. 4
As Taiwan’s metropolitan and rural centres witness dramatic social and
physical transformation, and the structural evidence of these changes
continues to be reclaimed by nature, Yao’s photographs capture the
last remaining memories of things past. Once inspired by his discovery
of graffiti in an abandoned building which declared, ‘the world outside
awaits us’, Yao continues his poetic roaming, tracking the spirits hidden
in Taiwan’s ruins and revealing their secret landscapes.
Jose Da Silva
Endnotes
1 Yao Jui-chung, email to the author, 2 July 2009.
2 Taiwan’s period of martial law from 1949 to 1987 is considered the longest in
modern history. Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the nationalist Kuomintang Party of
China (KMT), withdrew to Taiwan with two million soldiers following its loss to the
communists during the Chinese civil war. The emergency decrees were lifted 38
years later by his successor and son, President Chiang Ching-kuo.
3 Yao Jui-chung, ‘The historical destiny of humanity has a certain incurable absurdity’,
trans. Eric Chang and Craig D Stevens, in Yao Jui-chung, Garden City Publishing,
Taipei, Taiwan, 2008, p.11.
4 Yao, email to the author.
192 193

Yao Jui-chung
Taiwan b.1969
Everything will fall into ruin (details) 1990–2009
Black and white digital photographs, AP 1 / 48 sheets:
100 x 150cm (each) / Gift of the artist through the
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2009 / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
194 195

YNG (Yoshitomo Nara and graf)
Discovering new worlds
Yoshitomo Nara is that rare kind of artist whose works have deeply
infiltrated people’s lives. Across all his productions and activities, there
is an implicit recognition that the elements of visual culture which
resonate with us most strongly tend not to be in museums, but in the
private spaces we inhabit. Accordingly, while Nara has been wellknown
in the international art world for the past decade, he has also
found a place for his creations in the broader public sphere. His books,
T-shirts, toys and other products are strategically mass-marketed,
counterbalancing the high demand for his paintings and drawings.
As a result, Nara’s work is as likely to be found in bedrooms and living
rooms as it is in museums and galleries.
Each YNG hut acts as a platform for collaboration — not only between
Nara and graf, but also with the local installation teams with which they
work. graf founder Hideki Toyoshima visited Brisbane with Nara in
April 2009, and both were fascinated by the ubiquitous ‘Queenslander’
house, raised from the ground on stilts and often housing a car
underneath. In the commission for APT6, YNG have constructed a hut
from reclaimed timbers and other found materials, sitting atop a small
van. The hut’s interior, filled with Nara’s drawings and objects, is held
tantalisingly out of reach to Gallery visitors — viewers are compelled to
peer in from the top of ladders or to look down through the hut’s open
ceiling from the Pavilion Walk above on the Gallery’s third level.
As with most artists, Nara’s art works are created in the private space of
the studio. Here, as part of an intimate environment, they find their first
home alongside myriad other elements populating the space. There
is generally a great shift in ambience from the studio to the exhibition
gallery, and Nara’s collaborations with the design firm graf media gm,
under the acronym YNG, might be understood as proposals for
negotiating this shift. In over 20 collaborative projects in Japan and
internationally, YNG have created exhibition environments with distinct
emotional registers, each responding to its specific locality as well as
creating comfortable homes for Nara’s works. As Nara has explained:
In a text discussing the conceptual origin of his collaborations
with Nara, Toyoshima referred to vacant lots remembered from his
childhood — abandoned spaces where children would congregate for
unsupervised and unstructured play, adapting the space to suit their
needs and creating their own rules for engagement. 2 YNG employ
a similar logic in their approach to the museum. By establishing
an autonomous zone within APT6, YNG have created a complete
exhibition within the exhibition — it is at once a sculpture on display in
the Gallery, as well as a portal transporting us back to the artist’s studio.
I believe an environment has an essential impact on how one
creates work. Various factors such as the music playing in the room,
the colour on the wall and surrounding objects all affect my painting.
I want to bring those elements to the exhibition space, which then
becomes a ‘hut’. 1
Prior to the establishment of the YNG collaboration, huts had often
appeared as motifs in Nara’s paintings, and were portrayed in his
trademark shorthand, illustrative style. While not as prevalent as
children or animals, the simplified hut form can be found in works
dating back to the 1980s. The subsequent YNG huts, the first of which
was executed in 2003, have adapted Nara’s basic form, melding it with
other improvised, DIY structures.
Nicholas Chambers
Endnotes
1 Yukie Kamiya, ‘Yoshitomo Nara and graf: Happy together’, Art Asia Pacific, no.52,
2007, p.83.
2 Hideki Toyoshima, ‘The A to Z of A to Z’, Art iT, vol.4, no.3, summer–fall 2006, p.52.
The specific forms of YNG’s constructions are often inspired by
local, and at times unregulated, innovations in the built environment.
One of the earliest examples, Kabul note 2002 2004, was inspired
by Nara’s 2002 trip to Afghanistan where he witnessed dwellings
fabricated from discarded materials found on or close to the site,
which embodied a self-reliant and ecological approach to construction.
In 2004, YNG applied this principle to the museum, constructing
what they described as an ‘Afghan-style shed’ entirely from discarded
crates, construction materials and other elements found in the
museum’s warehouse. Other YNG ‘huts’ have borrowed from mobile
structures such as tents, or taken evolving, additive forms reminiscent
of Brazilian favelas.
YNG
Yoshitomo Nara
Japan b.1959
graf
Japan est. 1993
Guitar Girl/Cheer Up! YOSHINO! (from Y.N.G.M.S. (Y.N.G.’s
Mobile Studio)) 2009
Synthetic polymer paint, colour pencil on paper mounted
on board / 81 x 61cm / Purchased 2009 with funds from
the Bequest of Grace Davies and Nell Davies through
the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery / Photograph: Kei Okano
196 197

Zhu Weibing and Ji Wenyu
People holding flowers
Zhu Weibing and Ji Wenyu’s collaborative installation People holding
flowers 2007 comprises 400 individual figures made from the same
mould. Their hands, faces and feet are brightly painted, and each
wears an immaculate identical black business suit, white shirt and
red tie. Each figure holds a large pink velvet flower extended on a
green stalk above their heads. Their colourful faces are blank and
expressionless, although a sense of dynamism and movement is
created by this field of figures, all in similar poses holding lush, tactile
flowers to mesmerising effect.
Zhu and Ji have been making ‘soft’ sculptures together since 2003
while maintaining their individual practices. Ji is well-known as a
painter in the style of Political Pop, an artistic movement — along with
Cynical Realism — which arose following the Tiananmen Square protests
of 1989. At this time, many artists turned away from the political and
cultural idealism of the mid to late 1980s Chinese artistic orthodoxy
to make works that were gritty representations of the absurdity and
mundaneness of life. As the Chinese economy continued to expand
and urban development accelerated through the 1990s and 2000s, the
forces of consumerism and individualism became key artistic subjects.
Political Pop had responded to this new climate by appropriating
elements of the mass media imagery that characterises both popular
culture and propaganda art, and socialist realist styles and Cultural
Revolution-era images were merged with the aesthetic of advertising
to create a style embracing ironic, playful and critical attitudes.
to let ‘a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought
contend’, which preceded the bloody purges of the Hundred
Flowers Campaign of 1957. As artists of the post-Cultural Revolution
generation, Ji and Zhu endow these flowers with an additional
significance — that of a carnal and material force. Fleshy, artificial and
seductive, the flowers represent contemporary society’s increasing
consumerism, particularly evident in China’s rapidly growing cities.
The mannequins’ blank faces, however, contrasted with the joyous
and celebratory feel of the flowers, suggest the emptiness and selfperpetuating
nature of this desire.
Through the symbol of the flowers, the homogenising effects of mass
consumption and the subservience of the individual to the state under
communism are implicitly contrasted. With this work, Zhu Weibing
and Ji Wenyu take up the legacies of Cynical Realism and Political
Pop, applying their perceptions to an era of what might be dubbed
‘collective consumerism’.
Abigail Fitzgibbons
Ji’s paintings feature gaudy pastiches of advertising imagery and other
contemporary sources, and comment on issues such as the growing
sex industry, and the materialism and the realities of contemporary
life in urban China. Zhu formally studied art and craft techniques
in Shanghai, and the technical precision required for the delicately
balanced figures in People holding flowers owes much to her training.
In their sculptures, Zhu and Ji combine these influences to create a
contemporary fusion of Pop art with Chinese folk art and other popular
art forms, such as handicrafts sold in the market.
Zhu Weibing
China b.1971
Ji Wenyu
China b.1959
People holding flowers 2007
Synthetic polymer paint on resin; velour, steel wire, dacron,
lodestone and cotton / 400 pieces: 100 x 18 x 8cm (each) /
Installed dimensions variable / The Kenneth and Yasuko
Myer Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased
2008 with funds from Michael Simcha Baevski through
the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Previous soft sculptures by Zhu and Ji include Watch the view 2005,
depicting contemporary apartment living contrasted with the
landscape aesthetic of traditional Chinese art. Others, such as those in
the series ‘Make beautiful’ 2005, are confronting, life-sized and garishly
made-up soft mannequins, wrapped in towels and designed to lounge
on chairs in a gallery space; in Chinese new potted landscape 2006
and the 2005 series ‘In Garden & Out Garden’, Zhu and Ji present
both beautifully made soft landscapes and whole cities nestled inside
porcelain plant pots. Through these works, the artists comment on the
aspirations of a society with growing global purchase.
People holding flowers deploys a particularly potent symbol for
Chinese culture: the flowers inevitably recall Mao Zedong’s dictum
198 199

Building bridges: Ten years of Kids’ APT
Andrew Clark
This year we celebrate a decade of outstanding achievement through the children’s component
of the Asia Pacific Triennial series — Kids’ APT. The inaugural Kids’ APT in 1999 marked a major
breakthrough in children’s programming at the Gallery. For the first time, artists were invited to
develop projects and art works especially for children (and the grown-ups who accompanied
them), to be exhibited alongside and within the main exhibition as a hands-on component
of APT. From its inception, the program attracted a great deal of attention — 150 000 people
visited APT3 in 1999. Since then, Kids’ APT has grown exponentially, with each exhibition
engaging the keen and curious interest of many of the exhibiting artists. In total, over 55 APT
artists have been involved in Kids’ APT and the associated Summer Spectacular festival, which
has helped to attract more than 1.1 million visitors to APT since 2002. 1
The first Kids’ APT in 1999 proved a revelation to all of us. The Gallery commissioned several
major international artists, such as Xu Bing, to design activities for what was then considered a
‘niche’ audience. In those activities, children worked directly with the artists themselves or with
trained facilitators. Without hesitation, these children committed both to the physical tasks and
the meanings associated with them: they wrote their names with brush and ink in a brand new
language; they relaxed (and communed with goldfish) in a structure meant to replicate the
openness to nature of a Thai pavilion; and they watched one of the Gallery’s most expansive
walls as it was gradually taken over by outlines of their own footprints, while they heard stories
about how powerful that simple human image is in the religious lives of millions of people.
Of course, the impulse to be active and involved, to engage firsthand with art works, is not
confined to children. Since the beginning of the APT series in 1993, the appetite and aptitude
of Gallery audiences for contemporary art have expanded in a way we welcome, but did not
fully expect. Remarkably, from December 2006 to April 2007, more than 700 000 people
attended APT5. A lot of intellectual, financial and creative resources were mobilised to
achieve that outcome, and to ensure the exhibition was replete with potential for meaningful
interaction. Over the years, we have found that visitors of all ages are fascinated by the
processes underlying and informing an art work, by evidence that its making involves real
labour, and that its production can be affected by all the constraints of a working life.
Underpinning Kids’ APT are two core viewpoints — firstly, that contemporary artists’ ideas
are an authentic and appealing means through which children can learn about art and its
importance in the lives of millions of people around the world; and secondly, and perhaps
most importantly, that the experience a child has in an art museum is as valid as that of any
other visitor. Through Kids’ APT, children engage with the diverse cultures of the Asia Pacific
region, encountering different beliefs and experiencing firsthand the manifold methods artists
employ in art-making.
Delivering a postcard to the top of futon mountain
as part of Tsuyoshi Ozawa’s Everyone likes someone
as you like someone for Kids’ APT 2006 / Photograph:
John Gollings
200

Yayoi Kusama’s The obliteration room, for Kids’ APT 2002,
encouraged children to cover a white room with coloured
dots / Photograph: Richard Stringer
Cai Guo Qiang’s bridge building activity for Kids’ APT 1999
Vibrant and ongoing relationships with leading contemporary artists have been developed
through Kids’ APT. In fact, collaboration is the key component of the program. Working with
Gallery staff, artists create their interactive projects — a process that enables artists to explore
anew the fundamental ideas and concepts concerning them. In recognition of children’s varying
interests and abilities, Kids’ APT comprises a range of media, from drawing activities to largescale
multimedia projects.
Internationally acclaimed artist Cai Guo Qiang, whose retrospective was held at the Guggenheim
Museum in 2008, developed one of the first interactives for Kids’ APT in 1999. Designed
to complement his major work in APT3, Blue dragon and bridge crossing — a large-scale
installation encompassing a 30-metre-long bamboo suspension bridge constructed over the
Gallery’s Watermall — Cai extended an invitation to children to design and construct a bridge
using the simplest of materials: tape and cane. To provide children with inspiration, the artist
sketched 76 line drawings of various bridges, revealing varied approaches, some fanciful,
others basic and fundamental. Over the course of the exhibition, children visiting with parents
and carers engaged with the artist’s ideas through the engineering of their own bridge models.
As part of Kids’ APT in 2002, senior Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama worked with the Gallery to
develop The obliteration room, referencing the obsessive repetition of dots that Kusama has
incorporated into her work since the 1950s. Kusama’s space for children was fashioned in
the style of a typical Australian living room, furnished with ordinary household items. Though
the entire room and its contents were initially painted stark white, children ‘obliterated’ the
environment by covering every surface with multicoloured dot stickers of various sizes. By
the close of the exhibition five months later, the space had been transformed from a pristine
interior into a spectacularly colourful and accreted environment.
Contrasting with the spectacular, many Kids’ APT artist projects have also involved children
engaged in quiet contemplation. Chinese artist Song Dong’s Writing with water 2002
featured an installation of large rocks upon which children could write their thoughts or draw
pictures with water and traditional calligraphy brushes. While evoking the revered art form of
calligraphy, Writing with water also related to a performative aspect of the artist’s practice and
his ongoing investigations into the passing of time.
Launched in 2006 with the opening of the Gallery of Modern Art, Kids’ APT5 featured 14
commissioned interactives. Artist Khadim Ali travelled from Pakistan to his home region of
Bamiyan in Afghanistan — where the Taliban destroyed the colossal ancient Buddha sculptures
in 2001 — to undertake workshops with the local school children. The Bamiyan drawing project
202 203

displayed the children’s drawings in the Gallery’s newly opened Children’s Art Centre, offering
young visitors insights into the very different lives of Afghan children. During the Summer
Spectacular festival in January 2007, local children had the opportunity to make drawings with
Khadim Ali, and send images of their home environment to the Bamiyan children.
For APT6, 17 artist projects (the largest number to date) are featured both in the dedicated
spaces of the Children’s Art Centre, and throughout the exhibition across both sites of the
Gallery. The Summer Spectacular festival, held in conjunction with APT, further engages
audiences with the work of Asia Pacific artists, through artist-run workshops, performances and
specially developed projects.
With Kids’ APT, children and their families will continue to take part in the making and
transformation of the work of contemporary Asian and Pacific artists. In doing so, they will
build their knowledge of the art of the region as being some of the most exciting and relevant
work being made in contemporary art practice today. In APT6, a wonderful example of this
occurs with Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s project Patterns of infinity 2009, a touchscreen
that engages with the intricacies of the geometric patterns and processes inherent in the
artist’s work, which uses mirror mosaic and reverse-glass painting techniques. In this activity —
conceived in Iran, realised in Australia, born of an immensely complex history and given new
life through twenty-first century technology — multiple worlds will coalesce.
Endnote
1 Summer Spectacular festivals are held over the course of two weeks during the Queensland summer school
holidays in association with Kids’ APT. Kids’ APT Summer Spectacular was first presented as part of APT2002.
Summer Spectacular activities were staged for the first time in regional Queensland centres on 13 January 2007,
coinciding with the Kids’ APT5 Summer Spectacular festival in Brisbane.
Khadim Ali and the making of The Bamiyan drawing
project 2006 for Kids’ APT in APT5 / Photograph:
Barat Ali Batoor
The young performers who featured in the APT5
performance of Kin, by Stephen Page. Clockwise from
left: Curtis Walsh-Jarden, Sean Page, Ryan Jarden,
Hunter Page-Lochard, Samson Page, Isileli Jarden and
Josiah Page / Photograph: Natasha Harth
204 205

Kids’ APT artist projects
Minam Apang
Scribbling with script 2009
There are a couple of things I wanted to address and lead the children to
explore . . . to reflect on the geo-cultural diversity of the Asia Pacific region . . .
to examine the forms of unfamiliar scripts like Chinese pictograms, the flowing
curves of Farsi, [and] also something more familiar, like English, and look at them
not as alphabets or words (‘A for apple’) but simply as forms. Amongst others,
the two stylistic techniques I have used most significantly . . . are the use of text
as visual texture (layered to resemble choppy waters or the creases of a rugged
mountain-scape) and the use of accidental ink spills/markings to ‘carve out’
creatures and micro-narratives that people the larger image . . . The participants
are invited to look upon alphabets and unfamiliar scripts simply as form, neutral
of meaning (as I would the accidental markings) and by animating them, ascribe
new meaning to them . . . I hope this exercise succeeds in demonstrating how
delightful and full of potential the transformative nature of this process can be.
— Minam Apang
Minam Apang’s drawing activity for children reflects the artist’s interest in
calligraphy, storytelling and exploring language in unexpected ways. Apang’s
selection of words and characters is sourced from scripts from across Asia
and the Pacific, triggering children’s imaginations and encouraging them to
look at text from a different point of view. Engaging with ideas about visual
perception, every child’s response to the scripts tells a different story.
KR
Minam Apang
India b.1980
Childrens’ workshop, Scribbling with script 2009,
Gallery of Modern Art
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist /
Photograph: Katie Bennett
Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan
In-flight (Project: Another Country) 2009
Artist statement
Using a large number of aeroplanes made from found materials, everyday
articles, recycled materials, discarded ‘things’ and personal objects, a giant
swarm of planes is suspended from the ceiling of the Gallery in In-flight. While
conveying a sense of great multitude, each small plane retains its individuality.
These planes have been collected by us and the Gallery over a series of
spring holiday workshops conducted with visitors, as well as an extensive
schools project, which involved students from primary and secondary schools
throughout the greater Brisbane area.
In-flight also includes a space for visitors to make their own aeroplanes
from found and recycled materials. Through the act of making, participants
will interact and foster connections, partaking in and sharing personal
experiences and, in effect, constructing an environment of exchange. The
essence of the work is not only focused on the objects being made or the
objects in the installation, but also creates a place in the Gallery for interaction
and exchange forged in the workshops.
Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan
Maria Isabel Guadinez-Aquilizan
Philippines/Australia b.1965
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan
Philippines/Australia b.1962
Childrens’ aeroplane-making workshop, In-flight
(Project: Another Country) 2009, Gallery of Modern Art
Site-specific work for APT6 / Courtesy: The artists /
Photograph: Katie Bennett
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
Patterns of infinity 2009
Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian is inspired by Islamic
architecture and the visual language of Islamic geometric patterns. Over her
distinguished career of more than 50 years, Farmanfarmaian has developed
a distinctive aesthetic, combining traditional mirror mosaic and reverse-glass
painting techniques. Patterns of infinity invites participants to explore and
learn about geometric patterns by creating their own colourful designs via a
touchscreen multimedia activity.
Free-flowing game play illustrates the way in which Farmanfarmaian’s mirror
mosaics and installations draw inspiration from traditional Islamic design
principles. By selecting different shapes and altering certain determinants,
such as scale, line, colour and texture, participants discover the infinite variety
that geometric pattern offers. Participants can email an animated version
of their designs to themselves or others. Designs can also be printed and
transformed into a three-dimensional object, recalling the sculptural aspect
of the artist’s practice.
ZDL
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
Iran b.1924
Patterns of infinity (detail) 2009
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist
206 207

Gonkar Gyatso
Funky Buddhas 2009
Tibetan artist Gonkar Gyatso’s Funky Buddhas is a large-scale installation
featuring a display of cast white seated Buddha sculptures. Set in a semicircle,
the arrangement of the Buddhas recalls the environment of temple sculpture
and highlights Gyatso’s interest in Buddhist iconography.
Children are invited by the artist to apply a set of readymade ‘puffy’ stickers
to the white surfaces of the Buddha sculptures. The ubiquitous sticker is a
signature feature of Gyatso’s practice. The sticker designs — as specified by the
artist — feature a range of popular and familiar subjects for children, ranging
from toys and symbols of love and happiness to milkshakes, fruits and pets.
Over the course of the exhibition, the stickers will eventually cover the
sculptures’ surfaces, highlighting the visual interplay of the Buddhas with the
bright, colourful imagery of the stickers, and referencing the artist’s interest
in the ways that contemporary culture continually absorbs new images and
commodifies ideas.
Ho Tzu Nyen
H the Happy Robot 2009
H is a happy robot who was born in a cardboard factory. We follow the journey
of his life as he undergoes education and discovers the meaning of life, death
and life after death. All that remains is a disk containing his memories — which
are in the form of a film. Perhaps all that remains is art.
— Ho Tzu Nyen
Artist and filmmaker Ho Tzu Nyen premieres his new film H the Happy Robot
in Kids’ APT. The film is a modern fable about the nature of technology,
and is centred on the life story of a cardboard robot called H, who lives in
an imaginary Singapore. The film is screened in a theatre resembling an
oversized cardboard box, inviting children to join H in his world.
RS
KR
Gonkar Gyatso
Tibet/United Kingdom b.1961
Childrens’ workshop, Funky Buddhas 2009, Gallery of
Modern Art
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist /
Photograph: Katie Bennett
Ho Tzu Nyen
Singapore b.1976
H the Happy Robot (stills) 2009
High-definition digital video, single channel, colour,
sound, 6:42 minutes, ed. of 3 / Commissioned for APT6 /
Supported by the National Arts Council and Singapore Film
Commission / Images courtesy: The artist and Tzulogical Films
208 209

Runa Islam
Make believe 2009
Ayaz Jokhio
99 Self portraits 2009
Mansudae Art Studio
The Fairy of the Kumgang Mountains 2009
The Mekong / Rich Streitmatter-Tran
My River, My Future: A Children’s Drawing Project 2009
London-based artist Runa Islam produces poetic films that explore the act
of seeing, and ideas of truth and fiction through the vocabulary of cinema
and its history. In Make believe, the artist invites children to discover some
of the fundamental concepts behind moving images by making their own
thaumatrope, also known as a ‘turning wonder’.
Invented in the 1820s, the thaumatrope was one of a number of popular
optical toys in the Victorian period and, today, it is appreciated as an
important forerunner of cinematography and animation. Comprised of a disc
or card with a picture on each side — such as a bird and cage — the disc is then
attached to two pieces of string, or to a stick. The illusory effect is created
when the object is twirled quickly with the hands, relying on the scientific
phenomenon called ‘persistence of vision’ and short-term visual memory,
which allows the two images to merge and become one.
KR
In his work 99 Self portraits 2008, Ayaz Jokhio distributed an identical image
of his face to 99 friends and colleagues, who each added hair and other
features; the images were then returned to the artist and exhibited together.
The work carries art historical references — such as Marcel Duchamp’s LHOOQ
1919, in which Duchamp put a moustache on da Vinci’s portrait of the Mona
Lisa. It also carries allusions to multiple identities and highlights Jokhio’s
interest in what he describes as ‘similarities and differences occurring at the
same time within the same thing.’
For Kids’ APT, the 99 Self portraits activity revolves around the artist’s selfportrait,
wearing boxer shorts and vest, and a series of beautifully detailed,
hand-drawn outfits, which have been made into magnets for dressing the
figures. Mixing traditional costumes from all over the world with quirkier
pieces inspired by popular culture, the combinations of outfits are potentially
endless. Each clothed figure becomes an alternative identity for Jokhio,
providing him with a new personality controlled by the participant. Over
the course of APT6, the series of portraits will be an ever-changing display,
epitomising the variety of Jokhio's practice.
RS
The traditional Korean children’s story The Fairy of the Kumgang Mountains is
brought to life in this large-scale mural installation. Spanning the length of the
Children’s Art Centre corridor in the Gallery of Modern Art, young visitors can
experience this treasured tale in six themed ‘chapter’ rooms, each featuring
detailed paintings by artists from the Mansudae Art Studio.
The story revolves around Bau, a woodsman who rescues a wounded deer
and is rewarded when the deer tells him of eight pools deep in the Kumgang
Mountains where fairies from heaven swim. After stealing a fairy’s winged
dress, Bau convinces the fairy Unbyol to become his wife. Bau and Unbyol
have three children and live happily together, until Unbyol tries on her old
winged dress and is swept back up to heaven with her three children. Bau
waits for the full moon at the fairy pools when a giant silver scoop comes down
from heaven to collect water. Bau ascends to heaven, convincing his wife and
children to return to earth to live happily as a hardworking, prosperous family.
Accompanied by narration in Korean, The Fairy of the Kumgang Mountains
takes young visitors on a fantastical journey through evocative scenery drawn
from the folklore of North Korea (DPRK).
TW
Artist statement
The wellbeing of a community requires a pro-active investment in the future.
Perhaps most intimately the short-term rewards of a good investment can be
seen in the health of children and local water sources on which life depends.
This project aims to link children from four communities with their local rivers
in a reflective drawing project visualising their special relationship to the
river. For children in the Greater Mekong Subregion, information about the
Mekong River will be discussed with local rivers such as the Saigon River,
the Sangker and the Irrawaddy. For children in Australia, the focus will be on
issues relating to the Brisbane River.
The project was facilitated in each of the four communities (Ho Chi Minh
City, Vietnam; Battambang, Cambodia; Yangon, Myanmar; and Brisbane)
by an experienced local leader working with children and art. The aim is
to engage at least 20 children in each location, from which a selection of
drawings will be exhibited at the Queensland Art Gallery . . . in conjunction
with APT6. Drawings from one community not selected for exhibition will be
distributed and shared with the children from the other communities, offering
a comparative view into the lives and rivers of others.
Runa Islam
Bangladesh/United Kingdom b.1970
Childrens’ workshop, Make believe 2009, Gallery of
Modern Art
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist /
Photograph: Katie Bennett
Ayaz Jokhio
Pakistan b.1978
99 Self portraits (detail) 2009
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist
Mansudae Art Studio
North Korea (DPRK) est.1959
The Fairy of the Kumgang Mountains (detail) 2009
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artists
Children's workshop, My River, My Future: A Children’s
Drawing Project 2009, Han Bridge School, Ho Chi Minh
City, Vietnam
Commissioned for APT6 / Image courtesy:
Rich Streitmatter-Tran
210 211

Pacific Reggae / Marcel Meltherorong aka Mars Melto
Singsing with Marcel 2009
Wit Pimkanchanapong
I, you, we 2009
Hiraki Sawa
Every Little Thing Moving 2009
Shirana Shahbazi
Still life: Coconut and other things 2009
I see my music as a tool — a way of teaching my children and future generations
about holding on to Vanuatu culture, our customs and our traditions at a
time when Western influence is changing our way of life. Many people are
concerned about our country and our children’s place in it — where do they
fit in with these two different cultures? And how do they hold on to their own
culture when Western influences, in cities like Port Vila, are so flashy and shiny?
We are questioning ourselves. I remember an old fella told me that if we can
marry Western knowledge with our traditional knowledge that would make our
children ‘twice wise’.
— Marcel Meltherorong
Marcel Meltherorong — reggae musician, and singer and songwriter for
XX Squad — invites everyone to join him and ‘singsing’, which means to sing
loud in Bislama, one of the many languages spoken across the archipelago
of Vanuatu. In this multimedia activity, children are introduced to Marcel,
his country and reggae music before stepping into the karaoke-style booth
to sing and dance to his popular reggae track ‘Children’s day’. Children’s
performances are recorded and played back on the big screen in video clip
format for everyone to watch and enjoy.
KR
Speaking Thai is not about playing a time travelling game, but more about a role
playing game. Yes, it is very similar to how you choose your ‘avatar’ character in a
video game. Thai language allows you to change your ‘self’ [in] every sentence,
depending on the situation. There are more than ten versions of ‘I’ available to
choose from, and ‘you’ will change accordingly. There is the ‘formal I’, ‘polite I’,
‘friendly I’, ‘arrogant I’, ‘small I’, ‘very small I’, ‘feminine I’, ‘masculine I’, and a lot
more. It is about social hierarchy in a culture where the language is more aware
of who we are, whom we are talking to, and what situation we are in now. I, you,
we interprets this assumption . . . to make it direct and straightforward, to let
‘(small) you’ understand ‘(big) me’ when I speak English.
— Wit Pimkanchanapong
Wit Pimkanchanapong’s I, you, we is a multimedia activity where the
participants become the subject. Images of two people’s faces are first
captured on camera in the activity space. With a little technical magic, their
facial features are fragmented and recombined to form a new portrait, with
surprising results. Posters of the collaborative portrait I, you, we can then be
emailed home or to a friend as a memento of a visit to Kids’ APT.
KR
In his film elsewhere 2003, Hiraki Sawa has created a film set within his London
apartment and filled it with intricate, homemade animations. Everyday objects
come to life, growing legs and wandering between scenes filmed in the artist’s
kitchen, bathroom, home office and other rooms. For Kids’ APT, Sawa presents
Every Little Thing Moving, a multimedia activity which enables young visitors to
join in and play with the imagery in elsewhere. By moving three-dimensional
objects over an image-sensitive tabletop, participants interact with and
contribute to the film. Sound effects play in tandem with the movements,
enabling children to create their own version of the artist’s original film,
including a rich and unexpected soundtrack.
Sawa’s film elsewhere 2003 screens in the space, as well as trail 2005, a later
film featuring the silhouettes of animals moving on the edge of shadows cast in
the artist’s apartment as day becomes night. A caravan of camels treks silently
around the plughole of the kitchen sink, and an elephant moves dreamily
across gloomy windows, while the silhouette of a Ferris wheel turns silently.
TW
To create Shirana Shahbazi’s painting for Kids’ APT, a workshop was
conducted at the Children’s Art Centre with a group of local Brisbane
children. Discussions introduced the painting project, the artist and her work,
as well as a brief history of the still-life genre, inspiring the participants to
compose their own still-life arrangements. The subject of the arrangements
was a range of tropical fruits, flowers and vegetation readily available in
Queensland. The resulting compositions of coconuts, hibiscus, foliage and
fruits were professionally photographed and sent to Shahbazi, who is based
in Zurich, Switzerland. The artist then selected an image and prepared it for
the next stage — the image was transformed into an immense painting by
billboard painters in Iran. After passing through many hands across the globe,
the end result is a collaborative painting on display in the Children’s Art
Centre for APT6.
KR
Marcel Meltherorong aka Mars Melto
New Caledonia/Vanuatu b.1975
Singsing with Marcel (stills) 2009
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist
Wit Pimkanchanapong
Thailand b.1976
Test image for I, you, we 2009
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist
Hiraki Sawa
Japan/United Kingdom b.1977
elsewhere (still) 2003
Digital video, black and white, silent, 7:40 minutes
Image courtesy: The artist, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo;
James Cohan Gallery, New York
Shirana Shahbazi
Iran/Switzerland b.1974
Children’s workshop, Still life: Coconut and other things
2009, Gallery of Modern Art
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist /
Photographs: Natasha Harth
212 213

Thukral and Tagra
Hi! I am India 2009
Charwei Tsai
Water Project 2009
YNG (Yoshitomo Nara and graf)
The Play House 2009
Zhu Weibing and Ji Wenyu
The Hidden Garden 2009
Thukral and Tagra have been working collaboratively since 2000. Their
multimedia practice reflects the dynamism and ambition of India’s rapidly
growing economy, while commenting on consumer culture and social
aspirations. The work of these versatile artists is characterised by exuberant
colour, elaborate imagery and wicked humour, blurring the boundaries
between advertising, retail and art.
For Kids’ APT, Thukral and Tagra have designed a do-it-yourself activity and
accompanying space for the Children’s Art Centre. Hi! I am India introduces
young visitors to the visual culture of India, inviting them to create their own
scenes by layering custom-made stickers onto framed backgrounds designed
by the artists. Images of contemporary India, like the mass-produced Tata
Nano, a small fuel-efficient car marketed as ‘the people’s car’, are offered next
to more traditional icons like the buffalo and cart, and the ever-dependable
auto rickshaw. Drawing on themes of people, the street, transportation and
architecture, the framed sticker collages in Hi! I am India bring to life the rich
imagery of India as a dynamic contemporary centre interlaced with symbols
of the country’s past.
Imagine where the water that you are cleaning your hands with is coming from.
Could it be the sky where the rain falls from? Or the ocean the octopus is living
in? Imagine all the places that the water has travelled through and all the people
who helped the water to reach you. And imagine all the animals and plants
who we are sharing the water with. Could it be the little frog who is sitting in
the rainforest? Or the hippo family who is swimming by? Now imagine how the
water flows through and connects us all.
— Charwei Tsai
Charwei Tsai’s film for children complements the artist’s video projection
Hand washing project 2009. Designed to evoke the sensation of touch, this
interactive is a sequence of projected images over the handbasins in the
Children’s Art Centre bathrooms. Footage of animals interacting with water
becomes intermingled with children’s hands as they wash them, offering a
new experience of an everyday activity.
KR
The Japanese collaborative team of artist Yoshitomo Nara and design firm
graf have built a small cubby house environment especially for young visitors
to APT6. Responding to the idea that a bedroom is a child’s first creative
space, and that our surrounds affect the way we think and feel, this small
room is designed to stimulate children’s creativity and to be a site to display
creative contributions, creating a cosy atmosphere for the young.
Constructed with recycled materials and filled with second hand furnishings,
the interior of the little house is decorated with children’s mementos. A
growing display of keepsakes placed higgledy-piggledy on the shelves,
and in little cabinets for children to explore, is the result of YNG’s request to
visitors to leave a small object behind when they visit. The artists also invite
children to take a seat at one of the tables and contribute a drawing to the
collaborative sketchbooks, based on themes selected by the artists, such as
pups and naughty children. Over time, the cubby house reflects the collective
creativity of children visiting Kids’ APT.
KR
Zhu Weibing and Ji Wenyu have created a soft sculpture installation built
in the style of a traditional Chinese walled garden for Kids’ APT. Foremost
in the design process has been the guiding principles of feng shui. This
traditional practice was applied to determine the spatial dimensions of
the floor plan, as well as the placement and the relationships of the garden
and architectural features.
The artists invite young children to enter the low-walled fabric garden
of understated beauty to admire the tranquil surrounds and take part in
gardening activities, while parents and carers watch from the outside, looking
over the tiled walls. Acknowledging the recurring subject of nature and the
yearly seasons in the history of Chinese art, children can tend to fallen autumn
leaves, arrange spring flowers in garden beds, attach or remove leaves from
vines, or play with goldfish and frogs in the small padded pond — all made
from colourful felts and fabrics.
KR
RS
Thukral and Tagra
Jiten Thukral
India b.1976
Sumir Tagra
India b.1979
Working design for Hi! I am India 2009
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artists
Charwei Tsai
Taiwan b.1980
Test run for Water Project 2009, Gallery of Modern Art
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist /
Photograph: Natasha Harth
YNG
Yoshitomo Nara
Japan b.1959
graf
Japan est.1993
California orange covered wagon (detail) 2008
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles 2008
Image courtesy: The artists and Tomio Koyama Gallery,
Tokyo / Photograph: Hako Hosokawa
This work is not in APT6 or Kids’ APT
Zhu Weibing and Ji Wenyu
Zhu Weibing
China b.1971
Ji Wenyu
China b.1959
The Hidden Garden (details) 2009
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artists /
Photographs: Natasha Harth
214 215

Local children participating in the Children’s Art Centre
workshop in Brisbane (left page); the billboard painter
in Iran creating the children’s still-life arrangement (right
page, top); and unpacking the work at the Gallery of
Modern Art in Brisbane prior to installation (right page).
Shirana Shahbazi
Iran/Switzerland b.1974
In collaboration with Sirous Shaghaghi, Iran
Still life: Coconut and other things 2009
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist /
Photographs: Roozbeh Tazhibi and Natasha Harth
216 217

Catalogue of works
Minam Apang
India b.1980
He wore them like talismans all
over his body 2008
Ink, synthetic polymer paint and tea
on fabriano cold-pressed paper /
138.5 x 184cm / The Lekha and
Anupam Poddar Collection
The sleeping army may stir 2008
Ink and synthetic polymer paint on
fabriano cold-pressed paper /
70 x 240cm / Collection: Isabelle
Levy and Geraldine Galateau, Paris
Nothing of him doth fade 2009
Thread, glue, synthetic polymer
paint and ink on archival paper /
67.3 x 157.15cm / Courtesy: The
artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai
Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan
Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
Philippines/Australia b.1965
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan
Philippines/Australia b.1962
In-flight (Project: Another Country)
2009
Mixed media / Site-specific work
for APT6 / Courtesy: The artists
Chen Chieh-jen
Taiwan b.1960
On Going 2006
35mm film transferred to DVD, single
channel, continuous loop, colour,
silent, 20:22 minutes, ed. 4/5 /
Courtesy: The artist
Chen Qiulin
China b.1975
Garden 2007
Digital video, single channel,
continuous loop, colour, sound,
14:45 minutes, ed. 4/5 / Courtesy:
The artist and Max Protetch Gallery,
New York
Xinsheng Town 275-277 2009
Wood, brick, roof tile, mortar and
mixed media / Installed dimensions:
1313 x 650 x 614cm / Courtesy: The
artist and Long March Project, Beijing
Cheo Chai-Hiang
Singapore b.1946
Cash Converter 2009
Nin Hao 2000
Spade, neon / 45 x 177 x 16cm
Duo Wu Dou, Shao Liang Li 2007
Suitcase, stainless steel, neon /
97 x 38.5 x 26.5cm
Fei Chang Ku 2007
Stainless steel, perspex, neon /
3 parts: 53 x 55 x 13cm (each)
Ling Xiu 2007
Wood, cotton shirt, chalk, neon /
85 x 80 x 21cm
Dang Dang (Mirror Effect) 2009
Stainless steel, perspex / Two
parts: 106.7 x 91.5 x 13cm (each)
Ju 2009
Wood, neon / 40 X 40 X 21cm
Site-specific work for APT6 /
Courtesy: The artist
DAMP
est.1995, Australia
Dan Cass b.1970
Rob Creedon b.1969
Narelle Desmond b.1970
Sam George b.1987
Sharon Goodwin b.1973
Ry Haskings b.1977
Deb Kunda b.1972
James Lynch b.1974
Dan Moynihan b.1974
Lisa Radford b.1976
Nat Thomas b.1967
Kylie Wilkinson b.1971
Meeting note 2009
Felt-tipped marker on paper /
80 x 64cm (irreg.) / Courtesy:
The artists and Uplands Gallery,
Melbourne
Untitled 2009
Mixed media / Installed dimensions
variable / Site-specific work for
APT6 / Courtesy: The artists and
Uplands Gallery, Melbourne
Solomon Enos
Hawai’i, United States b.1976
Kuu era: Polyfantastica the beginning
2006
Gouache and synthetic polymer
paint on paper / 53 sheets: 38 x 29cm
(each) / Courtesy: The artist
Monir Shahroudy
Farmanfarmaian
Iran b.1924
Untitled 2005
Mirror mosaic, reverse glass painting
and coloured plaster on wood /
75 x 130cm / Courtesy: The artist
and The Third Line, Dubai
Lightning for Neda 2009
Mirror mosaic, reverse glass
painting, plaster on wood / 6 panels:
300 x 200cm (each) / Commissioned
for APT6 and the Queensland
Art Gallery Collection. The artist
dedicates this work to the loving
memory of her late husband
Dr Abolbashar Farmanfarmaian.
Purchased 2009. Queensland Art
Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Subodh Gupta
India b.1964
The other thing 2005–06
Steel structure, plastic, stainless steel
tongs / 206 x 211 x 63.5cm / The
Lekha and Anupam Poddar Collection
Bullet 2006–07
Cast brass and chrome plated brass
milk pails / 112 x 230 x 112cm /
Tapi Collection, India
Line of Control (1) 2008
Stainless steel and steel
structure, brass and copper utensils /
500 x 500 x 500cm / Courtesy: The
artist and Arario Gallery, Beijing
Gonkar Gyatso
Tibet/United Kingdom b.1961
Angel 2007
Stickers and pencil on treated paper /
152.5 x 122cm / The Kenneth
and Yasuko Myer Collection of
Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased
2008 with funds from Michael
Simcha Baevski through the
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Cosmic Buddhas 2008
Colour offset wallpaper / Courtesy:
The artist and Rossi & Rossi Gallery,
London
Reclining Buddha – Shanghai to
Lhasa Express 2009
Stickers, pencil, collage, screen print
on treated paper; 20 Tibetan prayerwheels
/ 10 panels: 216 x 90cm (each) /
Courtesy: The artist and Rossi & Rossi
Gallery, London
Spring 2008 2009
Pencil, ink, stickers on treated paper /
154 x 220cm / Courtesy: The artist
and Rossi & Rossi Gallery, London
Kyungah Ham
South Korea b.1966
Nagasaki Mushroom Cloud,
Hiroshima Mushroom Cloud 2008
Hand embroidery on silk / Diptych:
(a) 120 x 150cm; (b) 120 x 150cm /
Sigg Collection, Switzerland
Some Diorama 2008
Hand embroidery on silk /
151 x 198cm / Collection: Kukje
Gallery, South Korea
Ho Tzu Nyen
Singapore b.1976
Zarathustra: A Film for Everyone
and No One 2009
High-definition digital video, single
channel, colour, sound, 24:30 minutes,
ed. of 3 / Commissioned for APT6 /
Supported by Osage Gallery, The
Puttnam School of Film and the
Institute of Contemporary Arts
Singapore, LASALLE College of the
Arts / An initiative of the National Arts
Council’s Arts Creation Fund / Courtesy:
The artist and Tzulogical Films
Emre Hüner
Turkey b.1977
Panoptikon 2005
Digital hand-drawn animation,
single channel, continuous loop,
colour, sound, 11:18 minutes,
ed. of 5 / Courtesy: The artist and
Rodeo, Istanbul
Raafat Ishak
Egypt/Australia b.1967
Untitled (from ‘Emergencies,
Accidents and Congratulations’
series) 2009
Synthetic polymer paint on MDF /
20 panels: 60 x 42cm (each) /
Courtesy: The artist
Untitled 2009
Applied vinyl / 390 x 293.5cm /
Site-specific work for APT6 /
Courtesy: The artist
Runa Islam
Bangladesh/United Kingdom b.1970
The Restless Subject 2008
16mm film and CD wild tracks,
colour, sound, 6:42 minutes
and
Tobias Putrih
Slovenia, b.1972
For The Restless Subject 2008
Plywood / 343 x 350 x 460cm /
Courtesy: The artists and White
Cube, London
First Day of Spring 2005
16mm film, colour, sound,
7:00 minutes / Courtesy: The artist
and White Cube, London
Ayaz Jokhio
Pakistan b.1978
a thousand doors and windows too…
2009
MDF, wood, aluminium, paint /
600 x 600 x 600cm / Site-specific
work for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist
Takeshi Kitano
Japan b.1947
Sono Otoko, Kyobo ni Tsuki
(Violent Cop) 1989
35mm, colour, mono, 103 minutes,
Japan, Japanese (English subtitles) /
Director: Takeshi Kitano / Script:
Hisashi Nozawa, Takeshi Kitano /
Cinematographer: Yasushi
Sasakibara / Editor: Nobutake
Kamiya / Print source: Japan
Foundation / Rights: Shochiku
3-4 x Jugatsu (Boiling Point) 1990
35mm, colour, mono, 96 minutes,
Japan, Japanese (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Takeshi Kitano /
Cinematographer: Katsumi
Yanagishima / Editor: Toshio
Taniguchi / Print source: Japan
Foundation / Rights: Shochiku
Ano Natsu, Ichiban Shizukana Umi
(A Scene at the Sea) 1991
35mm, colour, mono, 101 minutes,
Japan, Japanese (English subtitles) /
Director/Script/Editor: Takeshi
Kitano / Cinematographer: Katsumi
Yanagishima / Print source/rights:
Celluloid Dreams
Sonachine (Sonatine) 1993
35mm, colour, Dolby, 94 minutes,
Japan, Japanese (English subtitles) /
Director/Script/Editor: Takeshi
Kitano / Cinematographer: Katsumi
Yanagishima / Print source: Japan
Foundation / Rights: Shochiku
Minnâ-yatteruka (Getting Any?) 1995
35mm, colour, Dolby, 108 minutes,
Japan, Japanese (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Takeshi Kitano /
Cinematographer: Katsumi
Yanagishima / Editors: Takeshi
Kitano, Yoshinori Oota / Print
source/rights: Celluloid Dreams
Kizzu Ritan (Kids Return) 1996
35mm, colour, Dolby, 107 minutes,
Japan, Japanese (English subtitles) /
Director/Script/Editor: Takeshi
Kitano / Cinematographer: Katsumi
Yanagishima / Print source/rights:
Celluloid Dreams
Hana-bi (Fireworks) 1997
35mm, colour, Dolby, 103
minutes, Japan, Japanese (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Takeshi
Kitano / Cinematographer: Hideo
Yamamoto / Editors: Takeshi Kitano,
Yoshinori Oota / Print source/rights:
Celluloid Dreams
Kikujiro no Natsu (Kikujiro) 1999
35mm, colour, Dolby, 121 minutes,
Japan, Japanese (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Takeshi Kitano /
Cinematographer: Katsumi
Yanagishima / Editors: Takeshi
Kitano, Yoshinori Oota / Print source:
Celluloid Dreams / Rights: Sony
Pictures
Brother 2000
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 114
minutes, USA/UK/Japan, English/
Japanese/Italian/Spanish (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Takeshi
Kitano / Cinematographer: Katsumi
Yanagishima / Editors: Takeshi
Kitano, Yoshinori Oota / Print
source/rights: Hopscotch Films
Dooruzu (Dolls) 2002
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 114
minutes, Japan, Japanese (English
subtitles) / Director/Script/Editor:
Takeshi Kitano / Cinematographer:
Katsumi Yanagishima / Print source/
rights: Celluloid Dreams
Zatôichi (Zatoichi) 2003
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 116
minutes, Japan, Japanese (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Takeshi
Kitano / Based on the story by Kan
Shimosawa / Cinematographer:
Katsumi Yanagishima / Editors:
Takeshi Kitano, Yoshinori Oota /
Print source/rights: Buena Vista
International
Takeshis’ 2005
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 108
minutes, Japan, Japanese (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Takeshi
Kitano / Cinematographer: Katsumi
Yanagishima / Editors: Takeshi
Kitano, Yoshinori Oota / Print source:
Celluloid Dreams / Rights: Madman
Entertainment
Kantoku: Banzai! (Glory to the
Filmmaker!) 2007
35mm, colour and black and white,
Dolby Digital, 108 minutes, Japan,
Japanese (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Takeshi Kitano /
Cinematographer: Katsumi
Yanagishima / Editors: Takeshi
Kitano, Yoshinori Oota / Print
source/rights: Celluloid Dreams
Akiresu to Kame (Achilles and the
Tortoise) 2008
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 119
minutes, Japan, Japanese (English
subtitles) / Director/Script/Editor:
Takeshi Kitano / Cinematographer:
Katsumi Yanagishima / Print source/
rights: Celluloid Dreams
Ang Lee
Taiwan/United States b.1954
Xi Yan (The Wedding Banquet) 1993
35mm, colour, mono, 106 minutes,
Taiwan/USA, Mandarin/English
(English subtitles) / Director: Ang
Lee / Script: Ang Lee, Neil Peng,
James Schamus / Cinematographer:
Jong Lin / Editor: Tim Squyres / Print
source: Chinese Taipei Film Archive /
Rights: Central Motion Picture
Corporation
Yin Shi Nan Nu (Eat Drink Man
Woman) 1994
35mm, colour, Dolby, 123 minutes,
Taiwan/USA, Mandarin (English
subtitles) / Director: Ang Lee / Script:
Ang Lee, James Schamus, Hui-Ling
Wang / Cinematographer: Jong Lin /
Editor: Tim Squyres / Print source:
Chinese Taipei Film Archive / Rights:
Central Motion Picture Corporation
Sense and Sensibility 1995
35mm, colour, Dolby SR, 136
minutes, USA/UK, English/French
(English subtitles) / Director: Ang
Lee / Script: Emma Thompson /
Based on the story by Jane Austen /
Cinematographer: Michael Coulter /
Editor: Tim Squyres / Print source/
rights: Amalgamated Films
The Ice Storm 1997
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 112
minutes, USA, English / Director:
Ang Lee / Script: James Schamus /
Based on the story by Rick Moody /
Cinematographer: Frederick Elmes /
Editor: Tim Squyres / Print source:
Tamasa Distribution / Rights:
Roadshow Films
Wo Hu Cang Long (Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon) 2000
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 120
minutes, Taiwan/Hong Kong/USA/
China, Mandarin (English subtitles) /
Director: Ang Lee / Script: Hui-Ling
Wang, James Schamus, Kuo Jung
Tsai / Based on the story by Du Lu
Wang / Cinematographer: Peter
Pau / Editor: Tim Squyres / Print
source/rights: Amalgamated Films
Brokeback Mountain 2005
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 134
minutes, Canada/USA, English /
Director: Ang Lee / Script: Larry
McMurtry, Diana Ossana / Based
on the story by Annie Proulx /
Cinematographer: Rodrigo Prieto /
Editors: Geraldine Peroni, Dylan
Tichenor / Print source/rights:
Roadshow Films
218 219

Se, Jie (Lust, Caution) 2007
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 157
minutes, USA/China/Taiwan/Hong
Kong, Mandarin/Japanese/English/
Hindi/Shanghainese/Cantonese
(English subtitles) / Director: Ang
Lee / Script: James Schamus, Hui-
Ling Wang / Based on the story by
Eileen Chang / Cinematographer:
Rodrigo Prieto / Editor: Tim Squyres /
Print source/rights: Universal Pictures
Taking Woodstock 2009
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 110
minutes, USA, English / Director: Ang
Lee / Script: James Schamus / Based
on the story by Elliot Tiber and Tom
Monte / Cinematographer: Eric
Gautier / Editor: Tim Squyres / Print
source/rights: Universal Pictures
Mansudae Art Studio
North Korea/Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea (DPRK)
est. 1959
A project for APT6 co-curated by
Nicholas Bonner and Suhanya Raffel
Ink paintings
Choe Chang Ho
North Korea (DPRK) b.1960
Foundry interior 2009
Ink on paper (Chosunhua)
200 x 200cm
Choe Chang Ho
North Korea (DPRK) b.1970
First days of retirement 2009
Ink on paper (Chosunhua) /
200 x 200cm
Im Hyok
North Korea (DPRK) b.1965
Breaktime 2009
Ink on paper (Chosunhua) /
200 x 200cm
Jang Hue Ro
North Korea (DPRK) b.1954
Worker’s home 2009
Ink on paper (Chosunhua) /
200 x 200cm
Rim Ho Chol
North Korea (DPRK) b.1954
On the way to work 2009
Ink on paper (Chosunhua) /
200 x 200cm
Commissioned for APT6 / Collection:
Nicholas Bonner, Beijing / Courtesy:
The artists and Nicholas Bonner
Oil paintings
Han Guang Hun
North Korea (DPRK) b.1976
In the face of the flames (study for
In the face of the flames) 2009
Oil on canvas / 51 x 71cm
Hong Jin Son
North Korea (DPRK) b.1977
Steel fighters (study for In the face
of the flames) 2009
Oil on canvas / 39 x 44cm
Kim Yong IL
North Korea (DPRK) b.1971
Studies for In the face of the
flames 2009
Oil on canvas / 5 sheets:
54 x 63cm (each)
Kim Yong Myong
North Korea (DPRK) b.1977
In front of the furnace (study for
In the face of the flames) 2009
Oil on canvas / 42.5 x 67.5
Ma Yong Chol
North Korea (DPRK) b.1977
Release time (study for In the face
of the flames) 2009
Oil on canvas / 50 x 60.5cm
O Sung Gyu
North Korea (DPRK) b.1969
In the face of the flames 2009
Oil on canvas / 200 x 600cm
Pak Guang IL
North Korea (DPRK) b.1973
1st Steel Factory (study for
In the face of the flames) 2009
Oil on canvas / 70 x 55.5cm
Ryu Guon Chol
North Korea (DPRK) b.1975
Stirring workplace (study for
In the face of the flames) 2009
Oil on canvas / 33 x 44.5cm
Commissioned for APT6 / Collection:
Nicholas Bonner, Beijing / Courtesy:
The artists and Nicholas Bonner
Mosaic
Kim Hung IL
North Korea (DPRK) b.1965
Kang Yong Sam
North Korea (DPRK) b.1956
Work team contest 2009
Glass tile, paper and board /
350 x 570cm / Commissioned for
APT6 and the Queensland Art
Gallery Collection with assistance
from Nicholas Bonner, Beiijing.
Purchased 2009. Queensland
Art Gallery Foundation Grant /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Other works from North Korea /
Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea (DPRK)
Artist unknown
North Korea (DPRK) b. unknown
Female driver undated
Linocut on paper / 59 x 43cm
Cho Dong Gun
North Korea (DPRK) b.unknown
Painting of Ri Jong Ryong from
Ok Gye worksite 1971
Oil on canvas / 41 x 29.5cm
Choe Yong Sun
North Korea (DPRK) b.1958
The bus conductor 2000
Linocut on paper / 54 x 78.5cm
The construction site 2005
Linocut on paper / 65.5 x 52.5cm
Dong Ha Do
North Korea (DPRK) b.1947
Morning 1999
Linocut on paper, ed. 4/8 /
48.5 x 74.5cm
Han Song Ho
North Korea (DPRK) b.1973
News 2002
Linocut on paper / 42 x 33cm
Hwang Chol Ho
North Korea (DPRK) b.1975
The miners 1990
Linocut on paper, ed. 5/6 /
45 x 69cm
Hwang In Jae (attrib.)
North Korea (DPRK)/China b.1943
Potato flower smell in the
Daehongdan Highland 1999
Linocut on paper, ed. 1/5 /
41 x 80cm
Hwang In Jae
North Korea (DPRK)/China b.1943
We look forward to seeing the
general 2004
Linocut on paper / 50.5 x 100cm
Jae Yong
North Korea (DPRK) b.unknown
Untitled 1964
Watercolour on paper / 26 x 19cm
Jang Jin Su
North Korea (DPRK) b.unknown
Full moon, January 15, 2007 2007
Linocut on paper, ed. 1/2 /
54 x 71cm
Jang Song Min
North Korea (DPRK) b.unknown
Female soldier 1985
Oil on canvas / 37.5 x 29.5cm
Jon Chol Nam
North Korea (DPRK) b.1975
The daily newspaper 2006
Linocut on paper / 58 x 42cm
Jong Gwan Chol
North Korea (DPRK) 1916–83
Untitled 1957
Oil on paper / 28 x 23cm
Portrait of merited worker 1969
Oil on canvas / 36 x 21cm
Jong IL Son
North Korea (DPRK) b.1972
Summer pasture 1999
Linocut on paper / 38 x 59.5cm
Kang IL
North Korea (DPRK) b.1959
The breathing of the factory
undated
Linocut on paper / 83cm x 55.2cm
Kang Jae Won
North Korea (DPRK) b.1947
Going to work undated
Linocut on paper / 43.5 x 81cm
Kim Chang Gil
North Korea (DPRK) b.1943
Portrait of merited artist
Hong Bu Un 1980
Oil on canvas / 35.5 x 25.4cm
Untitled 1979
Oil on canvas / 32.5 x 27cm
Untitled 1996
Oil on canvas / 30 x 25cm
Kim Gi Chol
North Korea (DPRK) b.1959
The Songchun River Clothing
Factory team arrives 1999
Ink on paper / 135.5 x 250cm
Kim Guk Bo
North Korea (DPRK) b.1957
The Pyongyang Grand Theatre
at night undated
Linocut on paper, ed. 3/6 /
35 x 53.5cm
Kim Gyong Hun
North Korea (DPRK) b.1976
Open the way 2007
Linocut on paper, ed. 1/2 /
32 x 27.5cm
Kim Hyon
North Korea (DPRK) b.1956
Lights along the Jangja River 2007
Linocut on paper / 47.5 x 79.5cm
Kim Myong Gil
North Korea (DPRK) b.1949
The construction site 1989
Linocut on paper, ed. 2/3 /
38 x 77.5cm
Kim Won Chol
North Korea (DPRK) b.1966
The railway construction site
at night 1996
Linocut on paper, ed. 3/9 /
44.5 x 64cm
Kim Yon Bong
North Korea (DPRK) b.1975
The power station at Taechong
River undated
Linocut on paper, ed. 1/4 /
31 x 55cm
Kim Yong
North Korea (DPRK) b.1958
Evening at Kangson 1991
Linocut on paper / 24.5 x 34.5cm
Kim Yong Gang
North Korea (DPRK) b.1980
Smelter undated
Linocut on paper / 53 x 41cm
Kyong Sik
North Korea (DPRK) b.unknown
The high-speed construction unit
1988
Linocut on paper / 59.5cm x 72cm
Li Kon Yong
b. unknown d.1980s
Untitled 1956
Ink on paper / 37 x 29cm
Min Song Sik
North Korea (DPRK) b.unknown
Iron worker 2009
Linocut on paper / 62.5 x 46cm
Om Do Man
North Korea (DPRK) 1915–71
Untitled 1959
Oil on canvas / 22 x 17.5cm
Pak Chang Nam
North Korea (DPRK) b.1971
Pleasant working place 1997
Linocut on paper, ed. 2/3 /
43.5 x 73.5cm
Pak Yong Chol
North Korea (DPRK) b.unknown
Night on Tongil Street 1992
Linocut on paper, ed. 3/7 /
45 x 68.5cm
Pak Yong Ho
North Korea (DPRK) b.1964
Marshalling yard 2002
Woodcut on paper, ed. 5/10 /
10 x 43cm
Pak Yong IL
North Korea (DPRK) b.1966
The lighthouse 1995
Linocut on paper, ed. 6/6 /
49.5 x 77cm
Ri Guk Chol
North Korea (DPRK) b.1973
The news of innovators 2001
Linocut on paper, ed. 2/7 /
37 x 55.5cm
Ri Gyong Chol
North Korea (DPRK) b.1977
Chongbong Revolutionary Site in
summer 1999
Linocut on paper, ed. 5/10 /
44.5 x 29.5cm
Sim Won Sok
North Korea (DPRK) b.1977
The dawn 2001
Linocut on paper, ed. 4/10 /
41 x 57.5cm
Song Bom
North Korea (DPRK) b.unknown
The Potong River in summer 2007
Linocut on paper, ed. 3/6 /
56 x 44cm
Won Song Ryong
North Korea (DPRK) b.unknown
Figure of harmony 1981
Oil on canvas / 58.5 x 42.5cm
Jon Hye Ok student 1980
Oil on canvas / 30 x 41.5cm
Yun Hyong Ryol
North Korea (DPRK) b.unknown
Railroad telephone operator 1969
Oil on canvas / 25.5 x 17cm
Collection: Nicholas Bonner, Beijing
Rudi Mantofani
Indonesia b.1973
Nada yang hilang (The lost note)
2006–07
Wood, metal, leather and oil /
9 pieces: 260 x 45 x 9cm (each) /
Collection: Dr Oei Hong Djien
Nada yang hilang (The lost note)
2008
Wood, metal, leather and oil /
120 x 150 x 40cm / Courtesy: The
artist and Gajah Gallery, Singapore
Nada yang hilang (The lost note)
2008
Wood, metal, leather and oil /
30 x 122 x 14cm / Courtesy: The
artist and Gajah Gallery, Singapore
Nada yang hilang (The lost note)
2008
Wood, metal, leather and oil /
120 x 119 x 80cm / Courtesy: The
artist and Gajah Gallery, Singapore
Mataso Printmakers
A series of print workshops initiated
2004, Port Vila, Vanuatu
Patrik Abel
Vanuatu b.unknown
The boxer 2006
Screenprint on arches paper /
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Eddy Baul
Vanuatu b.1981
Flying fox (from ’Bebellic’
portfolio) 2007
Screenprint on magnani paper
ed.1/45 / 76 x 56cm / Purchased
2008. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Stanley Firiam
Vanuatu b.unknown
Pig tusk 2005
Screenprint on arches paper /
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Batta flae 2005–06
Screenprint on arches paper,
ed 1/20 / 76 x 56cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Pig tusk 2006
Screenprint on arches paper /
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Saires Kalo
Vanuatu 1983–2009
Kavaman (from ’Bebellic’
portfolio) 2007
Screenprint on magnani paper
ed. 1/45 / 76 x 56cm / Purchased
2008. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Mataso kavaman (from ’Bebellic’
portfolio) 2007
Screenprint on magnani paper
ed. 1/45 / 76 x 56cm / Purchased
2008. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Sep sep (from ’Bebellic’ portfolio)
2007
Screenprint on magnani
paper ed. 1/45 / 76 x 56.5cm /
Purchased 2008. Queensland Art
Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
David Kolin
Vanuatu b.1983
FHIS (fish) 2005
Synthetic polymer paint, gesso
and pencil on masonite board /
50 x 60cm / Collection: Newell
Harry, Sydney
220 221

Mi laekem kae kaeman 2006
Screenprint on arches paper
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Tomatto 2006
Oil on paper / 33 x 25cm /
Purchased 2009. Queensland Art
Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Weetbix-boy 2006
Screenprint on arches paper /
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Butterfly (from ‘Bebellic’ portfolio)
2007
Screenprint on magnani paper
ed. 1/45 / 76 x 56cm / Purchased
2008. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Herveline Lité
Vanuatu b.1980
Davina.s (pigeon) 2005
Screenprint on arches paper,
ed.1/20 / 76 x 56cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Le Pigeon d’Ambrim 2005
Synthetic polymer paint, crayon
and gesso on cardboard /
41.5 x 32cm / Collection:
Newell Harry, Sydney
Mastim Pecheur Cocorico 2005
Synthetic polymer paint and
gesso on cardboard / 44 x 44cm /
Collection: Newell Harry, Sydney
Le pigeon de Mataso (from
‘Bebellic’ portfolio) 2007
Screenprint on magnani paper
ed. 1/45 / 76 x 56cm / Purchased
2008. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Apia Najos
Vanuatu b.unknown
Untitled 2005
Permanent marker, pencil,
synthetic polymer paint and
gesso and masking tape
on cardboard / 68 x 46cm /
Collection: Newell Harry, Sydney
Stringband 2006
Screenprint on arches paper /
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Sepa Seule
Vanuatu b.1983
Breadfruit 2004–05
Screenprint on arches paper /
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Pepellie flae a wee 2005
Synthetic polymer paint, pencil,
masking tape and gesso on
cardboard / 41.5 x 32cm /
Collection: Newell Harry, Sydney
Wota melon (Watermelon) 2006
Screenprint on arches paper /
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Popo (from ‘Bebellic’ portfolio)
2007 / Screenprint on magnani
paper ed. 1/45 / 56 x 76cm /
Purchased 2008. Queensland Art
Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Afokka and mango (Avocado
and mango) 2008
Screenprint on arches paper /
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Simeon Simix
Vanuatu b.1981
Flae-man (Fly-man) 2006
Screenprint on arches paper /
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Paw paw/breadfruit (from
‘Bebellic’ portfolio) 2007
Screenprint on magnani paper
ed. 1/45 / 76 x 56cm / Purchased
2008. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Paw paw/coconut (from ‘Bebellic’
portfolio) 2007
Screenprint on magnani paper
ed. 1/45 / 76 x 56cm / Purchased
2008. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Mataso coconut-man, Port Vila,
2008
Screenprint on arches paper /
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Turtle-man 2008
Screenprint on arches paper /
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Priscilla Thomas
Vanuatu b.unknown
Kava bowl 2006
Screenprint on arches paper /
76 x 56cm / Purchased 2009.
Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
The Mekong
A project for APT6 co-curated by Rich
Streitmatter-Tran and Russell Storer
Bùi Công Khánh
Vietnam b.1972
A contemporary story 1 2008
Porcelain, hand-painted /
58 x 20 x 20cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation Grant / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
A contemporary story 2 2008
Porcelain, hand-painted /
58 x 20 x 20cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation Grant / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
The culture quarter 2008
Porcelain, hand-painted /
44 x 20 x 20cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation Grant / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
The harmless crowd 2008
Porcelain, hand-painted /
58 x 20 x 20cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation Grant / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Keep dry! 2008
Porcelain, hand-painted /
52 x 15 x 15cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation Grant / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
No silly drawing! 2008
Porcelain, hand-painted /
52 x 15 x 15cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation Grant / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
The orchestra 2008
Porcelain, hand-painted /
41.5 x 15 x 15cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation Grant / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Dragon and dollar 2009
Porcelain, hand-painted /
126 x 36 x 36cm / Collection:
Lenzi-Morisot Foundation,
Singapore/France
One more dollar baby 2009
Porcelain, hand-painted /
126 x 36 x 36cm / Collection:
Lenzi-Morisot Foundation,
Singapore/France
Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba
Japan/United States/Vietnam
b.1968
The Ground, the Root, and the
Air: The Passing of the Bodhi Tree
2004–07
High-definition digital video, single
channel, colour, sound, 14:30
minutes / Courtesy: The artist and
Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo
Sopheap Pich
Cambodia b.1971
From ‘1979’ series 2009
Binoculars
Bamboo, rattan, plywood,
paint, wire / 2 pieces:
171 x 61 x 61cm (each)
Bomb
Bamboo, rattan, wire, copper
wire, plywood / 233 x 44 x 44cm
Bomb core
Bamboo, rattan, wire, copper
wire / 251 x 37 x 37cm
Bottle
Bamboo, rattan, plywood,
wire, copper wire, burlap, dye,
varnish / 58 x 37 x 19cm
Buddha
Rattan, wire, dye / Installed
dimensions 220 x 110 x 30cm
Buffaloes
Wood, varnish / 5 pieces:
21 x 28 x 9.5cm (each)
Containers
Bamboo, rattan, wire, copper
wire, burlap, dye / 4 pieces:
52 x 21.5 x 21.5cm (each)
Land mines
Bamboo, rattan, plywood,
wire, burlap, dye, paint /
2 pieces: 21.5 x 21.5 x 10.5cm;
23 x 23 x 13cm
Machine
Bamboo, rattan, wire,
copper wire, burlap, dye /
243 x 108 x 108cm
Project for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
Manit Sriwanichpoom
Thailand b.1961
‘Waiting for the King (standing)’
series 2006
Gelatin silver prints, ed. 1/9 /
14 sheets: 50 x 49.5cm (each) /
Purchased 2008 with funds
derived from the Bequest of
Grace Davies and Nell Davies
through the Queensland Art
Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Svay Ken
Cambodia 1933–2008
From ‘Sharing knowledge’ series
2008
Advice of a father
Oil on canvas / 79.5 x 99.5cm
Leaving the meat and chewing
the bone leads one to ruin
Oil on canvas / 80 x 100.2cm
One who feeds and looks after
one’s parents so well that they
do not have any problems will
be prosperous in this world
and the next world
Oil on canvas / 80 x 99.5cm
One who is proud of his social
status, who does not care for
his relatives and friends and
even looks down on them is
subject to ruin
Oil on canvas / 79.8 x 99.8cm
One who is rich and has
abundant food but hides
delicious food for himself is
subject to ruin
Oil on canvas / 79.5 x 99.8cm
One who is rich but neither
feeds nor looks after one’s
parents is subject to ruin
Oil on canvas / 80 x 100.2cm
Purchased 2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Old rice flour mill 2007
Oil on canvas / 59.8 x 79.6cm /
Purchased 2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Tandem bicycle 2008
Oil on canvas / 60.5 x 80cm /
Purchased 2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Tun Win Aung
Myanmar b.1975
Wah Nu
Myanmar b.1977
Blurring the Boundaries #1
2007–09
Blurring the Boundaries #2
2007–09
Blurring the Boundaries #3 2009
Blurring the Boundaries #4 2009
Blurring the Boundaries #5 2009
Blurring the Boundaries #6 2009
Blurring the Boundaries #7 2009
Digital prints / 7 sheets: 42 x 59cm
(each) / Courtesy: The artists
Vandy Rattana
Cambodia b.1980
‘Fire of the year’ series 2008
Digital prints / 4 sheets:
63.5 x 105.5cm (each); 5 sheets:
105.5 x 63.5cm (each) / Courtesy:
The artist
Tracey Moffatt
Australia/United States b.1960
Gary Hillberg
Australia b.1952
OTHER 2009
DVD transferred to Digital Betacam,
single channel projection, continuous
loop, colour, sound, 7.00 minutes,
ed. 1/150 / Courtesy: The artists
From ‘Plantation’ series 2009
Diptych no.1
Diptych no.2
Diptych no.3
Diptych no.4
Diptych no.5
Diptych no.6
Diptych no 7
Diptych no.8
Diptych no.9
Diptych no.10
Diptych no.11
Diptych no.12
Digital prints with archival pigments,
InkAid, watercolour paint and
archival glue on handmade Chautara
Lokta paper / 45.5 x 50cm (each) /
Courtesy: The artist and Roslyn
Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Farhad Moshiri
Iran
Mobile Talker 2007
Oil, synthetic polymer paint and
glitter on canvas / 170 x 140cm /
Private collection, Dubai / Courtesy:
The artist and The Third Line, Dubai
Soldier 2007
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas /
170 x 140cm / Private collection
of Mr and Mrs Shehab Gargash /
Courtesy: The artist and The Third
Line, Dubai
Magic White Horse with Gold Saddle
2008
Synthetic polymer paint, crystal,
goldleaf, glitter mounted on board /
180 x 180cm / The MAC Collection,
Dubai
Kohei Nawa
Japan b.1975
PixCell-Elk#2 2009
Taxidermied elk, glass, acrylic,
crystal beads / 240 x 249.5 x 198cm /
Work created with the support of
the Fondation d’enterprise Hermés /
Courtesy: The artist and SCAI, Tokyo
Shinji Ohmaki
Japan b.1971
Liminal Air – descend – 2007–09
Nylon string, mirror, fluorescent
lights, Japanese paper panels /
Installed dimensions:
270 x 1080 x 600cm / Courtesy:
The artist and Tokyo Gallery + BTAP
Memorial rebirth 2008
50 plastic bubble machines,
glycerine, demineralised water,
detergent / Bubble machines:
40 x 50 x 30cm (each) / Installed
dimensions variable / Courtesy:
The artist and Tokyo Gallery + BTAP
The One Year Drawing Project
Muhanned Cader
Sri Lanka b.1966
Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan
Sri Lanka b.1969
Chandraguptha Thenuwara
Sri Lanka b.1960
Jagath Weerasinghe
Sri Lanka b.1954
The One Year Drawing Project May
2005–October 2007
Pencil, synthetic polymer paint,
pen and gouache on paper / 187
sheets: 29 x 21cm (each) / 21 sheets:
21 x 29cm (each) / The Lekha and
Anupam Poddar Collection
Pacific Reggae:
Roots Beyond the Reef
A project for APT6 co-curated by
Brent Clough and Maud Page,
comprising: music video clips
shown as single channel projection,
continuous loop, approx 60:00
minutes; music video clips shown
on video monitors, approx 90:00
minutes; documentary and interview
footage shown as single channel
projection, continuous loop; audio
booths with five playlists; compilation
CD included in exhibition catalogue;
live performance ‘Pacific Reggae
Sounds’ at APT6, 5 December 2009.
Anstine Energy
Solomon Islands
‘Me wari’ 2008
Courtesy: Third World
Productions Solomon Islands
Anslom featuring Sharzy
Papua New Guinea and Solomon
Islands
‘Where stap love’ 2007
Courtesy: CHM Supersound,
Papua New Guinea
222 223

Apprentice
Solomon Islands
‘She loves’ 2005
Courtesy: Mangrove Productions,
New Caledonia
Chief Ragga featuring O-shen
Hawai’i and Hawai’i/Papua New
Guinea
‘Down in da kompaun’ 2002
Courtesy: CHM Supersound,
Papua New Guinea
Dubmarine
Australia
‘Point the bone’
Recorded live at The Dreaming
Festival, Woodford 2009
Courtesy: The artists
Paula Fuga
Hawai’i
‘Stir it up’ (written by Bob Marley)
Recorded live at Kokua Festival,
Honolulu, Hawai’i 2006
Courtesy: America Online
‘Loloiwi’
Recorded at Mulligans on the
Blue, Wailea, Hawai’i, 2008
Courtesy: Pakipika Productions
LLC, Hawai’i
Huarere
Vanuatu
‘Namdei’ 2003
Courtesy: Mangrove Productions
Jero, Bernard and Beeman
New Caledonia/Vanuatu
‘Good governance’ 2008
Courtesy: Bistaveos Productions,
Vanuatu
JVDK
New Caledonia
‘Alan lion’ 2005
‘Attention à la nature’ 2001
Courtesy: Edition Holiday Music,
New Caledonia
Katchafire
New Zealand
‘Frisk me down’ 2006
Courtesy: Logan Bell,
New Zealand
Mexem
New Caledonia
‘I fira rose’ 2003
Courtesy: Mangrove Productions,
New Caledonia
O-shen
Papua New Guinea/Hawai’i
‘Turangu’ 2005
Courtesy: CHM Supersound,
Papua New Guinea
Recorded live in Tahiti and at the
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane,
2009
One Tox
Solomon Islands
‘Ramukanzi’ 2008
Courtesy: Shefram Sound
Production, Solomon Islands
Jack Rasini
Solomon Islands
‘Rara ai’ 2007
Courtesy: Roi Roa Productions,
Solomon Islands
Sharzy
Solomon Islands
‘Mi nao’ 2005
Courtesy: Mangrove Productions,
New Caledonia
Sunshiners
France/Vanuatu
‘She drives me crazy’ 2006 (Written
by Roland Gift/David Steele (Fine
Young Cannibals). Published by
EMI VIRGIN MUSIC Inc., from
the CD Sunshiners. Produced by
La Chimiz Productions, France/
Vanuatu, 2006) / ‘Back in black’
2007 (Written by Brian Leslie
Johnson, Malcolm Mitchell Young,
Angus McKinnon Young. Published
by Albert J Son Pty Publ Ltd
from the CD Welkam Bak Long
Vanuatu. Produced by La Chimiz
Productions, France/Vanuatu, 2007)
Courtesy: La Chimiz Productions,
France/Vanuatu
Straky
Papua New Guinea
‘Soldier boy’ 2005
Courtesy: CHM Supersound,
Papua New Guinea
Tiki Taane
New Zealand
‘Tangaroa’ 2007
Courtesy: Tikidub Productions,
New Zealand
Tune Zion Songsters
Vanuatu
‘3rd March 2007’
Courtesy: Bistaveos Productions,
Vanuatu
26 Roots
Vanuatu
‘26 Street’
Recorded live at Fest’Napuan
2008, Vanuatu
Courtesy: Australia Network
Upper Hutt Posse
Aotearoa
‘Mā te wā ‘2001
Courtesy: Te Kupu, Aotearoa
Vanlal
Vanuatu
Recorded live at Fest’Napuan
2006, Vanuatu
Courtesy: Television Blong
Vanuatu (TBV)
XX Squad
Vanuatu
‘Wan gud wan’ 2004
Courtesy: Mangrove Productions,
New Caledonia and Further Arts,
Vanuatu
Zennith
Australia
‘I like it’
Recorded live at Kuranda Roots
Festival, Australia, 2007
Courtesy: The artists
Documentaries and interviews
Interview with O-shen (Papua New
Guinea/Hawai’i)
Promotional video compilation
Courtesy: CHM Supersound, Papua
New Guinea
Documentary O-shen 2009
Queensland Art Gallery
Documentary 26 Roots (Vanuatu)
2008
Courtesy: Australia Network
Documentary O-shen From Street
to Sky 2008
Unity Pacific (New Zealand)
Courtesy: Bryn Evans and Moving
Productions
Interview with Marcel Meltherorong
(aka Mars Melto, XX Squad and
Kulja Riddim Klan) (New Caledonia/
Vanuatu) at the Queensland Art
Gallery, 2009
Interview with Richard Shing (Kulja
Riddim Klan), Willy Alfred (Nauten
Band) and Ralph Regenvanu
(Fest’Napuan) (Vanuatu) 2008
Courtesy: Australia Network
Playlists
Playlists by Brent Clough (ABC Radio
National, Sydney); Namila Benson
(3RRRFM Radio, Melbourne); Mickie
Sellton, Reggaetown Festival, Cairns;
Vir Asan, (4ZZZFM Radio, Brisbane);
Tuff Tumas, DJ/Producer Australia/
Vanuatu
Live performance
On the evening of 5 December 2009,
O-shen headlined the performance
event ‘Pacific Reggae Sounds’ at the
Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.
Rithy Panh
Cambodia/France b.1964
Site 2 aux Abords des Frontières (Site
2 Around the Borders) 1989
16mm, colour, stereo, 92 minutes,
France/Germany, Khmer (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Rithy
Panh / Cinematographer: Jacques
Bouquin / Editor: Andrée Davanture /
Print source/rights: CulturesFrance
Neak Sre (Rice People aka Les Gens
de la Rizière) 1994
35mm, colour, stereo, 125 minutes,
Cambodia/France/Switzerland/
Germany, Khmer (English subtitles) /
Director: Rithy Panh / Script: Rithy Panh,
Ève Deboise / Based on the story by
Shahnon Ahmad / Cinematographer:
Jacques Bouquin / Editors: Andrée
Davanture, Marie-Christine Rougerie /
Print source/rights: CulturesFrance
Bophana: Une Tragédie
Cambodgienne (Bophana: A
Cambodian Tragedy) 1996
Betacam SP, colour, stereo, 60 minutes,
France/Cambodia, Khmer (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Rithy Panh /
Cinematographer: Jacques Pamart /
Editor: Marie-Christine Rougerie /
Print source/rights: CulturesFrance
Un Soir Après la Guerre (One
Evening After the War) 1998
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital,
108 minutes, France/Cambodia,
Khmer (English subtitles) / Director:
Rithy Panh / Script: Rithy Panh,
Ève Deboise / Cinematographer:
Christophe Pollock / Editor: Marie-
Christine Rougerie / Print source/
rights: JBA Productions
La Terre des Âmes Errantes (The Land
of the Wandering Souls) 1999
Betacam SP, colour, stereo, 100
minutes, France, Khmer (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Rithy
Panh / Cinematographer: Prum
Mésar / Editors: Isabelle Roudy,
Marie-Christine Rougerie / Print
source/rights: CulturesFrance
Les Gens d’Angkor (The People of
Angkor) 2003
35mm, colour, stereo, 90 minutes,
France, Khmer (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Rithy Panh /
Cinematographer: Prum Mésar /
Editors: Isabelle Roudy, Marie-
Christine Rougerie / Print source:
Institut National de l’Audiovisuel /
Rights: Catherine Dussart
Productions / Screening format:
Betacam SP
S-21, la Machine de mort Khmère
Rouge (S-21: The Khmer Rouge
Killing Machine) 2003
35mm, colour, Dolby, 101 minutes,
Cambodia/France, Khmer/
Vietnamese (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Rithy Panh /
Cinematographers: Rithy Panh, Prum
Mésar / Editors: Isabelle Roudy,
Marie-Christine Rougerie / Print
source/rights: CulturesFrance
Les Artistes du Théâtre Brûlé (The
Burnt Theatre) 2005
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 82
minutes, Cambodia/France, Khmer/
French (English subtitles) / Director:
Rithy Panh / Script: Rithy Panh, Agnès
Sénémaud / Cinematographer:
Prum Mésar / Editor: Marie-Christine
Rougerie / Print source: Institut
National de l’Audiovisuel / Rights:
Catherine Dussart Productions /
Screening format : Betacam SP
Le Papier ne Peut pas Envelopper la
Braise (Paper Cannot Wrap Ember)
2007
35mm, colour, Dolby, 90 minutes,
France, Khmer (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Rithy Panh /
Cinematographer: Prum Mésar /
Editor: Marie-Christine Rougerie /
Print source/rights: CulturesFrance /
Screening format: Betacam SP
Un Barrage Contre le Pacifique (The
Sea Wall) 2008
35mm, colour, Dolby, 115 minutes,
France/Cambodia/Belgium,
French (English subtitles) /
Director: Rithy Panh / Script: Rithy
Panh, Michel Fessler / Based on
the story by Marguerite Duras /
Cinematographer: Pierre Milon /
Editor: Marie-Christine Rougerie /
Print source/rights: Film Distribution
Reuben Paterson
New Zealand b.1973
Whakapapa: get down upon your
knees 2009
Glitter and synthetic polymer paint on
canvas / 16 canvases: 200 x 200cm
(each) / Courtesy: The artist and Gow
Langsford Gallery, Auckland
Campbell Patterson
United Kingdom/New Zealand b.1983
Glue balls 2004
Digital Betacam transferred from
digital video, single channel, colour,
sound , 56:14 minutes, ed. 3/3
Chewing brothers 2005
Digital Betacam transferred from
digital video, single channel, colour,
sound, 2:59 minutes, ed. 2/3
Tickle 2005
Digital Betacam transferred from
digital video, single channel, colour,
sound, 2:47 minutes, ed. 1/3
Lifting my mother for as long
as I can 2007
Digital Betacam transferred from
digital video, single channel, colour,
sound, 3:03 minutes, ed. 2/3
Soda diary 2007
Digital Betacam transferred from
digital video, single channel, colour,
sound, 3:28 minutes, ed. 1/3
Purchased 2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Soap stealer 2004
Digital video, single channel,
continuous loop, colour,
10:54 minutes, ed. of 3
Sandwich 2008
Digital video, single channel,
continuous loop, colour,
sound,18:08 minutes, ed. of 3
Chip mountain 2009
Digital video, single channel,
continuous loop, colour, sound,
11:58 minutes, ed. of 3
Old clothes 2009
High definition digital video,
single channel, continuous loop,
colour, 4:28 minutes, ed. of 3
Shampoo disaster 2009
Digital video, single channel,
continuous loop, colour,
2:13 minutes, ed. of 3
Courtesy: The artist and Michael Lett,
Auckland
Wit Pimkanchanapong
Thailand b.1976
Fruits 2007–09
Paper, glue, wood, cardboard /
Installed dimensions: 300 x 800 x
240cm / Courtesy: The artist
Cloud 2009
6000 A3 paper sheets, bulldog clips,
plastic stoppers, wire / Installed
dimensions variable / Site-specific
work for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist
Qiu Anxiong
China b.1972
The new book of mountains and seas
(part 1) 2006
Digital hand-painted animation,
AVI file, 3 channel projection,
continuous loop exhibited from PC,
4:1, black and white, sound,
30:15 minutes, ed. 1/10 / Courtesy:
The artist and Hanart TZ Gallery
The new book of mountains and seas
(part 2) 2006–09
Digital hand-painted animation,
AVI file, 3 channel projection,
continuous loop exhibited from PC,
4:1, black and white, sound,
29:30 minutes, ed. 1/10 / Courtesy:
The artist and Hanart TZ Gallery
Kibong Rhee
South Korea b.1957
There is no place – Shallow cuts 2008
Glass, fog machine, artificial leaves,
wood, steel, sand, motor, timer /
Installed dimensions: 350 x 730 x
700cm / Courtesy: The artist and
Kukje Gallery, Seoul
Hiraki Sawa
Japan/United Kingdom b.1977
elsewhere 2003
Digital video on DVD, single channel,
continuous loop, black and white,
sound, 7:40 minutes / Courtesy:
The artist, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo, and
James Cohan Gallery, New York
trail 2005
Digital video, black and white,
sound, 14:00 minutes / Music: Dale
Berning / Courtesy: The artist, Ota
Fine Arts, Tokyo, and James Cohan
Gallery, New York
O 2009
3-channel video projection, 10
short films on monitors, 5-channel
sound by Dale Berning on spinning
speakers, colour and black and
white, 8.00 minutes / Commissioned
for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist, Ota
Fine Arts, Tokyo, and James Cohan
Gallery, New York
Shirana Shahbazi
Iran/Switzerland b.1974
From ‘Flowers, fruits & portraits’
series, 2003–ongoing, printed 2009
[Stilleben-22-2008]
Type C photograph, ed. of 5
(+ 1 AP) / 150 x 120cm
[Schmetterling-34-2009]
Type C photograph, ed. of 5
(+ 1 AP) / 120 x 150cm
[Tulpe-01-2009]
Gelatin silver print, ed. of 5
(+ 1 AP) / 90 x 70cm
[Schaedel-01-2007]
Type C photograph, ed. of 5
(+ 1 AP) / 90 x 70cm
[Voegel-08-2009]
Type C photograph, ed. of 5
(+ 1 AP) / 90 x 70cm
[KingsCanyon-01-2008]
Gelatin silver print, ed. of 5
(+ 1 AP) / 70 x 90cm
[Stilleben-31-2009]
Type C photograph, ed. of 5
(+ 1 AP) / 70 x 90cm
[Monochrome-03-2008]
Type C photograph, ed. of 5
(+ 1 AP) / 90 x 70cm
[Mineral-05-2007]
Type C photograph, ed. of 5
(+ 1 AP) / 90 x 70cm
Courtesy: The artist and Bob van
Orsouw Gallery, Zurich
Shirana Shahbazi
Iran b.1974
In collaboration with Sirous
Shaghaghi, Iran
From ‘Flowers, fruits & portraits’,
series 2003–ongoing, painted 2009
[Stilleben-28-Painting-2008]
Synthetic polymer paint on
canvas, ed. of 3 (+ 1 AP) /
600 x 1000cm
[Schaedel-03-Painting-2008]
Synthetic polymer paint on
canvas, ed. of 3 (+ 1 AP) /
600 x 1000cm
Commissioned for APT6
Courtesy: The artist and Bob van
Orsouw Gallery, Zurich
Shooshie Sulaiman
Malaysia b.1973
Miss + communication 2007
Poppy petal, ink, old photograph /
13.5 x 10cm / Private collection,
Vienna
Darkroom 2007–09
A man with two wives 2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, oil paint,
paper, frame / 53 x 62cm
224 225

Aminah baba 2009
Bee, PVA glue, hibiscus petal,
wild flower, old photograph,
frame / 84 x 69cm
Beetle + flower (Diagram 2) 2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, old
photograph, frame / 34.5 x 39cm
Beetle + flower (Diagram 3.2) 2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, old
photographs, frame /
32.5 x 26.5cm
Beetle + flower (Diagram 4) 2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, old
photograph, frame / 29 x 33.5cm
Beetle + flower (Diagram 5) 2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, old
photograph, frame / 27.2 x 35.5cm
Beetle + flower (Diagram 6) 2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, old
photograph, frame / 24 x 29cm
Bibir = lips 2009
Paper, ink, old photographs,
frame / 25.8 x 32.3cm
Che Besar Latifah Bok 2009
Graphite, tulip petal, old
photograph, frame / 84 x 69cm
Chinese, Malay and Dutch 2009
Graphite, old photographs,
frame / 26.2 x 32.4cm
Crown prince 1 2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, old
photograph, frame / 25.5 x 20cm
Crown prince 2 2009
Kesidang, graphite, old
photograph, frame / 50.2 x 28.8cm
Emperor 2009
Potato plant petal, old
photograph, frame / 55 x 47cm
Equal component 2009
Ink, old photographs, frame /
31.5 x 26.5cm
Equation of equipment 2009
Paper, ink, old photographs,
frame / 32.5 x 26.5cm
Father + daughter + love 2009
Ink, old photograph, frame /
35.5 x 43cm
Fond 2009
Paper, ink, old photographs,
frame / 29 x 24.2cm
Happy couple: A man and a
woman 2009
Hibiscus petal, synthetic polymer
paint, ink, old photographs,
frame / 22.8 x 27.8cm
Indian father + Indian mother =
Chinese daughter 2009
Lily petal, ink, old photograph,
frame / 35.5 x 29.3cm
Indian wedding 2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, old
photograph, frame / 48.5 x 41cm
Look at the eyes, nose and teeth
2009
Ink, old photograph, frame /
33 x 26.7cm
Look at the lips 2009
Ink, old photograph, frame /
26 x 33.5cm
Look at the nose, eyes and
eyebrows 2009
Ink, old photograph, frame /
35 x 26cm
Lotus, kesidang, tulips 2009
Tulip petal, lotus, kesidang /
45 x 52.3cm
Maharani 2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, old
photograph, frame / 54 x 42.8cm
Malay + inverted Chinese =
Indian 2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, paper, old
photographs, frame / 27.5 x 33cm
Malay men 2009
Graphite, old photograph,
frame / 26 x 20.8cm
The Malays who listen 2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, old
photograph, frame / 37 x 45cm
The Malays who must be heard
2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, oil paint, old
photograph, frame / 49.8 x 54.2cm
Man, 4 wives 2009
Hibiscus petal, ink, old
photographs, frame /
28.8 x 35.5cm
Man and woman unite 2009
Hibiscus petal, synthetic polymer
paint, ink, old photographs,
frame / 22.7 x 28.2cm
Masculine beauty 2009
Oil paint, paper, old photograph,
frame / 42 x 34.5cm
Masculine blind 2009
Oil paint, paper, old photograph /
34 x 27.8cm
Masculine butterfly’s neck 2009
Paper, oil paint, old photograph,
frame / 33.5 x 27cm
Masculine cheek 2009
Paper, ink, old photograph,
frame / 36.6 x 30.4cm
Masculine eyes 2009
Oil paint, paper, old photograph,
frame / 32.2 x 26cm
Masculine mask 2009
Oil paint, paper, old photograph,
frame / 42 x 34.5cm
Masculine moth’s eye 2009
Paper, oil paint, photograph,
frame / 25.3 x 18cm
Masculine mouth 2009
Oil paint, paper, old photograph,
frame / 33.7 x 28cm
Masculine nose 2009
Oil paint, paper, old photograph,
frame / 32.2 x 26cm
Masculine stroke 2009
Oil paint, paper, old photograph,
frame / 42 x 34.5cm
Menstruation: Look at the mouth
2009
Oil paint, ink, old photograph,
frame / 27.5 x 20cm
Menstruation: Look at the mouth
2009
Oil paint, ink, old photograph,
frame / 26 x 33.5cm
Menstruation: Look at the teeth
and nose 2009
Oil, paint, ink, old photograph,
frame / 33.5 x 26cm
Menstruation: Look everywhere
2009
Oil paint, ink, old photograph,
frame / 26 x 33.5cm
Mr & Mrs 2009
Paper, old photograph, frame /
27.7 x 34.3cm
Mrs Hubby & Mr Flower 2009
Hibiscus petal, paper, old
photograph, frame / 24 x 28cm
Paper + pencil attraction 2009
Paper, old photographs, frame /
24 x 29.3cm
Soul 2009
Lily petal, ink, paper, old
photograph, frame / 32.5 x 26cm
The suspect 2009
Ink, old photograph, frame /
35.9 x 43.5cm
Project for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist
Thukral and Tagra
Jiten Thukral
India b.1976
Sumir Tagra
India b.1979
Escape! For a dream land 2009
Mixed-media installation including:
Dominus Aeris – The Great,
Grand Mirage 2009
Synthetic polymer paint and
oil on canvas / Triptych:
213.5 x 213.5cm (each)
Windows of opportunity 2009
Oil on wood / 24 parts: 43 x 28cm
(each) / Installed dimensions
variable
Project for APT6
Courtesy: The artists and Gallery
Nature Morte, New Delhi
Charwei Tsai
Taiwan b.1980
Circle 2009
Digital video projection, single
channel, Quicktime, continuous
loop, 4:3, colour, sound, 40 seconds,
open edition / Commissioned by
Fondation Cartier, Paris / Courtesy:
The artist
Hand washing project 2009
Digital video projection, single
channel, continuous loop, colour,
silent / Project for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
Mushroom mantra 2009
Black ink on mushrooms / Installed
dimensions variable / Site-specific
installation for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
Sky mantra 2009
Performance for APT6
Vanuatu Sculptors
Freddy Bule
Vanuatu b.1967
Atingting rom (slit drum) 2005
Carved breadfruit tree with
synthetic polymer paint /
256 x 24 x 26cm / Gift of David
Baker through the Queensland
Art Gallery Foundation 2008 /
Collection: Queensland Art
Gallery
Atingting (slit drum) 2005
Carved breadfruit tree with
synthetic polymer paint /
230 x 35 x 31cm / Gift of David
Baker through the Queensland
Art Gallery Foundation 2008 /
Collection: Queensland Art
Gallery
Bongnaim Frederick
Vanuatu b.c.1957
Mague sagran kon (ranking black
palm) grade 4 (second time
around) c.1985
Carved black palm /
239 x 38 x 45cm / Purchased 2008.
The Queensland Government’s
Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions
Fund / Collection: Queensland
Art Gallery
Chief Joachin Kilfan
Vanuatu b.c.1963
Mague ne wurwur (ranking black
palm) grade 7 c.1990
Carved black palm with synthetic
polymer paint / 355 x 48 x 54cm /
Purchased 2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Mansak Family
Vanuatu b.unknown
Temar ne ari (ancestor spirit)
c.1995
Natural fibres, clay, synthetic
polymer paint, pig’s tusks,
coconut shells, bamboo
and sticks / 94 x 45 x 50cm /
Purchased 2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Temar ne ari (ancestor spirit)
c.1995
Natural fibres, clay, synthetic
polymer paint, ochres, coconut
shells, bamboo and sticks /
145 x 50 x 25cm / Purchased
2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Temar ne ari (ancestor spirit)
c.1995
Natural fibres, clay, synthetic
polymer paint, ochres, pig’s tusks,
bamboo and sticks /
130 x 36 x 15cm / Purchased
2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Temar ne ari (ancestor spirit)
c.1995
Natural fibres, clay, synthetic
polymer paint, ochres, pig’s
tusks, coconut shells, bamboo
and sticks / 94 x 34 x 13cm /
Purchased 2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Temar ne ari (ancestor spirit)
c.1995
Natural fibres, clay, synthetic
polymer paint, coconut shells,
bamboo and sticks /
120 x 48 x 24cm / Purchased
2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Guardian of tabou house figure
2005–06
Carved coconut wood with
natural dyes / 95 x 30 x 18cm /
Gift of David Baker through
the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2009. Donated
through the Australian
Government’s Cultural
Gifts Program / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Guardian of tabou house figure
painted 2005–06
Carved coconut wood with
natural dyes / 102 x 22 x 19cm /
Gift of David Baker through
the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2009. Donated
through the Australian
Government’s Cultural
Gifts Program / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Guardian of tabou house figure
2005–06
Carved coconut wood with
natural dyes / 95 x 30 x 18cm /
Gift of David Baker through
the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2009. Donated
through the Australian
Government’s Cultural
Gifts Program / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Guardian of tabou house figure
2005–06
Carved coconut wood with
natural dyes / 121 x 20 x 20cm /
Gift of David Baker through
the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2009. Donated
through the Australian
Government’s Cultural
Gifts Program / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Guardian of tabou house figure
2005–06
Carved coconut wood with
natural dyes / 128 x 22 x 25cm /
Gift of David Baker through
the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2009. Donated
through the Australian
Government’s Cultural
Gifts Program / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Chief Michel Marakon
Vanuatu b.c.1950
Mague ne hiwir (ranking black
palm) grade 9 c.1980
Carved black palm with synthetic
polymer paint / 257 x 44 x 50cm /
Purchased 2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Michel Rangie
Vanuatu b.c.1981
Mague ne hiwir (ranking black
palm) grade 9 painted c.2005
Carved black palm with synthetic
polymer paint / 255 x 35 x 45cm /
Gift of David Baker through
the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2008 / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Mague ne sagran (ranking black
palm) grade 4 painted c.2005
Carved black palm with synthetic
polymer paint / 250 x 38 x 50cm /
Gift of David Baker through
the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2008 / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Mague ne sagran (ranking black
palm) grade 4 painted c.2005
Carved black palm with synthetic
polymer paint / 235 x 36 x 45cm /
Gift of David Baker through
the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2008 / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Mague ne sagran (ranking black
palm) grade 4 painted c.2005
Carved black palm with synthetic
polymer paint / 250 x 38 x 50cm /
Gift of David Baker through
the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2008 / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Chief Louis Wunbae
Vanuatu b.c.1951
Mague ne wurwur (ranking black
palm) grade 7 c.1985
Black palm with synthetic
polymer paint / 280 x 46 x 55cm /
Purchased 2008. The Queensland
Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Rohan Wealleans
New Zealand b.1977
Friendship lies in the outer reaches of
space 2009
Mixed media / 177 x 120cm /
Courtesy: The artist and Hamish
McKay Gallery, Wellington
Paikea decoy, seed collector 2009
Synthetic polymer paint on
fibreglass / 27 x 62 x 440cm /
Courtesy: The artist and Hamish
McKay Gallery, Wellington
Paint ritual 2009
Synthetic polymer paint, plastic on
wall / 150 x 100cm / Courtesy: The
artist and Hamish McKay Gallery,
Wellington
Paint ritual 2009
Performance for APT6
The road to tomorrow 2009
Mixed media / 177 x 120cm /
Courtesy: The artist and Hamish
McKay Gallery, Wellington
Robin White, Leba Toki
and Bale Jione
Robin White
New Zealand b.1946
Leba Toki
Fiji b.1951
Bale Jione
Fiji b.1952
Teitei vou (A new garden) 2009
Natural dyes on barkcloth, woven
pandanus, commercial wool, woven
barkcloth, sari fabric mats / 9
components: taunamu 390 x 240cm;
butubutu 150 x 240cm; ibe vakabati
180 x 240cm; 2 sulu 79 x 242cm
(each); 2 oro 30 x 240cm (each);
2 woven mats 67 x 46cm (each).
Installed size variable / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation Grant / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
226 227

Yao Jui-chung
Taiwan b.1969
Everything will fall into ruin 1990–
2009
Black and white digital photographs,
AP 1 / 48 sheets: 100 x 150cm
(each) / Gift of the artist through the
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
2009 / Collection: Queensland Art
Gallery
Yang Shaobin
China b.1963
X – Blind Spot No. 1 2008
Oil on canvas / 354 x 240cm
X – Blind Spot No. 4 2008
Oil on canvas / 354 x 240cm
X – Blind Spot No. 7 2008
Oil on canvas / 194 x 357cm
X – Blind Spot No. 8 2008
Oil on canvas / 280 x 210cm
X – Blind Spot No. 16 2008
Fibreglass / 250 x 90 x 80cm
X – Blind Spot No. 18 2008
Fibreglass, clay / 61 x 74 x 108cm
Courtesy: The artist and Long March
Space, Beijing
YNG
(Yoshitomo Nara and graf)
Yoshitomo Nara
Japan b.1959
Hideki Toyoshima
Japan b.1971
Ryo Aoyanagi
Japan b.1974
Yasumasa Konishi
Japan b.1974
Y.N.G.M.S. (Y.N.G.’s Mobile Studio)
2009
Mixed media / Installed dimensions:
530 x 370 x 270cm / Commissioned
for APT6 and the Queensland Art
Gallery Collection with assistance
from Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo.
Purchased 2009 with funds from the
Bequest of Grace Davies and Nell
Davies through the Queensland
Art Gallery Foundation / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Zhu Weibing and Ji Wenyu
Zhu Weibing
China b.1971
Ji Wenyu
China b.1959
People holding flowers 2007
Synthetic polymer paint on
resin; velour, steel wire, dacron,
lodestone and cotton / 400 pieces:
100 x 18 x 8cm (each) / Installed
dimensions variable / The Kenneth
and Yasuko Myer Collection of
Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased
2008 with funds from Michael
Simcha Baevski through the
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation /
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Kids’ APT
Minam Apang
India b.1980
Scribbling with script 2009
A drawing activity for children which
reflects the artist’s interest in script,
storytelling and exploring language
in unexpected ways.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan
Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
Philippines/Australia b.1965
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan
Philippines/Australia b.1962
In-flight (Project: Another Country)
2009
Mixed media / Site-specific work
for APT6 / Courtesy: The artists
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
Iran b.1924
Patterns of infinity 2009
A computer touchscreen interactive
in which participants can create
colourful geometric designs.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
Gonkar Gyatso
Tibet/United Kingdom b.1961
Funky Buddhas 2009
Sculptural installation consisting
of 17 seated Buddha statues and
coloured stickers. / Commissioned
for APT6 / Courtesy: The artist
Ho Tzu Nyen
Singapore b.1976
H the Happy Robot 2009
High-definition digital video,
single channel, colour, sound, 6:42
minutes, ed. of 3 / Commissioned for
APT6 / Supported by the National
Arts Council and Singapore Film
Commission / Courtesy: The artist
Runa Islam
Bangladesh/United Kingdom b.1970
Make believe 2009
Children are invited to make their
own thaumatrope, also known as
a ‘turning wonder’. Invented in the
1820s, the thaumatrope used to be
a popular optical toy which relies on
the viewer’s persistence of vision and
short-term memory to allow images
to merge and become one.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
Ayaz Jokhio
Pakistan b.1978
99 Self portraits 2009
A mix-and-match activity based on
Ayaz Jokhio’s drawing series ‘99 Self
portraits’.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
Mansudae Art Studio
North Korea/Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea (DPRK)
est.1959
The Fairy of the Kumgang Mountains
2009
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artists
The Mekong
Rich Streitmatter-Tran
Vietnam b.1972
My River, My Future: A Children’s
Drawing Project 2009
A project in two stages, which
features drawing workshops in
countries of the Mekong River
region — Cambodia, Vietnam and
Myanmar — and Brisbane, looking at
connections children have with their
local river.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
Pacific Reggae: Roots Beyond
the Reef
Marcel Meltherorong aka Mars
Melto
New Caledonia/Vanuatu b.1975
Singsing with Marcel 2009
A multimedia interactive with
interview of performer Marcel
Meltherorong (aka Mars Melto),
providing the opportunity to create
a music video clip with him.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
Wit Pimkanchanapong
Thailand b.1976
I, you, we 2009
A multimedia interactive in which
participants’ facial features are
fragmented and recombined into
those of others to form a new portrait.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
Hiraki Sawa
Japan/United Kingdom b.1977
Every Little Thing Moving 2009
A multimedia interactive which
enables young visitors to interact with
the imagery in Sawa’s films elsewhere
2003 and trail 2005 by moving
three-dimensional objects over an
image-sensitive tabletop to make
their own contribution to the films.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
Shirana Shahbazi
Iran/Switzerland b.1974
Still life: Coconut and other things
2009
Brisbane children composed a series
of their own still life arrangements
which included tropical fruits
and flowers readily available in
Queensland. From this workshop
Shirana Shahbazi worked with
billboard painter Sirous Shaghaghi in
Iran to create an immense canvas for
the Children’s Art Centre.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
Thukral and Tagra
Jiten Thukral
India b.1976
Sumir Tagra
India b.1979
Hi! I am India 2009
A project in which children are
invited to make scenes of daily
Indian life from an array of custommade
stickers. The imagery is
designed to introduce children
to the richness of Indian visual
culture, from the historical to the
contemporary, which exist side-byside
in India today.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artists
Charwei Tsai
Taiwan b.1980
Water Project 2009
A film for children designed to evoke
the sensation of touch.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artist
YNG (Yoshitomo Nara and graf)
Yoshitomo Nara
Japan b.1959
Hideki Toyoshima
Japan b.1971
Ryo Aoyanagi
Japan b.1974
Yasumasa Konishi
Japan b.1974
The Play House 2009
A small cubbyhouse environment
designed by YNG will attract curious
young visitors to pay a visit and stay
a while.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artists
Zhu Weibing
China b.1971
Ji Wenyu
China b.1959
The Hidden Garden 2009
Children can find a place to play in
Ji Wenyu and Zhu Weibing’s fabric
environment, designed in the style of
a traditional Chinese walled garden.
Commissioned for APT6 / Courtesy:
The artists
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Artist biographies
Minam Apang
b.1980 Naharlagun, Arunachal Pradesh, India
Lives and works in Bangalore, India
Minam Apang's drawings reference the imagery of
India’s cities, as well as the mythology of her native
Arunachal Pradesh in India’s far north-east, located
between China, Bhutan and Myanmar. Trained in
traditional Buddhist thangka (scroll) painting, as
well as contemporary Western practices, Apang
investigates the forms, methods and languages
of drawing, while reflecting a culture that is
interconnected and rich in narrative. She studied
for a Bachelor of Fine Art at Elmhurst College,
United States, and the University of Leeds, United
Kingdom, as part of an exchange program in 2001.
She initiated the art collaborative Lazy Rebels while
studying for her Masters in Mumbai in 2004.
Exhibitions (solo): Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, India,
2008, 2007. Exhibitions (group): ‘Present/Future’,
National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, 2005.
Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan
Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
b.1965 Manila, the Philippines
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan
b.1962 Cagayan Valley, the Philippines
Live and work in Brisbane, Australia
The husband-and-wife team of Isabel and Alfredo
Aquilizan creates works that use the processes
of collecting, collaborating and educating to
express ideas of migration, family and memory.
Often working with local communities, the
Aquilizans compose elaborate, formal installations
reflecting individual experiences of dislocation
and change. Having migrated from the Philippines
to Australia, the Aquilizans’ work reflects personal
experience, while conveying points of exchange
and communication that extend beyond borders.
Alfredo Aquilizan received a Bachelor of Fine
Arts from the Philippine Women’s University
and a Masters of Arts in Fine Arts from Anglia
Polytechnic University, Norwich School of Arts
and Design, United Kingdom, also undertaking
Education units in Teaching at the University of the
Philippines. Isabel Aquilizan received a Bachelor
of Communication, majoring in Theatre Arts
Production, from Assumption College, Makati City,
the Philippines.
Exhibitions (solo): Logan Art Gallery, Brisbane,
2008; The Drawing Room, Manila, 2006.
Exhibitions (group): Singapore Biennale, 2008;
Adelaide Biennial, Australia, 2008; 15th Biennale
of Sydney, 2006; Gwangju Biennale, South Korea,
2004; 50th Biennale of Venice, 2003.
Chen Chieh-jen
b.1960 Taoyuan, Taiwan
Lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan
Chen Chieh-jen has been a significant figure in
the development of Taiwanese conceptual art
since the early 1980s. A self-taught artist, he was
a prominent and controversial figure during
Taiwan’s martial law period (1949–87), and
his practice — photography, installation and
performance — directly reflects on the historical
events through which he has lived. Chen’s first
film was completed in 2001.
Exhibitions (solo): Museo Nacional Centro de
Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2008; Asia Society
Museum, New York, 2007. Exhibitions (group):
53rd Biennale of Venice, 2009; 10th Istanbul
Biennial, 2007; 15th Biennale of Sydney, 2006;
51st Biennale of Venice, 2005.
Chen Qiulin
b.1975 Hubei, China
Lives and works in Chengdu, China
Chen Qiulin creates evocative works that comment
on the scale and pace of change in contemporary
China, and includes concern for the people
living along the Yangtze River. Thousands of
communities have been displaced by the Three
Gorges Dam hydro-electric project, including
those of Chen’s hometown in Wanzhou. Chen
studied printmaking at the Sichuan Fine Arts
Institute, China, and graduated in 2000. Her
work has since included photography, sculpture,
performance and installation.
Exhibitions (solo): University Art Museum, Albany,
New York, 2007; Long March Space, Beijing, 2006.
Exhibitions (group): Gwangju Biennale, South
Korea, 2008; ‘China Power Station Part 2’, Astrup
Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway,
2008; ‘The Wall’, China Millennium Art Museum,
Beijing, 2005, toured to Albright-Knox Art Gallery,
Buffalo, United States, 2005.
Cheo Chai-Hiang
b.1946 Singapore
Lives and works in Singapore
Cheo Chai-Hiang is one of Singapore’s pioneering
contemporary artists; his instruction pieces from
the early 1970s are generally regarded as the first
conceptual art works made in the country. Cheo
initially eschewed formal art instruction in favour
of self-education. He left Singapore for the United
Kingdom, however, in 1971 to pursue formal art
training, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts
(Hons) in Fine Art from Brighton Polytechnic in
1975, and a Master of Art from the Royal College
of Art in London in 1978.
Exhibitions (solo): Osage Gallery, Hong Kong,
2009; Sculpture Square, Singapore, 2005; Casula
Powerhouse, Sydney, 2000. Exhibitions (group):
Singapore Biennale, 2008; ‘Telah Terbit (Out
Now)’, Singapore Art Museum, 2006.
DAMP
Dan Cass
b.1970 Melbourne, Australia
Rob Creedon
b.1969 Melbourne
Narelle Desmond
b.1970 Melbourne
Ry Haskings
b.1977 Melbourne
Sam George
b.1987 Melbourne
Sharon Goodwin
b.1973 Melbourne
Deb Kunda
b.1972 Melbourne
James Lynch
b.1974 Melbourne
Dan Moynihan
b.1974 Melbourne
Lisa Radford
b.1976 Melbourne
Nat Thomas
b.1967 Brisbane, Australia
Kylie Wilkinson
b.1971 Melbourne
est.1995 Melbourne
DAMP is an artist group with 12 current members.
Membership has been fluid over the years, with
an alumnus numbering over 70, though not all
members identify themselves as artists. Many of
DAMP’s projects involve audience participation,
inviting them into the group or diffusing DAMP
members into the audience, deliberately confusing
the two. DAMP does not have a particular identity
beyond being simply a group, and is consequently
open to change and external influence.
Exhibitions (solo): Heide Museum of Modern Art,
Melbourne, 2008; Uplands Gallery, Melbourne,
2007; Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide,
2001; 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne, 1999.
Exhibitions (group): ‘2004: Australian Culture Now’,
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2004;
‘Charley’, PS1, New York, 2002; ‘Octopus 2’,
200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne, 2001.
Solomon Enos
b. 1976 Wai’anae, Hawai’i, United States
Lives and works in Kalihi, Hawai’i
Born and raised in Wai’anae, Solomon Enos is
a native Hawaiian painter, teacher and activist.
Dedicated to preserving and communicating
his Maoli culture through art, Enos has garnered
respect for his paintings, children’s book
illustrations and major mural commissions. Between
2006 and 2007, he published Polyfantastica, an
epic 40 000-year backstory to Hawaiian culture
in a weekly comic in the Honolulu Advertiser
newspaper. Enos, with his family, also acts as
caretaker of the Kalihi Valley Nature Park in Hawai’i.
Exhibitions (group): Hawai‘i State Art Museum,
Honolulu, 2009; ‘Nä Akua Wahine: Celebrating
the Female Gods of Hawai‘i Nei’, Bishop Museum,
Honolulu, 2005; ‘Right to Know: Multimedia
Installation on the World of Information’, The
Arts at Marks Garage, Manoa, Hawai’i, 2005.
Publications: Ka Mo’olelo O Hi’iakaikapoliopele
(The Epic Tale of Hi’iakaikapoliopele), text and
translations by Puakea Nogelmeier, illustrations by
Solomon Enos, Awaiaulu Inc., Honululu, Hawai’i,
2006; Akua Hawai’i: Hawaiian Gods and their
Stories, text by Kimo Armitage, illustrations by
Solomon Enos, Kamahoi Press, Bishop Museum,
Honolulu, Hawai’i, 2005.
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
b.1924 Qazvin, Iran
Lives and works in Tehran, Iran
With a distinguished career spanning over
50 years, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
is a senior figure in contemporary Iranian art.
Farmanfarmaian spent many years living in New
York as an art student and, later, as a fashion
illustrator at department store Bonwit Teller, where
she worked alongside Andy Warhol. She returned
to Iran in 1957 and established herself as an
artist, holding major exhibitions in Tehran, Paris,
Venice and New York. After the Islamic Revolution
of 1979, she took refuge in New York, returning
permanently to Tehran in 2000.
Exhibitions (solo): Leighton House Museum,
London, 2008; The Third Line, Dubai, United Arab
Emirates, 2007; Victoria and Albert Museum,
London, 2006. Exhibitions (group): ‘East-West
Divan’, 53rd Biennale of Venice, 2009; ‘The Power
of the Ornament’, Belvedere, Vienna, Austria, 2008;
Biennale of Venice, 1964 and 1958.
Subodh Gupta
b.1964 Khagaul, Bihar, India
Lives and works in Gurgaon, Haryana, India
One of India’s most prominent contemporary
artists, Subodh Gupta works in a wide range
of mediums, including painting, installation,
photography, video and performance. He is
perhaps best known for his large sculptures
constructed from dozens of stainless steel and
copper utensils, which translate the conceptual art
format of the readymade into a rich exploration
of everyday life in India, including the shifting
notions of artistic and economic value. Born in
the predominantly rural state of Bihar in central
India, Gupta studied for a Bachelor of Fine Art
(Painting) at the College of Arts and Crafts, Patna,
India, between 1983 and 1988. He has lived in
New Delhi since 1990, and currently resides in the
rapidly growing satellite city of Gurgaon.
Exhibitions (solo): Hauser & Wirth, London, 2009;
Arario Gallery, Beijing, 2008; BALTIC Centre for
Contemporary Art, Gateshead, United Kingdom,
2007. Exhibitions (group): ‘Altermodern’, Tate
Triennial, Tate Britain, London, 2009; ‘Indian
Highway’, Serpentine Gallery, London, 2008;
51st Biennale of Venice, 2005.
Gonkar Gyatso
b.1961 Lhasa, Tibet
Lives and works in London, United Kingdom
Gonkar Gyatso grew up during the period of
the Cultural Revolution in China, when much
art and culture was destroyed, and traditional
Tibetan art forms — most of which were tied
to religion — were forbidden. While studying
Chinese calligraphy in Beijing, Gyatso became
aware of the distinctiveness of his heritage and,
after graduating, moved to Dharamsala, India,
where he studied traditional Tibetan thangka
(scroll) painting before moving to London. Gyatso
founded the Sweet Tea House there in 1985,
which became the first Tibetan avant-garde artists’
association. Since his move to London, his works
have aimed to map the shifts in identity and
belonging caused by continual migration. His
current practice combines traditional calligraphy
and the iconography of Buddhist thangka with
collages of colourful stickers, cut-out text and
mass-media imagery, subverting typecast
notions of Tibetan culture and considering the
popularisation of Buddhism in the West.
Exhibitions (solo): ‘Tibetan Word: Art of
Communication’, Sweet Tea House, London,
2004. Exhibitions (group): 53rd Biennale of
Venice, 2009; ‘A Question of Evidence’, Thyssen-
Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria,
2008; ‘Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves’,
ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2007.
Kyungah Ham
b.1966 Seoul, South Korea
Lives and works in Seoul
Kyungah Ham works in installation, video,
performance and traditional art and craft. Her
seemingly absurd actions — like replacing
cappuccino cups in France with those ‘stolen’ from
a Korean cafe, or filming the journeys of people
wearing yellow in several Asian cities — result in
arrestingly deadpan yet disturbing works. In 1989,
she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the
Seoul National University, Korea, and undertook
the Graduate Program in Painting at the Pratt
Institute, New York, in 1992. She was awarded a
Master of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts,
New York, in 1995. Recent works include blueand-white
porcelain sculptures of weaponry and
Persian carpets traced in oil, critically exploring the
dynamics of war.
Exhibitions (solo): SSamzie Space, Seoul, 2008.
Exhibitions (group): Prague Biennial, Czech
Republic, 2009; ‘Correspondence’, Artsonje
Center, Seoul, 2008; Gwangju Biennale, South
Korea, 2006; Yokohama Triennale, Japan, 2001.
Ho Tzu Nyen
b.1976 Singapore
Lives and works in Singapore
Ho Tzu Nyen’s practice includes filmmaking,
painting, performance and writing, and
investigates the forms, methods and languages
of art; the relationship between the still, the
painted and the moving image; and the
constructed nature of history. Between 1999
and 2002, he undertook a Bachelor of Creative
Arts (Dean’s Award) at the Victorian College
of the Arts, University of Melbourne, and from
2003 undertook a Master of Art (Research) at the
Southeast Asian Studies Programme, National
University of Singapore. In May 2009, Ho Tzu Nyen
presented his first feature film, HERE, at the 41st
Directors’ Fortnight, at the Cannes International
Film Festival, France.
Exhibitions (solo): The Substation, Singapore,
2003. Exhibitions (group): Singapore Biennale,
2006; 3rd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Japan,
2005; 26th São Paulo Biennial, Brazil, 2004. Film
festivals: Cannes International Film Festival, 2009;
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Venice Film Festival, 2009; Hong Kong
International Film Festival, 2006.
Emre Hüner
b.1977 Istanbul, Turkey
Lives and works in Istanbul
Emre Hüner works in various media, including
drawing, video, animation and site-specific
installation. He studied at the Mimar Sinan Fine
Arts University, Istanbul, and the Brera Academy of
Fine Arts, Milan, where he spent eight years before
returning to Istanbul in 2007. Hüner crafts intricate
and luminous drawings which are rendered with
the colour and precision of miniature paintings.
Interested in the intersection between systems of
control and social structures, his work draws on
historical and aesthetic sources, including classic
European cinema, literature, scientific journals,
medieval bestiaries, warfare, technology, medical
practices and ideological regimes.
Exhibitions (solo): Rodeo Gallery, Istanbul, 2009;
BAS, Istanbul, 2007. Exhibitions (group): ‘The
Generational: Younger than Jesus’, New Museum
of Contemporary Art, New York, 2009; Manifesta 7,
Trentino, Italy, 2008; 10th Istanbul Biennale, 2007.
Raafat Ishak
b.1967 Cairo, Egypt
Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia
Raafat Ishak’s practice is informed by his studies in
architecture, his cultural heritage, and a beautifully
muted graphic style. He roams freely among art
historical antecedents, across centuries, cultures
and within his own community for inspiration
and consolidation. In 1990, he graduated with a
Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting), Victorian College
of the Arts, Melbourne, and in 2004 received a
Graduate Diploma in Architecture (History and
Conservation Practice), from the University of
Melbourne.
Exhibitions (solo): Sutton Gallery, Melbourne,
2009; Ocular Lab, Melbourne, 2007; Conical
Gallery, Melbourne, 2003. Exhibitions (group):
TarraWarra Biennial, Yarra Valley, Australia,
2006; Adelaide Biennial, Australia, 2006; ‘2004:
Australian Culture Now’, National Gallery of
Victoria, Melbourne, 2004.
Runa Islam
b.1970 Dhaka, Bangladesh
Lives and works in London, United Kingdom
Runa Islam’s lyrical films reference the history
and vocabulary of cinema. Working with Super-8
and 16mm film, Islam examines the mechanics
of vision through installations which reveal the
production context of filmmaking as a means of
looking beyond the frame, and also highlighting
the inherently illusory and magical nature of the
medium. Between 2002 and 2004, she studied for
a Master of Philosophy at the Royal College of Art,
London. In 2008, she was a finalist in the Turner
Prize at the Tate Britain, London.
Exhibitions (solo): Shugo Arts, Tokyo, 2008;
Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland, 2008; Serpentine
Gallery, London, 2006. Exhibitions (group): ‘The
Cinema Effect’, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture
Garden, Washington DC, United States, 2008;
Manifesta 7, Trentino, Italy, 2008; ‘Brave New
Worlds’, Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, United
States, 2007.
Ayaz Jokhio
b.1978 Mehrabpur, Sindh, Pakistan
Lives and works in Lahore, Pakistan
Ayaz Jokhio’s meticulously produced paintings,
drawings and installations use ironic humour
and the relation between images and text as a
means to question the definition of art and its
role in the contemporary world. Beginning his
career as a poet and cartoonist, Jokhio has also
worked in film and documentary, and received
his Bachelor of Fine Art from the National College
of Arts, Lahore, in 2001. His works often involve a
form of conceptual play with art history and the
conventions of painting, such as inverting the
hierarchy between art works and their labels on
the gallery wall, or making large paintings of the
backs of snapshot photographs.
Exhibitions (solo): Grey Noise Gallery, Lahore,
2008, and 2009. Exhibitions (group): ‘Hanging
Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan’, Asia
Society, New York, 2009; ‘Drawn From Line’, Green
Cardamom, London, 2008; National Art Gallery,
Islamabad, Pakistan, 2007.
Takeshi Kitano
b.1947 Tokyo, Japan
Lives and works in Tokyo
Director, actor, author, comedian, artist and cult
television personality, Takeshi Kitano has forged
an original and idiosyncratic film practice unique
in contemporary cinema. Drawing on genre
cinema and Japanese consumer culture, Kitano’s
yakuza (Japanese mafia) films and self-reflexive
comedies blend action cinema with a strong sense
of the absurd in contemporary life. Beginning
his career as a comic presenter on Japanese TV,
his legendary alter ego, Beat Takeshi, is one of
the most identifiable pop culture icons in Japan,
and Kitano continues to appear on long-running
television shows.
Ang Lee
b.1954 Pingtung, Taiwan
Lives and works in Larchmont, United States
Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Ang Lee has
constructed a remarkably diverse filmography,
ranging from period dramas and literary
adaptations to martial arts epics and human
dramas. Following his graduation from New York
University, Lee’s first two films, Pushing Hands 1992
and The Wedding Banquet 1993, were based on
the Chinese–American experience. Their success
led to his return to Taiwan to make Eat Drink Man
Woman 1995, and he has worked in both the
United States and Asia ever since. The narratives
of his deeply humanist films are characterised
by notions of marginalisation and transformation
in characters exploring their gender, sexual and
cultural identity, and their filial and social duties.
Mansudae Art Studio
est.1959 Pyongyang, North Korea/Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)
Co-organised By Nicholas Bonner (China/United
Kingdom) and Suhanya Raffel (Curatorial Manager,
Asian and Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery)
Mansudae Art Studio artists commissioned
for APT6:
Choe Chang Ho
b.1960 North Korea (DPRK)
Choe Chang Ho
b.1970 North Korea (DPRK)
Han Guang Hun
b.1976 North Korea (DPRK)
Hong Jin Son
b.1977 North Korea (DPRK)
Im Hyok
b.1965 North Korea (DPRK)
Jang Hue Ro
b.1954 North Korea (DPRK)
Kang Yong Sam
b.1956 North Korea (DPRK)
Kim Hung IL
b.1965 North Korea (DPRK)
Kim Yong IL
b.1971 North Korea (DPRK)
Kim Yong Myong
b.1977 North Korea (DPRK)
Ma Yong Chol
b.1977 North Korea (DPRK)
O Sung Gyu
b.1969 North Korea (DPRK)
Pak Guang IL
b.1973 North Korea (DPRK)
Rim Ho Chol
b.1954 North Korea (DPRK)
Ryu Guon Chol
b.1975 North Korea (DPRK)
The Mansudae Art Studio is an official artist studio
(changjaksa) in Pyongyang, Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea (DPRK), which employs over
1000 artists in the disciplines of painting, drawing,
embroidery and mosaic. Artistic themes vary, and
may be revolutionary, social, political and historical
in content, or purely aesthetic, and are expressed
in media such as sculpture, poster art, ceramics
and painting. Installed in streets, schools, cinemas
and official buildings, they function as a form of
public art, and are created with virtuosic technical
skill by groups of artists, reflecting the state’s
collective ethos.
Nicholas Bonner is a British-born filmmaker and
landscape architect based in Beijing. He first
visited North Korea (DPRK) in 1992, and soon
after established Koryo Tours (with Josh Green),
to organise trips to North Korea (DPRK) and
promote cultural exchange. Bonner and director
Daniel Gordon’s award-winning documentary films
include The Game of their Lives 2002, which traces
the North Korean soccer team that qualified for
the 1966 World Cup quarter finals; A State of Mind
2004, which follows the daily lives of gymnasts
training for the Mass Games in Pyongyang; and
Crossing the Line 2008, which looks at American
military defectors.
Rudi Mantofani
b.1973 Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia
Lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Rudi Mantofani is a sculptor and painter whose
work takes ordinary objects and landscapes and
transforms them into strange or absurd ‘visual
parables’. In 1993, Mantofani helped form the
Jendela Art Group, a collective of five west
Sumatran artists who studied together at the
Indonesia Institute of the Arts in Yogyakarta and
continue to exhibit together today. With a focus
on the mundane and everyday, rather than the
largely figurative and stridently political works that
dominated Indonesian art in the 1990s, Mantofani
and the Jendela artists avoid ideological positions,
preferring a more ambivalent and metaphorical
approach to art and politics.
Exhibitions (solo): CP Artspace, Jakarta, Indonesia,
2006. Exhibitions (group): Jakarta Biennale, 2009;
‘Jendela: A Play of the Ordinary’, NUS Museum,
Singapore, 2009; CP Open Biennale, National
Gallery, Jakarta, 2003.
Mataso Printmakers
Patrik Abel
b.unknown Vanuatu
Eddy Baul
b.1981 Vanuatu
Stanley Firiam
b.unknown Vanuatu
Priscilla Thomas
b.unknown Vanuatu
Saires Kalo
1983–2009 Vanuatu
David Kolin
b.1983 Vanuatu
Herveline Lité
b.1980 Vanuatu
Apia Najos
b.unknown Vanuatu
Sepa Seule
b.1983 Vanuatu
Simeon Simix
b.1981 Vanuatu
Live and work in Ohlen Village, Port Vila, Vanuatu
The Mataso Printmakers originally came together
in 2004 for a series of workshops developed by
Carl Amneus, Jack Siviu Martau and Australian
artist Newell Harry. Most of them come from the
island of Mataso, which is situated 50 kilometres
off the capital island of Efate. Due to economic
circumstances, Mataso islanders have relocated
to the satellite village of Ohlen in Port Vila, and
have grown up exposed to outside influences
like television, advertising, bars, reggae and soul
music. The prints reflect the changes that have
occurred since independence in 1980, while also
drawing on stylistic forms derived from kastom
lore and cultural practices such as sand-drawing.
The Mekong
Bùi Công Khánh, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba,
Sopheap Pich, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Svay Ken,
Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu, Vandy Rattana
Co-organised by Rich Streitmatter-Tran (Vietnam)
and Russell Storer (Curator, Contemporary Asian
Art, Queensland Art Gallery)
The Mekong River is one of the longest rivers in
Asia, running from its source in China through the
countries of Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand,
Cambodia and Vietnam. Difficult to navigate, the
Mekong has historically formed connections, as
well as a border, between the peoples who live
along its course. The Mekong platform within
APT6 presents a vivid, multi-layered view of a
complex and rapidly transforming region — a place
that is becoming increasingly prominent culturally,
politically and economically. Key themes include
changing societies and cultures, such as tensions
between tradition and modernity, and between
Buddhist teachings and Western values.
Rich Streitmatter-Tran is an artist based in Ho Chi
Minh City, Vietnam, who works in performance,
photography, video and installation, often in
collaboration with others. He has written widely
on the art of South-East Asia, and in 2005–06
he conducted the research project ‘Mediating
the Mekong’ with the support of a Martell
Contemporary Asian Art Research Grant and
the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong.
Bùi Công Khánh
b.1972 Da Nang, Vietnam
Lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Bùi Công Khánh’s paintings, performances,
sculptures and ceramics address history and
contemporary society in Vietnam. He graduated
with a Bachelor of Fine Art in painting from the
University of Fine Arts, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
His paintings and drawings are often figurative
and deeply personal, drawing on Buddhist and
Taoist philosophy as well as addressing the
influences of Western culture and consumerism
on Vietnamese daily life.
Exhibitions (group): ‘Intersection VietNam’,
Valentine Willie Fine Art, Singapore, 2009; ‘Time
Ligaments’, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong,
2009; ‘Who Do You Think We Are?’, Bui Gallery,
Hanoi, Vietnam, 2009, ‘Reflow’, Java Cafe and
Gallery, Phnom Penh, 2006; Nippon International
Performance Art Festival, Japan, 2004.
Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba
b.1968 Tokyo, Japan
Lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba often employs allegorical
imagery to explore the influence of war, mass
migration and social change on Vietnam and the
world over the past few decades. He completed
a Master of Fine Arts at the Maryland Institute
College of Art, United States, in 1994, after
receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School
of the Art Institute of Chicago, in 1992. He moved
to Ho Chi Minh City in the late 1990s, and has
become renowned for a series of video works
filmed underwater, conceived as memorials to
people lost and displaced by war and conflict.
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Exhibitions (solo): Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2008;
The Asia Society, New York, 2008; Kunstmuseum
Luzern, Switzerland, 2007. Exhibitions (group):
Gwangju Biennale, Korea, 2006; 51st Biennale of
Venice, 2005; Biennale of Sydney, 2002.
Sopheap Pich
b.1971 Battambang, Cambodia
Lives and works in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Working with the ubiquitous Cambodian materials
of rattan and bamboo, Sopheap Pich’s poetic and
tightly realised works connect to traditional craft and
avant-garde sculpture, reflecting Pich’s upbringing
and current experience in Cambodia, as well as his
years living and studying in the United States. He
completed a Masters of Fine Art in painting at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999, after
being awarded a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting)
in 1995 from the University of Massachusetts. He
returned to live and work in Phnom Penh in 2003,
when he established the Saklapel artist group with
Leang Seckon and Chat Piersath.
Exhibitions (solo): Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York,
2009; Gallery H, Bangkok, 2007; Sala Art Space,
Phnom Penh, 2007. Exhibitions (group): The 4th
Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Japan, 2009; ‘Forever
Until Now’, 10 Chancery Lane, Hong Kong, 2009;
‘Strategies from Within’, Ke Center, Shanghai, 2008.
Manit Sriwanichpoom
b.1961 Bangkok, Thailand
Lives and works in Bangkok
Manit Sriwanichpoom’s photographs are
renowned for their witty and provocative
commentary on Thai life and culture. He received
a Bachelor of Art (Visual Art) from Srinakharinvirot
University, Bangkok, in 1984, and has also worked
as a commercial photographer and social activist,
producing the political documentary Citizen
Juling 2008 with Ing K and Kraisak Choonhavan.
Ongoing strands of Sriwanichpoom’s work include
street photography and portraiture, as well as
his ‘Pink Man’ series, depicting an archetypal,
alienated consumer travelling the globe.
Exhibitions (solo): Place M, Tokyo, 2008; Centre
for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 2008.
Exhibitions (group): ‘Thermocline of Art: New
Asian Waves’, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2007;
Gwangju Biennale, Korea, 2006; Thai Pavilion,
50th Biennale of Venice, 2003.
Svay Ken
1933–2008 Takeo Province/Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Svay Ken is considered a senior figure in
Cambodian contemporary art, and his paintings
provide a unique and detailed document of
Cambodian society and its transformations over
the past 60 years. Svay took up painting to support
his family in 1993, just prior to retiring from his job
as a porter at the Hotel Le Royal in Phnom Penh.
He later set up his own gallery near Wat Phnom in
the centre of the city, painting every day until his
death in 2008.
Exhibitions (solo): Bophana Audiovisual Resource
Centre, Phnom Penh, 2008; Reyum Institute of
Art and Culture, Phnom Penh, 2001. Exhibitions
(group): ‘Forever Until Now: Contemporary Art
from Cambodia’, 10 Chancery Lane, Hong Kong,
2009; 1st Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial, Japan, 1999.
Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu
Tun Win Aung
b.1975 Yalutt, Myanmar
Wah Nu
b.1977 Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar
Live and work in Yangon
Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu are an artist couple
who maintain a studio in Yangon, Myanmar. Both
work in a range of media, including painting,
installation, performance and video. Tun Win
Aung’s multimedia installations and performances
are often produced specifically for outdoor sites,
responding to local histories and environments,
while Wah Nu’s paintings and video works use
colour and symbolism to create dreamlike, wistful
impressions of her surroundings. They both
graduated from the University of Culture, Yangon,
Myanmar, in 1994 — Wah Nu with a Bachelor of
Art (Music), and Tun Win Aung a Bachelor of Art
(Sculpture).
Tun Win Aung: Exhibitions (solo): Lokanat Art
Galleries, Yangon, 2001, 1999. Exhibitions (group):
‘Contemporary Art from Myanmar’, Gallery Old
Firehouse, Bad Aibling, Germany, 2009; ‘Off the
Record #2’, Shimbashi Station, Tokyo, 2007; 11th
Asian Art Biennale, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2004; 2nd
Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Japan, 2002.
Wah Nu: Exhibitions (solo): Art U-Room, Tokyo,
2008, 2005; Lokanat Art Galleries, Yangon, 2004.
Exhibitions (group): ‘Contemporary Art from
Myanmar’, Gallery Old Firehouse, Bad Aibling,
Germany, 2009; ‘Off the Record #2’, Shimbashi
Station, Tokyo, 2007; 3rd Fukuoka Asian Art
Triennale, Japan, 2005; 11th Asian Art Biennale,
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2004.
Vandy Rattana
b.1980 Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Lives and works in Phnom Penh
Vandy Rattana participated in foundation education
at the Pannasastra University of Cambodia, and is a
self-taught photographer who has also worked as a
photojournalist. He is active in the development of
contemporary art and photography in Cambodia,
and is one of the five founders of Stiev Selepak,
which set up Sa Sa Gallery in Phnom Penh in 2008,
the country’s first artist-run space. Vandy’s choice
of subject matter reflects his daily experience,
and his photographs are known for their strong
composition, compelling narrative, and subtle
commentary on Cambodian life and culture.
Exhibitions (group): ‘Forever Until Now:
Contemporary Art from Cambodia’, 10 Chancery
Lane, Hong Kong, 2009; ‘Strategies from Within’,
Ke Center, Shanghai, 2008; ‘Another Asia’,
13th Noorderlicht International Photofestival,
Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, 2006.
Tracey Moffatt
b.1960 Brisbane, Australia
Lives and works in New York, United States;
and the Sunshine Coast, Australia
One of Australia’s most prominent artists, Tracey
Moffatt works in photography, video and film.
She graduated from the Queensland College of
Art’s Film and Video course in 1982 and, since
her first solo exhibition in 1989, has maintained
a high profile as one of the key Australian artists
exploring issues of identity and gender, especially
in relation to Aboriginal Australia.
Exhibitions: (solo): Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney,
2008; Location One, New York, 2008; Stills Gallery,
Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 2006; Montreal
Museum of Fine Arts, Canada, 2005; Museum of
Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2003–04. Exhibitions:
(group): Biennale of Sydney, 2008; Brooklyn
Museum of Art, New York, 2008; Liverpool Biennial,
United Kingdom, 2008; Solomon R Guggenheim
Museum, New York, 2007; Sharjah Biennial, United
Arab Emirates, 2005.
Farhad Moshiri
Shiraz, Iran
Lives and works in Tehran, Iran
Farhad Moshiri is one of Iran’s most internationally
visible artists, due in part to his deft, humorous
and visually seductive examinations of popular
culture and the modern world. From 1981, he
studied art and film at the California Institute of
the Arts, United States, and was awarded a Master
of Fine Art in 1984. Returning to Iran, his works
after this time focused on painting and mixed-
media work. Using a refined pop aesthetic, Moshiri
conjures candy-hued visions of commoditydriven
contemporary society, displacing common
representations of Iran as a place of austerity and
violence. Ambivalence, parody and play are part
and parcel of Moshiri’s visual language, which,
while drawing heavily on the vernacular imagery of
modern Iran, is also steeped in the visual traditions
of Persian culture. Moshiri also works as a curator.
Exhibitions (solo): The Third Line, Dubai, United
Arab Emirates, 2009; Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin,
Paris, 2008; Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels,
Belgium, 2008; Daneyal Mahmood Gallery,
New York, 2007. Exhibitions (group): Singapore
Biennale, 2008; Sharjah Biennial, United Arab
Emirates, 2003; ‘Iranian Pool’, Rooseum Center for
Contemporary Art, Malmö, Sweden, 2003.
Kohei Nawa
b.1975 Osaka, Japan
Lives and works in Kyoto, Japan
As a sculptor, Kohei Nawa is concerned with forms
and surfaces and how they interact to become
objects. Between 1994 and 1998, Nawa undertook
a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art Sculpture) at the Kyoto
City University of Art, Japan, and participated in
an exchange program studying sculpture at the
Royal College of Art, London, from 1998 to 1999.
He completed a Master of Arts (Fine Art Sculpture)
at Kyoto City University of Art, and in 2003 earned
his PhD. Nawa’s sculptures often exploit the tactile
nature of surfaces, as in his ‘PixCell’ series (started
in 2002), in which he covers the surfaces of objects
with glass beads of various sizes. The outer layer
suggests a molecular structure or the pixels of the
computer screen.
Exhibitions (solo): Galerie Vera Munro, Hamburg,
Germany, 2009; Miro Foundation, Barcelona,
2008; Ierimonti Gallery, Milan, 2007; SCAI The
Bathhouse, Tokyo, 2006. Exhibitions (group):
‘Parallel Worlds’, Museum of Contemporary Art,
Tokyo, 2008; ‘Great New Wave: Contemporary
Art from Japan’, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Canada,
2008; ‘Roppongi Crossing’, Mori Art Museum,
Tokyo, 2007; Biennial of Valencia, Spain, 2005.
Shinji Ohmaki
b.1971 Gifu, Japan
Lives and works in Tokyo, Japan
Shinji Ohmaki’s installations create absorbing
and labyrinthine environments through a skilful
deployment of repetition and scale, and the use of
everyday materials such as flour, correction fluid
and thread. Often working with the architecture of
the gallery, he transforms spaces so that boundaries
between the interior and exterior become blurred.
The formal aesthetic structures of Japanese
architecture and Zen gardens are important points
of departure for Ohmaki, as is their function as
spaces for meditation and contemplation. Ohmaki
graduated from the Department of Sculpture, Tokyo
National University of Arts and Music, in 1995, and
completed his Master of Arts in Sculpture in 1997.
Exhibitions (solo): 21st Century Museum of
Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan, 2007;
Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo, 2005. Exhibitions (group):
Yokohama Triennale, Japan, 2008; ‘Global Players’,
Ludwig Forum Aachen, Germany, 2006.
The One Year Drawing Project
Muhanned Cader, Thamotharampillai
Shanaathanan, Chandraguptha Thenuwara,
Jagath Weerasinghe
The One Year Drawing Project is a drawing
exchange involving four of Sri Lanka's most
acclaimed contemporary artists. Organised by
curator Sharmini Pereira and originally published
as an artists’ book by the imprint Raking Leaves,
the project ran between May 2005 and October
2007, when each artist simultaneously exchanged
unique drawings between their respective studios
around Sri Lanka.
Muhanned Cader
b.1966 Colombo, Sri Lanka
Lives and works in Sri Lanka and Pakistan
Muhanned Cader left high school at the age of
16 to pursue the visual arts through a job in the
advertising industry. In 1989, he received an
International scholarship and undertook study at
the Kendall College of Art and Design, Michigan,
United States, and studied painting (Master of
Fine Arts) at the Art Institute of Chicago in the
early 1990s. Returning to Colombo, he has taught
painting and drawing at the Vibhavi Institute of
Fine Arts. His work has been exhibited widely
including in Sri Lanka, India, Singapore, London
and the United States.
Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan
b.1969 Jaffna, Sri Lanka
Lives and works in New Delhi, India; and Jaffna
Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan completed a
Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1998 and a Master of Fine
Arts (painting) in 2000 at the University of Delhi.
His first solo exhibition was held in 1998 at the
artist-run Heritage Art Gallery, Colombo. Since
2001, he has worked as a senior lecturer in Fine
Art at the University of Jaffna. He has worked as
an artist and as a curator, and has exhibited in Sri
Lanka and India as well as in the United Kingdom.
Chandraguptha Thenuwara
b.1960 Galle, Sri Lanka
Lives and works in Colombo , Sri Lanka
Chandraguptha Thenuwara studied painting at the
Moscow State Institute, USSR, between 1985 and
1992. In 1993, he founded the Vibhavi Academy
of Fine Arts (VAFA), an artist-run art school and
exhibition space. His first solo exhibition was
held in 1978 at the Samudra Gallery, Colombo,
and he continued to exhibit across Sri Lanka
and the USSR. His ongoing series of works titled
‘Barrelism‘, along with other works, have appeared
in major exhibitions worldwide.
Jagath Weerasinghe
b.1954 Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
Lives and works in Colombo , Sri Lanka
Jagath Weerasinghe studied painting (Master of
Fine Arts) at the American University, Washington
D.C., and the Institute of Aesthetic Studies
(Bachelor of Fine Arts), University of Kelaniya,
Colombo, between 1981 and 1991. His first solo
exhibition, ‘Anxiety’, was presented in 1992 at
the National Art Gallery, Colombo, and he has
continued to exhibit regularly. In 2002, he cofounded
the artist-run initiative Theertha, where
he has participated in and curated numerous
exhibitions. His work has been shown in important
exhibitions internationally, including APT3,
Fukuoka Biennale and Singapore Biennale.
Pacific Reggae
Anstine Energy
Solomon Islands
Anslom featuring Sharzy
Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands
Apprentice
Solomon Islands
Chief Ragga featuring O-shen
Hawai’i and Hawai’i/Papua New Guinea
Dubmarine
Australia
Paula Fuga
Hawai’i
Huarere
Vanuatu
Jero, Bernard and Beeman
New Caledonia/Vanuatu
JVDK
New Caledonia
Katchafire
New Zealand
234 235

Mexem
New Caledonia
O-shen
Papua New Guinea/Hawai’i
One Tox
Solomon Islands
Jack Rasini
Solomon Islands
Sharzy
Solomon Islands
Sunshiners
France/Vanuatu
Straky
Papua New Guinea
Tiki Taane
New Zealand
Tune Zion Songsters
Vanuatu
26 Roots
Vanuatu
Upper Hutt Posse
Aotearoa
Vanlal
Vanuatu
XX Squad
Vanuatu
Zennith
Australia
Co-organised by Brent Clough (Producer and
Presenter, ABC Radio National) and Maud Page
(Curator, Contemporary Pacific Art, Queensland
Art Gallery)
‘Pacific Reggae’ considers the ongoing appeal
of reggae music across the region. The range
of musical styles presented features live
performance as well as narrative video clips
which reveal the influence, diversity and reach
of reggae across the Pacific, from dub to dancehall
to roots reggae.
Born in New Zealand, Brent Clough moved to
Sydney in 1984. He joined ABC Radio National in
1988, and has produced and presented the arts
and music programs Arts National, In The Mix, Radio
Eye, Other Worlds, The Daily Planet, Poetica, 360,
and The Night Air. He was co-founder of Nasty Tek,
Australia’s first dance hall reggae sound system;
and currently works with Soulmaker, Australia’s
longest running reggae ‘sound’. Clough has written
extensively about reggae and contemporary music
in Australia and the Pacific region.
Rithy Panh
b.1964 Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Lives and works in Paris, France; and Phnom Penh
The films of Rithy Panh centre on life in post-Khmer
Rouge Cambodia and the struggle to reconcile
the country’s traumatic history with contemporary
urban and rural experiences. Panh and his family
experienced the mass evacuation of Phnom Penh
in 1975, sent to a remote Cambodian labour camp
before fleeing to a refugee camp in Thailand. He
later migrated to France, and in his early twenties
studied filmmaking at the prestigious Institut des
Hautes Études Cinématographiques (Institute for
Advanced Cinematographic Studies) in Paris. He
returned to Cambodia in 1990, and established
the Bophana Audio Visual Resource Centre in
Phnom Penh, which aims to preserve and develop
Cambodia’s film, photography and audio heritage.
Reuben Paterson
b.1973 Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand
Ngati Rangitihi
Lives and works in Auckland
Reuben Paterson’s work draws on sources such
as his Māori culture, floral fabrics from the 1960s
and 1970s, American Modernism, Op art and
personal family associations. Paterson’s original
eclectic influences and styles animate his paintings
and also parody notions of the Pacific as an exotic
paradise. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from
Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland,
in 1997, and in 2000 he completed a Graduate
Diploma of Teaching.
Exhibitions (solo): Dunedin Public Art Gallery,
New Zealand, 2007; City Gallery, Wellington, New
Zealand, 2006; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane,
2006. Exhibitions (group): ‘E Tü Ake: Standing
Strong’, The National Museum of New Zealand Te
Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, 2008–09; ‘Of Deities
and Mortals’, Christchurch City Art Gallery, New
Zealand, 2008; ‘Dateline: Contemporary Art from
the Pacific’, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin,
2007; Prague Biennale, Czech Republic, 2005.
Campbell Patterson
b.1983 Portsmouth, United Kingdom
Lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand
Preferring to work alone and with real situations,
Campbell Patterson creates video performances
characterised by an interest in documenting
the mental and physical limitations of the body,
manifesting in playful, sometimes painful, and
often mischievous, results. Patterson began
exhibiting in 2005, and completed a Bachelor of
Fine Arts in 2006 at the Elam School of Fine Arts,
University of Auckland. His energy and immediacy
mark a fresh new direction in performance-based
video art of the region.
Exhibitions (solo): Michael Lett, Auckland, 2008;
‘Square 2‘, City Art Gallery, Wellington, 2007.
Exhibitions (group): ‘Artists Film Festival’, National
Film Archive/Nga Kaitaki o Taonga Whitiahua,
Auckland, 2008.
Wit Pimkanchanapong
b.1976 Bangkok, Thailand
Lives and works in Bangkok
Trained in architecture, Wit Pimkanchanapong
applies his interest in space and design to a
diverse practice that includes animation, video,
installation, commercial graphics and display.
He graduated from the Faculty of Architecture,
Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, in 1992,
and went on to complete his Masters in Visual
Communication in 1994 at Kent Institute of Art
and Design, United Kingdom. Pimkanchanapong
also fosters collaborative projects, including the
Fat Music Festival, Bangkok; and Soi Project, an
ongoing ‘laboratory’ bringing together artists and
practitioners from a range of disciplines.
Exhibitions (solo): 100 Tonson Gallery, Bangkok,
2009; National Museum, Bangkok, 2003. Exhibitions
(group): Singapore Biennale, 2008; Sharjah
Biennale, United Arab Emirates, 2007; ‘Animated
Painting’, San Diego Museum of Art, United States,
2007; Yokohama Triennale, Japan, 2005.
Qiu Anxiong
b.1972 Chengdu, China
Lives and works in Shanghai, China
Qiu Anxiong works with film, animation and
drawing, often combining these disciplines to create
multimedia installations. In 1994, he graduated
from the Sichuan Art Academy, China, and in 2003
completed further study at the Kunsthochschule
of the University of Kassel, Germany. Qiu has
developed an inimitable visual style that draws on
traditional Chinese scroll painting, landscape, and
ink-and-brush painting techniques.
Exhibitions (solo): Gallery 4A, Sydney, 2009;
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2007.
Exhibitions (group): 3rd Guangzhou Triennial,
China, 2008; Biennale of Sydney, 2008; ‘China
Power Station’, Battersea Power Station and
Serpentine Gallery, London, 2006.
Kibong Rhee
b.1957 Seoul, South Korea
Lives and works in Seoul
In the installations of Kibong Rhee, audiences
encounter dreamlike scenarios in which
everyday objects and images are made
extraordinary through the illusion of movement
and transformation. Using water and light to
manipulate form and matter, Rhee plays on our
expectations of the possible and impossible,
offering metaphysical speculations that provide his
work with a contemplative quality. He completed
his Master of Fine Art in 1985 at Seoul National
University, following the completion of his
Bachelor of Fine Art there in 1981.
Exhibitions (solo): Kukje Gallery, Seoul, 2008.
Exhibitions (group): ‘Drawn in the Clouds’, Kiasma
Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland,
2008; Singapore Biennale, 2008; ‘Thermocline
of Art: New Asian Waves’, ZKM, Karlsruhe,
Germany, 2007.
Hiraki Sawa
b.1977 Ishikawa, Japan
Lives and works in London, United Kingdom;
and Kanazawa, Japan
Hiraki Sawa’s video animations are subtle
reflections on ideas of time and motion, travel and
mobility, displacement and dislocation. Having
lived in both London and Japan for many years,
cultural mobility has formed a key reference for
his work. From 1996 to 1997 he attended the
University of East London, graduating with a
Bachelor of Fine Art, and in 2001–03 he completed
a Masters of Fine Art (Sculpture) at the Slade School
of Fine Art, London. An ongoing strand of Sawa’s
work has been to explore the nature of fantasy, and
his narrative sequences are often about journeying
into real, subconscious or imagined worlds.
Exhibitions (solo): Chisenhale Gallery, London,
2007; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne,
2006; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,
Washington DC, 2005. Exhibitions (group): Busan
Biennial, South Korea, 2008; Seoul International
Media Art Biennale, 2006; Yokohama Triennale,
Japan, 2005; Biennial of Valencia, Spain, 2005.
Shirana Shahbazi
b.1974 Tehran, Iran
Lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland
Shirana Shahbazi’s family moved from Iran to
Germany in 1985. She completed studies in
photography at the Fachhochschule Dortmund,
Germany, in 1997, and later continued to study
photography at the Hochschule für Gestaltung
und Kunst, Zurich, Switzerland, finishing in
2000. Shahbazi has extended her grounding in
photography to produce work that is architectural
in scale. She works across disciplines (photography,
billboard painting, mural painting and weaving)
and genres (portraiture, still life and landscape),
drawing on the great cultural traditions of her
native Iran as well as those of Europe.
Exhibitions (solo): Barbican Art Gallery, London,
2007; Swiss Institute, New York, 2007; Centre
d’Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland, 2005.
Exhibitions (group): Sharjah Biennial, United Arab
Emirates, 2005; 50th Biennale of Venice, 2003.
Shooshie Sulaiman
b.1973 Muar, Johor, Malaysia
Lives and works in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Susyilawati (Shooshie) Sulaiman’s installations,
drawings, books and collages combine an interest
in language, history and memory with a desire
for personal communication and expression.
She studied museum conservation in Malaysia
and Australia, and has worked at the National
Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur as well as setting up
her own gallery, called 12, in 2007. Her works
constitute a kind of archive, infusing the social
and artistic histories of Malaysia with her own
responses and experiences.
Exhibitions (group): ‘The Independence Project’,
Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, and Gertrude
Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, 2007–08;
‘documenta 12’, Kassel, Germany, 2007; ‘Wahana’,
National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, 2003.
Thukral and Tagra
Jiten Thukral
b.1976 Jalandhar, Punjab, India
Sumir Tagra
b.1979 New Delhi, India
Live and work in Gurgaon, Haryana, India
Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra have been working
collaboratively since 2000. Thukral completed a
Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Chandigarh College
of Art, India, and a Master of Fine Arts at the Delhi
College of Art, India. Tagra completed a Bachelor
of Fine Arts at the Delhi College of Art, India, and
later studied at the National Institute of Design
in Ahmedabad, India. Their multimedia practice
encompasses painting, sculpture, installation
and video; as well as fashion and product
design, interior design and graphics under their
‘Bosedk’ label, blurring the boundaries between
advertising, retail and art.
Exhibitions (solo): Nature Morte, Berlin, 2009;
Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney, 2008; Bose
Pacia, New York, 2007; Nature Morte, New Delhi,
2007. Exhibitions (group): ‘Chalo! India’, Mori Art
Museum, Tokyo, 2008.
Charwei Tsai
b.1980 Taipei, Taiwan
Lives and works in Paris, France; New York,
United States; and Taipei
Charwei Tsai’s practice draws on an interest in
calligraphy and her study of Buddhist concepts, in
particular the ideas of transience and emptiness
that are at the heart of this philosophy. She
produces Lovely Daze, an independent artist’s
periodical that is released twice a year in limited
editions. Tsai graduated from Industrial Design and
Art and Architectural History at the Rhode Island
School of Design, United States, in 2002, and is
currently engaged in the postgraduate research
programme at the L’École Nationale Supérieure
des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Exhibitions (solo): Sherman Contemporary
Art Foundation, Sydney, 2009; Osage Gallery,
Hong Kong, 2009. Exhibitions (group): ‘Traces
of the Sacred’, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2008;
‘Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves’, ZKM,
Karlsruhe, Germany, 2007; Singapore Biennale,
2006.
Vanuatu Sculptors
Freddy Bule
b.c.1967 Fanla Village, Ambrym Island, Vanuatu
Bongnaim Frederick
b.c.1957 Newea Village, Ambrym Island, Vanuatu
Chief Joachin Kilfan
b.c.1963 Halhal Village, Ambrym Island, Vanuatu
Mansak Family
Lolipa Village, Ambrym Island, Vanuatu
Newea Village, Ambrym Island, Vanuatu
Chief Michel Marakon
b.c.1950 Newea Village, Ambrym Island, Vanuatu
Michel Rangie
b.c.1981 Olal Village, Ambrym Island, Vanuatu
Chief Louis Wunbae
b.1951 Newea Village, Ambrym Island, Vanuatu
Live and work in North Ambrym, Vanuatu
These sculptures are representative of one of the
most important forms of art-making in Vanuatu,
and are made from breadfruit trees, tree ferns
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and local fibres. The mague sculptures play a
central role within the contemporary articulation
of kastom in North Ambrym. Ambrymese society
is structured around chiefs who rise through
a series of grades. Each rise in rank is marked
by a ceremony and the creation of a sculpture.
Each work is unique, based on the chief’s social
position at the time. The slit drums are used in the
ceremonies, and the temar sculptures are created
as memorials to ancestor spirits. Together, these
works represent the strength, dynamism and vital
nature of Ambrymese culture.
Rohan Wealleans
b.1977 Invercargill, New Zealand
Lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand
Rohan Wealleans’s practice is a unique fusion of
painting and sculpture. Bulbous forms are crafted
through a laborious process, whereby sculptures
are coated with up to 300 layers of house paint.
Once completed, patches of these slick surfaces
are excised with a knife to reveal a richly coloured
underbelly. In 2000, Wealleans graduated from the
Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland,
with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting), and was
awarded a Master of Arts (Painting) in 2003.
Exhibitions (solo): Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland,
2009; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, 2008;
Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington, 2006; Dunedin
Public Art Gallery, New Zealand, 2006. Exhibitions
(group): TarraWarra Biennial, Yarra Valley, Australia,
2008; ‘Just Painting’, Auckland Art Gallery, 2006;
26th São Paulo Biennial, Brazil, 2004.
Robin White, Leba Toki and Bale Jione
Robin White
b.1946 Te Puke, New Zealand
Lives and works in Masterton, New Zealand
Leba Toki
b.1951 Moce, Fiji
Lives and works in Lautoka, Fiji
Bale Jione
b.1952 Moce, Fiji
Lives and works in Suva, Fiji
Robin White is a significant New Zealand artist who
has developed a comprehensive practice since the
1970s. White’s recent collaborative work with Leba
Toki and Bale Jione is inspired by her experience
of living for many years in Kiribati, in the central
Pacific. Both Toki and Jione are from Moce in the
Lau group of islands of Fiji, which is renowned for
its masi (barkcloth) work. Barkcloth is a material
created throughout the Pacific, incorporating
unique cultural aspects of each region.
Robin White: Exhibitions (solo): Christchurch Art
Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, New Zealand,
2005; Auckland Art Gallery, 2003. Exhibitions
(group): ‘Painters as Printmakers’, Christchurch
Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, New Zealand,
2007; ‘Winged Wonders’, Auckland Art Gallery,
2005; ‘Islands in the Sun’, National Gallery of
Australia, Canberra, 2001.
Yang Shaobin
b. 1963 Tangshan, Hebei Province, China
Lives and works in Beijing, China
Yang Shaobin’s paintings are known for their refined
composition, rich narrative and incisive commentary
on the changing social landscape of China. Yang
graduated from the Polytechnic University in Hebei,
China, in 1983, and moved to the artist village at
Yuanmingyuan, Beijing, in 1991, settling in Beijing’s
Tonxian from 1995. The personal experience of
growing up in a coalmining town in rural China has
informed Yang’s recent series X – Blind Spot, works
in painting, sculpture, video and installation.
Exhibitions (solo): Long March Space, Beijing, 2008;
Alexander Ochs Gallery, Berlin, 2007. Exhibitions
(group): ‘The Real Thing’, Tate Liverpool, United
Kingdom, 2007; 48th Biennale of Venice, 1999.
Yao Jui-chung
b.1969, Taipei, Taiwan
Lives and works in Taipei
Yao Jui-chung’s practice explores the complex
construction of Taiwanese culture, including its
entanglement with Cold War ideology during
the martial law period of 1949–87, the country’s
embracing of capitalism, and the concurrent
effects of multinationalism. Yao graduated from
the National Institute of the Arts (now the Taipei
National University of the Arts) with a degree in art
theory in 1994. In 1997, he attended the Headland
Center for the Arts in San Francisco. In addition
to fine art, Yao has worked in the fields of theatre,
film, photography, art history and art criticism.
Exhibitions (solo): Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2006.
Exhibitions (group): ‘Spectacle: To Each His Own’,
Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, 2009;
Yokohama Triennale, Japan, 2005; Taiwanese
Pavilion, 47th Biennale of Venice, 1997.
YNG
Yoshitomo Nara
b.1959 Hirosaki, Japan
Lives and works in Toshigi, Japan
graf
est.1993 Osaka, Japan
Yoshitomo Nara, one of Japan’s best known
contemporary artists, regularly collaborates, under
the acronym YNG, with Osaka-based design firm
graf to construct playful and whimsical interactive
environments, extending his fascination with the
experience of childhood, and how specific spaces
affect one's viewing of art.
Nara received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1985
and Master of Fine Arts in 1987 from the Aichi
Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music,
Japan. Between 1988 and 1993, Nara studied
at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany. He
is internationally renowned for his ‘super-flat’
drawings, paintings and sculptures of mischievous
children and animals. Strongly influenced by
punk music, anime, manga and Marvel comics,
Nara’s work is also inspired by his own childhood
memories and experiences. His iconic, cartoon-like
characters channel experiences of anxiety and
fear, undercutting idealised notions of childhood
innocence. While considered a cult figure in his
native Japan, his works transcend national and
cultural boundaries and are widely integrated into
Western popular culture.
graf is a creative design group established in
Osaka in 1993 by Shigeki Hattori, Hiroto Aranishi,
Kenji Tokyura, Hideki Toyoshima, Takashi Matsui
and Yuji Nozawa. Their interdisciplinary studio
practice includes architecture, interiors, fashion
and furniture design, and investigates the
crossovers between art and craft, and design and
architecture. Their arts and cultural branch, graf
media gm, runs a gallery space, a music label and
a publishing house. Collaboration is intrinsic to all
facets of their work, and since 2003 they have been
working with Yoshitomo Nara to create a range of
site-specific installations in gallery settings.
Exhibitions (YNG, solo): BALTIC Centre for
Contemporary Art, Gateshead, United Kingdom,
2008; Museum of Contemporary Art, Den Haag,
the Netherlands, 2007; Contemporary Art Centre,
Malaga, Spain, 2007; Marianne Boesky Gallery,
New York, 2005. Exhibitions (YNG, group): ‘KITA!!:
Japanese Artists Meet Indonesia’, Cemeti Art
House, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2008; Yokohama
Triennale, Japan, 2005.
Zhu Weibing and Ji Wenyu
Zhu Weibing
b.1971 Heilongjiang, China
Ji Wenyu
b.1959 Shanghai, China
Live and work in Shanghai
Zhu Weibing and Ji Wenyu have been making
textile-based sculptures since 2003. Their
delicately balanced works owe much to Zhu’s
training as a fashion designer and art professor,
while Ji worked previously as a painter,
incorporating a critical take on Western Pop art
in particular. In their soft sculptures, the artists
comment on consumerism and social aspirations
in post-Cultural Revolution China.
Exhibitions (solo): ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai,
2006, 2007 and 2008. Exhibitions (group): ‘Red
Hot: Asian Art Today’, Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, United States, 2007.
Next page
Hana Makhmalbaf
Iran b.1988
Production still from Buda as sharm foru rikht (Buddha
Collapsed Out of Shame) 2007 / 35mm and DV, colour,
stereo, 81 minutes, Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) / Image
courtesy: Wild Bunch, Paris
238 239

Australian Cinémathèque Programs
Promised Lands / The Cypress and the Crow:
50 Years of Iranian Animation
Promised Lands
THE ROAD TO JAFFNA
Beate Arnestad
Norway b.1957
Morten Daae
Norway b.1969
Min Datter Terroristen (My Daughter
the Terrorist) 2007
HD video, colour, stereo, 60 minutes,
Norway, Tamil (English subtitles) /
Directors: Beate Arnestad, Morten
Daae / Script: Beate Arnestad /
Cinematographer: Frank Alvegg /
Editor: Morten Daae / Print source/
rights: Oslo Dokumentarkino,
Norwegian Film Institute / Screening
format: Digital Betacam
Asoka Handagama
Sri Lanka b.1962
Me Mage Sandai (This Is My Moon)
2000
35mm, colour, stereo, 104 minutes,
Sri Lanka, Sinhala, French subtitles
(Live English subtitles) / Director/
Script: Asoka Handagama /
Cinematographer: Channa
Deshapriya / Editor: Ravindra
Guruge / Print source/rights:
Héliotrope Films
Vimukthi Jayasundara
Sri Lanka b.1977
The Land of Silence 2001
16mm, black and white, mono, 29
minutes, Sri Lanka, Sinhala (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Vimukthi
Jayasundara / Cinematographer:
Sunil Sri Perera / Editor: Nuwan
Katugampola / Print source/rights:
Vimukthi Jayasundara / Screening
format: DVD
Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken
Land) 2005
35mm, colour, Dolby SR, 108
minutes, Sri Lanka/France, Sinhala
(English subtitles) / Director/
Script: Vimukthi Jayasundara /
Cinematographer: Channa
Deshapriya / Editor: Gisèle Rapp-
Meichler / Print source/rights:
Unlimited Films
Ahasin Wetei (Between Two Worlds)
2009
35mm, colour, Dolby SR, 86 minutes,
Sri Lanka/France, Sinhala (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Vimukthi
Jayasundara / Cinematographer:
Channa Deshapriya / Editor: Gisèle
Rapp-Meichler / Print source/rights:
Memento Films International
Dharmasena Pathiraja
Sri Lanka b.1943
In Search of a Road 2006
Betacam SP, black and white
and colour, stereo, 82 minutes,
Sri Lanka, English/Sinhala/Tamil
(English subtitles) / Director:
Dharmasena Pathiraja / Script: Sarath
Kellepotha, Sivamohan Sumathy /
Cinematographer: Channa
Deshapriya / Editor: Elmo Halliday /
Print source/rights: Dharmasena
Pathiraja Productions
Prasanna Vithanage
Sri Lanka b.1962
Pura Handa Kaluwara (Death on a full
Moon Day) 1997
35mm, colour, mono, 74 minutes,
Sri Lanka/Japan, Sinhala (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Prasanna
Vithanage / Cinematographer: MD
Mahindapala / Editor: A Sreekar
Prasad / Print source/rights: Prasanna
Vithanage
Ira Madiyama (August Sun) 2003
35mm, colour, stereo, 108 minutes,
Sri Lanka, Sinhala (English subtitles) /
Director: Prasanna Vithanage / Script:
Priyath Liyanage / Cinematographer:
MD Mahindapala / Editor: A Sreekar
Prasad / Print source/rights: Prasanna
Vithanage
CINEMA OF PARTITION
Ritwik Ghatak
East Bengal (now Bangladesh)
1925–76
Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-
Capped Star) 1960
35mm, black and white, mono,
126 minutes, India, Bengali (English
subtitles) / Director: Ritwik Ghatak /
Script: Ritwik Ghatak, Shaktipada
Rajguru / Cinematographer: Dinen
Gupta / Editor: Ramesh Joshi / Print
source/rights: The family of Ritwik
Ghatak
Komal Gandhar (A Soft Note on a
Sharp Scale) 1961
35mm, black and white, mono,
134 minutes, India, Bengali (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Ritwik
Ghatak / Cinematographer: Dilip
Ranjan Mukhopadhyay / Editor:
Ramesh Joshi / Print source/rights:
The family of Ritwik Ghatak
Subarnarekha (The Golden Thread)
1965
35mm, black and white, mono,
143 minutes, India, Bengali (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Ritwik
Ghatak / Based on the story by
Radheshyam Jhunjhunwala /
Cinematographer: Dilip Ranjan
Mukhopadhyay / Editor: Ramesh
Joshi / Print source/rights: The family
of Ritwik Ghatak
Nemai Ghosh
West Bengal (now India) 1914–88
Chinnamul (The Uprooted) 1950
35mm, black and white, mono,
117 minutes, India, Bengali
(English subtitles) / Director/
Cinematographer: Nemai Ghosh /
Script: Swarnakamal Bhattacharya,
Satyajit Ray / Editor: Kalabaran Das /
Print source/rights: National Film
Archive of India
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy
Pakistan b.1950
Zia Mian
Pakistan b.1962
Crossing the Lines: Kashmir, Pakistan,
India 2004
Betacam SP, colour, stereo,
45 minutes, Pakistan, English/
Urdu/Hindi/Kashmiri/Punjab
(English subtitles) / Directors/
Script: Pervez Hoodbhoy, Zia Mian /
Cinematographers: Ali Faisal Zaidi,
Nasir Teherany, Ajai Raina, Habib-ur-
Rehman, Anand Patwardhan / Editor:
Pervez Hoodbhoy / Print source/
rights: Pervez Hoodbhoy / Screening
format: DVD
Lalit Mohan Joshi
India b.1955
Beyond Partition 2006
Digital video, colour, stereo, 65
minutes, India, English / Director/
Cinematographer/Editor: Lalit
Mohan Joshi / Script: Kusum
Pant Joshi, Lalit Mohan Joshi /
Print source: South Asian Cinema
Foundation / Rights: Lalit Mohan
Joshi / Screening format: DVD
Sanjay Kak
India b.1958
Jashn-e-Azadi (How We Celebrate
Freedom) 2007
Digital video, black and white and
colour, stereo, 139 minutes, India,
Urdu/Kashmiri (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Sanjay Kak /
Cinematographer: Ranjan Palit /
Editor: Tarun Bhartiya / Print source/
rights: Sanjay Kak / Screening
format: Digital Betacam
Amar Kanwar
India b.1964
A Season Outside 1997
Betacam SP, colour, stereo,
30 minutes, India, English /
Director/Script: Amar Kanwar /
Cinematographer: Dilip Varma /
Editor: Sameera Jain / Print source/
rights: Amar Kanwar
Tareque Masud
Bangladesh b.1957
Matir Monia (The Clay Birds) 2002
35mm, colour, mono, 89 minutes,
France/Pakistan/Bangladesh, Bengali
(English subtitles) / Director: Tareque
Masud / Script: Catherine Masud,
Tareque Masud / Cinematographer:
Sudhir Palsane / Editor: Catherine
Masud / Print source/rights: MK2
Deepa Mehta
India b.1950
Earth 1998
35mm, colour, Dolby, 110 minutes,
India/Canada, Hindi/English/Parsee/
Punjabi/Urdu (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Deepa Mehta /
Based on the story by Bapsi Sidhwa /
Cinematographer: Giles Nuttgens /
Editor: Barry Farrell / Print source/
rights: David Hamilton
Govind Nihalani
Pakistan b.1940
Tamas (Darkness) 1986
35mm, colour, mono, 227 minutes,
India, Hindi (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Govind Nihalani /
Based on the story by Bhisham
Sahni / Cinematographers: Govind
Nihalani, K Murthy / Editor: Vanray
Bhatia / Print source/rights: National
Film Archive of India
MS Sathyu
India b.1930
Garm Hava (Hot Winds) 1973
35mm, colour, mono, 146 minutes,
India, Urdu (English subtitles) /
Director: MS Sathyu / Script:
Kaifi Azmi, Shama Zaidi / Based
on the story by Ismat Chughtai /
Cinematographer: Ishan Arya /
Editor: S Chakravarty / Print source/
rights: Cameo Digital Systems
Supriyo Sen
India b.1967
Way Back Home 2003
Digital video, colour, stereo, 118
minutes, India, Bengali (English
subtitles) / Director/Script/Editor:
Supriyo Sen / Cinematographer:
Ranjan Palit / Print source: Magic
Lantern Foundation / Rights: Supriyo
Sen / Screening format/rights:
Betacam SP
Sarah Singh
India b.1971
The Sky Below 2007
Digital video, black and white and
colour, stereo, 76 minutes, India/
Pakistan, Urdu/Hindi/English/Punjab/
Sindhi/Kashmiri (English subtitles) /
Director/Script/Cinematographer/
Editor: Sarah Singh / Print source/
rights: Sarah Singh / Screening
format: DVD
Santosh Sivan
India b.1961
Tahaan: A Boy with a Grenade 2008
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital,
105 minutes, India, Hindi
(English subtitles) / Director/
Cinematographer: Santosh Sivan /
Script: Santosh Sivan, Ritesh
Menon, Paul Hardart / Editor: Shakti
Hasija / Print source/rights: IDream
Independent Pictures, Middlesex /
Screening format: Digital Betacam
Sabiha Sumar
Pakistan b.1961
Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters) 2003
35mm, colour, Dolby SR, 99 minutes,
Pakistan/France/Germany, Punjabi/
Urdu (English subtitles) / Director:
Sabiha Sumar / Script: Sabiha Sumar,
Paromita Vohr / Cinematographer:
Ralph Netzer / Editor: Bettina
Böhler / Print source/rights: Les Films
du Losange
THE TREE OF LIFE
Kasim Abid
Iraq b.1950
Life after the Fall 2008
Digital video, colour, stereo,
100 minutes, Iraq/United Kingdom,
Arabic (English subtitles) / Director/
Cinematographer: Kasim Abid /
Editor: Maysoon Pachachi / Print
source/rights: Kasim Abid /
Screening format: Digital Betacam
Fenar Ahmad
Czechoslovakia b.1981
Mesopotamia 2008
HD Video, colour, Dolby SR,
25 minutes, Denmark, Arabic
(English subtitles) / Director: Fenar
Ahmad / Script: Jakob Katz, Fenar
Ahmad / Cinematographer: Niels A
Hansen / Editor: Martin Friis / Print
source/rights: Beofilm / Screening
format: 35mm
Shahram Alidi
East Kurdistan, Iran b.1971
Sirta la Gal ba (Whisper with the
Wind) 2009
35mm, colour, Dolby SR, 76
minutes, Iraq, Kurdish (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Shahram
Alidi / Cinematographer: Touraj
Aslani / Editor: Hayedeh Safiyari /
Print source/rights: Urban Media
International
Siddiq Barmak
Afghanistan b.1962
Osama 2003
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital,
83 minutes, Afghanistan/The
Netherlands/Japan/Ireland/
Iran, Pashtu/English/Dari (English
subtitles) / Director/Script/Editor:
Siddiq Barmak / Cinematographer:
Ebrahim Ghafori / Print source/
rights: Sharmill Films
Asghar Farhadi
Iran b.1972
Darbareye Elly (About Elly) 2009
35mm, colour, stereo, 119
minutes, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Asghar Farhadi /
Cinematographer: Hossein Jafarian /
Editor: Hayedeh Safiyari / Print
source/rights: DreamLab Films
Bahman Ghobadi
East Kurdistan, Iran b.1969
Lakposhtha Parvaz Mikonand (Turtles
Can Fly) 2004
35mm, colour, Dolby, 98 minutes,
Iran/France/Iraq, Kurdish (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Bahman
Ghobadi / Cinematographer:
Shahriar Assadi / Editors: Mostafa
Kherghehpoosh, Haydeh Safi-Yari /
Print source/rights: Palace Films
Hana Makhmalbaf
Iran b.1988
Ruzhaye Sabz (Green Days) 2009
HD Video, colour, stereo, 87 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Hana Makhmalbaf /
Cinematographer: Mohammad
Yazdi / Editor: Babak Karimi / Print
source/rights: Wild Bunch, Paris /
Screening format: HD Cam
Buda as Sharm foru Rikht (Buddha
Collapsed Out of Shame) 2007
35mm and DV, colour, stereo, 81
minutes, Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Hana Makhmalbaf /
Script: Marzieh Makhmalbaf /
Cinematographer: Ostad Ali / Editor:
Mastaneh Mohajer / Print source/
rights: Wild Bunch, Paris
Samira Makhmalbaf
Iran b.1980
Takhté siah (Blackboards) 2000
35mm, colour, stereo, 85 minutes,
Iran/Italy/Japan, Kurdish (English
subtitles) / Director: Samira
Makhmalbaf / Script: Mohsen
Makhmalbaf, Samira Makhmalbaf,
Zaheer Qureshi / Cinematographer:
Ebrahim Ghafori / Editor: Mohsen
Makhmalbaf / Print source/rights:
Sharmill Films
Mahmoud al Massad
Jordan b.1969
Ea’ Adat Khalk (Recycle) 2007
HD video, colour, Dolby SR, 78
minutes, Netherlands/Jordan, Arabic
(English subtitles) / Director/Script/
Editor/Cinematographer: Mahmoud
al Massad / Print source/rights: Wide
Management / Screening format:
Digital Betacam
Jafar Panahi
Iran b. 1960
Talaye Sorkh (Crimson Gold) 2003
35mm, colour, Dolby, 95 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director/Editor: Jafar Panahi / Script:
Abbas Kiarostami / Cinematographer:
Hossein Djafarian / Print source/
rights: Celluloid Dreams
Nahid Persson Sarvestani
Iran b.1960
The Queen and I 2008
HD video, black and white and
colour, stereo, 89 minutes, Sweden,
Farsi/English (English subtitles) /
Director: Nahid Persson Sarvestani /
Script: Zinat S Lloyd, Persson
Sarvestani / Cinematographer:
Nicklas Narpaty / Editor: Zinat S
Lloyd / Print source/rights: Seventh
Art Releasing / Screening format:
Digital Betacam
Parvez Sharma
India b.1974
A Jihad for Love 2007
HD video, colour, stereo, 81
minutes, USA/UK/France/Germany/
Australia, English/Arabic/Hindi/Farsi/
Urdu/French (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Parvez Sharma /
Cinematographers: Berke Bas, David
W Leitner, Parvez Sharma / Editor:
Juliet Weber / Print source/rights:
Pervez Sharma / Screening format:
Digital Betacam
242 243

Hassan Yektapanah
Iran b.1963
Djomeh 2000
35mm, colour, stereo, 94 minutes,
Iran/France, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director/Script/Editor: Hassan
Yektapanah / Cinematographer:
Ali Loghmani / Print source/rights:
Celluloid Dreams
RETURN OF THE POET
Atom Egoyan
Egypt b.1960
Ararat 2002
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 115
minutes, Canada/France, English/
Armenian/French/German (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Atom
Egoyan / Cinematographer: Paul
Sarossy / Editor: Susan Shipton / Print
source/rights: Serendipity Point Films
Reha Erdem
Turkey b.1960
Beş Vakit (Times and Winds) 2006
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 111
minutes, Turkey, Turkish (English
subtitles) / Director/Script/Editor:
Reha Erdem / Cinematographer:
Florent Herry / Print source/rights:
Momento Films International
Pelin Esmer
Turkey b.1972
Oyun (The Play) 2005
Digital video, colour, Dolby SR,
73 minutes, Turkey, Turkish (English
subtitles) / Director/Script/Editor:
Pelin Esmer / Cinematographers:
Pelin Esmer, Ozlem Ozbek, Mustafa
Unlu / Print source/rights: Sinefilm-
Pelin Esmer / Screening format:
Digital Betacam
Harutyun Khachatryan
Georgia b.1955
Poeti Veradardze (Return of the Poet)
2006
35mm, colour, stereo, 88 minutes,
Armenia, Armenian (English
subtitles) / Director/Editor: Harutyun
Khachatryan / Script: Harutyun
Khachatryan, Mikayel Stamboltsyan /
Cinematographers: Vrej Petrosyan,
Armen Mirakyan, Ashot Movsesyan,
Artyom Melkoumyan / Print source/
rights: Golden Apricot Fund for
Cinema
Sahman (Border) 2009
35mm, colour, Dolby, 82 minutes,
Armenia/The Netherlands, Armenian
(English subtitles) / Director/Script/
Editor: Harutyun Khachatryan /
Cinematographer: Vrezh Petrosyan /
Print source/rights: Golden Apricot
Fund for Cinema
Mahsun Kırmızıgül
Turkey b.1969
Güneşi Gördüm (I Saw the Sun) 2009
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 120
minutes, Turkey, Turkish (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Mahsun
Kırmızıgül / Cinematographer:
Soykut Turan / Editor: Hamdi Deniz /
Print source/rights: Pinema
Sergei Parajanov
Georgia b.1924
Sayat Nova aka The Colour of
Pomegranates 1968
35mm, colour, mono, 79 minutes,
Armenia/USSR, Armenian (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Sergei
Parajanov / Based on the poems
by Sayat Nova / Cinematographer:
Suren Shakhbazyan / Editors: Sergei
Parajanov, M Ponomarenko / Print
source/rights: Nora Armani
Artavazd Pelechian
Armenia b.1938
Menq (We) 1969
35mm, black and white, mono, 25
minutes, Armenia, Armenian (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Artavazd
Pelechian / Cinematographers:
Laert Porossian, Elisbar Karavaev,
Karen Messian / Editors: Artavazd
Pelechian, L Volkova / Print source/
rights: Films sans Frontières
Obibateli (The Inhabitants) 1970
35mm, black and white, mono,
10 minutes, Armenia/France, No
dialogue / Director: Artavazd
Pelechian / Cinematographer:
Evgueni Anissimov / Editor:
L Volkova / Print source/rights:
Artavazd Pelechian
Tarva Yeghanaknere aka Vremena
Goda (The Seasons) 1972
35mm, black and white, mono,
29 minutes, Armenia/USSR, Russian
intertitles / Director/Script: Artavazd
Pelechian / Cinematographers:
Mikhail Vartanov, B Hovsepian,
G Tchavouchian / Editor: Aida
Galstian / Print source/rights: Films
sans Frontières
Verj (The End) 1993–94
35mm, black and white, mono,
8 minutes, Armenia, No dialogue /
Director/Script/Editor: Artavazd
Pelechian / Cinematographer:
Vahagn Ter-Hakobyan / Print source/
rights: Artavazd Pelechian
Gariné Torossian
Lebanon b.1970
Girl from Moush 1994
16mm, colour, mono, 5 minutes,
Canada, Armenian / Director/
Cinematographer: Gariné Torossian /
Editor: Gariné Torossian, Lewis
Cohen / Print source: Canadian
Filmmakers Distribution Centre /
Rights: Gariné Torossian
Stone Time Touch 2007
Digital Betacam, colour, stereo, 72
minutes, Armenia/Canada, Armenian/
English (English subtitles) / Director/
Editor: Gariné Torossian / Artistic and
conceptual collaborator: Arsinée
Khanjian / Cinematographers: Gariné
Torossian, Fred Kelemen, Ruben
Khatchatryan / Print source: Canadian
Filmmakers Distribution Centre /
Rights: Gariné Torossian / Screening
format: Betacam SP
EATING MY HEART
Hany Abu-Assad
Palestine b.1961
Paradise Now 2005
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital,
90 minutes, Palestine/France/
Germany/The Netherlands/Israel,
Arabic/English (English subtitles) /
Director: Hany Abu-Assad / Script:
Hany Abu-Assad, Bero Beyer /
Cinematographer: Antoine Héberlé /
Editor: Sander Vos / Print source/
rights: Sharmill Films
Kamal Aljafari
Palestine b.1972
Al-sateh (The Roof) 2006
Digital video, colour, stereo, 60
minutes, Palestine/Germany, Arabic/
Hebrew/English (English subtitles) /
Director/Script/Editor: Kamal
Aljafari / Cinematographer: Diego
Martínez Vignatti / Print source/
rights: Kamal Aljafari / Screening
format: Digital Betacam
Port of Memory 2009
16mm, colour, stereo, 63 minutes,
Palestine/Untited Arab Emirates,
Arabic/Hebrew (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Kamal Aljafari /
Cinematographer: Jacques Besse /
Editor: Marie Hélène Mora / Print
source/rights: Kamal Aljafari /
Screening format: 35mm
Nurith Aviv
Israel b.1945
Langue Sacrée, Langue Parlée
(Sacred Language, Spoken
Language) 2008
Digital video, colour, 73 minutes,
France, French/Hebrew (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Nurith
Aviv / Cinematographer: Itai Marom /
Editors: Michal Ben Tovim, Guillaume
Guerry / Print source/rights:
Doc&Films International / Screening
format: DVD
Yael Bartana
Israel b.1970
A Declaration 2006
Digital video, colour, stereo,
7:30 minutes, Israel, No dialogue /
Director/Cinematographer/Editor:
Yael Bartana / Courtesy: Annet
Gelink Gallery and the artist /
Screening format: Betacam SP
Summer Camp 2007
DV, colour, stereo, 12 minutes,
Israel, No dialogue / Director:
Yael Bartana / Cinematographer:
Avigail Sperber / Editors: Yael
Bartana, Daniel Meir, Anal Salomon /
Courtesy: Annet Gelink Gallery and
the artist / Screening format: Digital
Betacam
Simone Bitton
Morocco b. 1950
Rachel 2009
HD Video, colour, Dolby SR, 100
minutes, France/Belgium, English/
Arabic/Hebrew (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Simone Bitton /
Cinematographer: Jacques
Bouquin / Editors: Jean-Michel Perez,
Catherine Poitevin / Print source/
rights: Urban Media International /
Screening format: 35mm
Ari Folman
Israel b.1963
Vals Im Bashir (Waltz with Bashir)
2008
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 90
minutes, Israel/France/USA/Finland/
Switzerland/Belgium/Australia,
Hebrew/German/English/Arabic
(English subtitles) / Director/Script:
Ari Folman / Director of Animation:
Yoni Goodman / Art Director/
Illustrator: David Polonsky / Editor:
Nili Feller / Print source/rights:
Sharmill Films
Amos Gitaï
Israel b.1950
Carmel 2009
35mm, colour, Dolby SR, 93 minutes,
Israel/France/Italy, Hebrew/French
(English subtitles) / Director/Script:
Amos Gitaï / Cinematographer:
Stefano Falivene / Editor: Isabelle
Ingold / Print source/rights:
AGAV Films
Joana Hadjithomas
Lebanon b.1969
Khalil Joreige
Lebanon b.1969
Baddi Chouf (I Want to See) 2008
HD video transferred to 35mm,
colour, Dolby SR, 75 minutes,
Lebanon/France, Arabic/French
(English subtitles) / Directors:
Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige /
Script: Zeina Saab de Melero /
Cinematographer: Julien Hirsch /
Editor: Enrica Gattolini / Print source/
rights: Films Boutique / Screening
format: HD Cam
Khiam 2000–2007 2008
Digital video, colour, mono,
103 minutes, Lebanon, Arabic
(English subtitles) / Directors/
Script/Cinematographers: Joana
Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige / Editors:
Michèle Tyan (Part 1), Tina Baz
Legal (Part 2) / Print source/rights:
Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige /
Screening format: Betacam SP
Annemarie Jacir
Palestine/Israel b.1974
Le Sel de la Mer (Salt of this Sea)
2008
35mm, colour, Dolby, 109 minutes,
Palestine/Belgium/France/Spain/
Switzerland, Arabic (English
subtitles) / Director/Script:
Annemarie Jacir / Cinematographer:
Benoît Chamaillard / Editor: Michèle
Hubinon / Print source/rights:
Pyramid International
Lamia Joreige
Lebanon b.1972
Nights and Days 2007
Digital video, colour, stereo,
17 minutes, Lebanon, No dialogue /
Director/Cinematographer/Editor:
Lamia Joreige / Print source/rights:
Lamia Joreige / Screening format:
Mini DV
Mai Masri
Jordan b. 1959
33 Yaoum (33 Days) 2007
Digital video, colour, stereo,
70 minutes, Lebanon, Arabic (English
subtitles) / Director: Mai Masri /
Cinematographers: Hussein Nassar,
Mai Masri / Editors: Elias Chahine,
Michael Tyan / Print source/rights:
AFD/Typecast Films / Screening
format: Betacam SP
Avi Mograbi
Israel b.1956
Nekam Achat Mishtey Eynay (Avenge
But One of My Two Eyes) 2005
35mm, colour, stereo, 100 minutes,
France/Israel English/Arabic/Hebrew
(English subtitles) / Director/Script:
Avi Mograbi / Cinematographers:
Philippe Bellaiche, Yoav Gurfinkel,
Avi Mograbi, Itzik Portal / Editors:
Ewa Lenkiewicz, Avi Mograbi / Print
source/rights: Les Films du Losange
Z32 2008
35mm, colour, Dolby, 81 minutes,
France/Israel, Hebrew (English
subtitles) / Director/Editor: Avi
Mograbi / Script: Noam Enbar,
Avi Mograbi / Cinematographer:
Philippe Bellaiche / Print source/
rights: Doc&Film International
Jocelyne Saab
Lebanon b.1948
Chou am bi Sir? (What’s Going on?)
2009
HD video, colour, stereo, 84
minutes, Lebanon, French/Arabic
(English subtitles) / Director:
Jocelyne Saab / Script: Jocelyne
Saab with participation to
dialogue by Joumana Haddad /
Cinematographer: Jacques
Bouquin / Editor: Catherine Poitevin /
Print source/rights: Jocelyne Saab /
Screening format: HD Cam
Larissa Sansour
Palestine/Israel b.1973
Happy Days 2006
Digital video, colour, stereo,
3 minutes, Palestine, English /
Director/Script/Editor: Larissa
Sansour / Cinematographer: Soren
Lind / Print source/rights: Larissa
Sansour / Screening format: Mini
DV / Courtesy: Le Galerie La B.A.N.K
Soup over Bethlehem (Mloukhieh)
2006
Digital video, colour, stereo,
9 minutes, Palestine, Arabic (English
subtitle) / Director/Script/Editor:
Larissa Sansour / Cinematographer:
Soren Lind / Print source/rights:
Larissa Sansour / Screening format:
Mini DV / Courtesy: Le Galerie
La B.A.N.K
Land Confiscation Order 06/24/T
2007
Digital video, colour, stereo,
10 minutes, Palestine, Arabic (English
subtitles) / Director/Script/Editor:
Larissa Sansour / Cinematographer:
Soren Lind / Print source/rights:
Larissa Sansour / Screening format:
Mini DV / Courtesy: Le Galerie
La B.A.N.K
A Space Exodus 2008
HD video, colour, Dolby SR,
5:24 minutes, Denmark, English /
Director/Script: Larissa Sansour /
Cinematographer: Niels A Hansen /
Editors: Lars Lyngstadaas, Martin
Friis / Print source/rights: Larissa
Sansour / Screening format: HD CAM /
Courtesy: Le Galerie La B.A.N.K
Eyal Sivan
Israel b.1964
Michel Khleifi
Israel b.1950
Route 181: Fragments of a Journey in
Palestine-Israel 2004
Digital video, colour, stereo,
270 minutes Belgium/France/
Germany/UK, Arabic/Hebrew
(English subtitles) / Directors/
Script/Editors: Eyal Sivan, Michel
Khleifi / Cinematographer: Philippe
Bellaiche / Print source/rights: Urban
Media International / Screening
format: Digital Betacam
Elia Suleiman
Palestine/Israel b.1960
Al Zaman Al Baqi (The Time That
Remains) 2009
35mm, colour, Dolby SR, 109
minutes, France/Belgium/Italy/UK,
Hebrew/Arabic/English (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Elia
Suleiman / Cinematographer:
Marc-André Batigne / Editor:
Véronique Lange / Print source/
rights: Wild Bunch
Yadon Ilaheyya (Divine Intervention)
2002
35mm, colour, Dolby SR, 92 minutes,
France/Morocco/Germany/Palestine,
Arabic/Hebrew/English (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Elia
Suleiman / Cinematographer: Marc-
André Batigne / Editor: Véronique
Lange / Print source/rights: Pyramid
International
Akram Zaatari
Lebanon b.1966
Al-Shrit Bikhayr (All is Well on the
Boarder) 1997
Digital video, colour, stereo,
43 minutes, Lebanon, Arabic (English
subtitles) / Director/Script/Editor/
Cinematographer: Akram Zaatari
Print source: Galerie Sfeir-Semler /
Rights: Akram Zaatari / Screening
format: Betacam SP
Shou Bhabbak (How I Love You) 2001
Digital video, colour, stereo,
29 minutes, Lebanon, Arabic
(English subtitles) / Director/Script/
Cinematographer: Akram Zaatari /
Editor: Michèle Tyan / Print source:
V-Tape / Rights: Akram Zaatari /
Screening format: Betacam SP
Tabiaah Samitah (Still Life aka Nature
Morte) 2008
Digital video, colour, stereo,
11 minutes, Lebanon, Arabic
(English subtitles) / Director/Script/
Cinematographer: Akram Zaatari /
Editor: Khalil Hajjar / Print source:
V-Tape / Rights: Akram Zaatari /
Screening format: DV Cam
244 245

The Cypress and the Crow:
50 Years of Iranian Animation
Mohammad Reza Abedi
Iran
Hambazi (Playmate) 1989
35mm, colour, stereo, 16 minutes,
Iran / Director: Mohammad Reza
Abedi / Editor: Mohammad
Haghighi / Music: Fariborz Lachini /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Noghli va Boloorhaye Barf (Noghli
and the Snow Crystals) 1989
35mm, colour, stereo, 10 minutes,
Iran / Director: Mohammad Reza
Abedi / Music: Reza Aligholi / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Ghete Gomshode (The Lost Piece)
1993
35mm, colour, stereo, 9 minutes,
Iran / Director: Mohammad Reza
Abedi / Editor: Mohammad
Haghighi / Music: Parham Parvas /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Hekayate Shirin (The Sweet Story)
1995
35mm, colour, stereo, 15 minutes,
Iran / Director: Mohammad Reza
Abedi / Editor: Changiz Sayyad /
Music: Parham Parvas / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Maryam Abouzari
Iran b.1982
Aghazi Digar (Another Beginning)
2006
Digital video, colour, stereo,
9:30 minutes, Iran, Farsi (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Maryam
Abouzari / Animator: Siavash
Khodaei / Editor: Siavash Khodaei /
Music: Sepohr Abasi / Print source/
rights: Documentary & Experimental
Film Center
Soudabeh Agah
Iran
Dayereh (The Circle) 1977
35mm, colour, stereo, 4:45 minutes,
Iran / Director: Soudabeh Agah /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Seyyed Morteza Ahadi
Iran b.1963
Safar-e Bidari (The Path of Love) 2004
35mm, colour, stereo, 21 minutes,
Iran / Director: Seyyed Morteza
Ahadi / Editor: Hassan Hassan-
Doust / Sound: Changuiz Sayyad /
Music: Abbas Dabirdanesh / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Gonjeshk va Panbeh Daneh (The
Sparrow and the Boll) 2007
35mm, colour, stereo, 12 minutes,
Iran / Director: Seyyed Morteza
Ahadi / Script: Ali Dadrass / Based
upon an old Iranian tale / Editor:
Saeed Pour-Esmaili / Sound:
Mahmoud Mohaghegh / Music:
Pirouz Arjomand / Cinematographer:
Seyyed Morteza Ahadi / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Esfandiar Ahmadieh
Iran b.1928
Mollah Nasreddin 1957
16mm, black and white,mono,
13 seconds, Iran / Director/Script/
Editor: Esfandiar Ahmadieh /
Cinematographer: Petrus Palian /
Print source/rights: Ministry of Arts
and Culture
Ordak Hasood (Jealous Duck) 1962
35mm, colour, mono, 6:21 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Esfandiar Ahmadieh / Print
source/rights: Ministry of Arts and
Culture
Rostam and Esfandiar (extract) 2002
35mm, colour, stereo, 15 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Esfandiar Ahmadieh /
Cinematographer: Nazanin Rabet /
Print source/rights: IRIB Media Trade
Tavalode Zal (Birth of Zal) 2005
Digital video, colour, stereo, Iran,
Farsi (English subtitles) / Director:
Esfandiar Ahmadieh / Script:
Shahnameh Ferdosi / Print source/
rights: Saba Animation Center
Zendegi (Life) 1966
35mm, colour, mono, 16:30 minutes,
Iran / Director: Nosrat Karimi /
Animator: Esfandiar Ahmadieh /
Editor: Esfandiar Ahmadieh, Nosrat
Karimi / Print source/rights: Ministry
of Arts and Culture
Khachik Akoopian
Iran
Mard va Parandeh (The Man and
the Bird) 1979
35mm, colour, stereo, 15:30 minutes,
Iran / Director: Khachik Akoopian /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Abdollah Alimorad
Iran b.1947
Kaghaz va Taa (Origami) 1984
35mm, colour, stereo, 5 minutes,
Iran / Director: Abdollah Alimorad /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Bache ha dar Moozeh (Children at
the Museum) 1987
35mm, colour, stereo, 10 minutes,
Iran / Director: Abdollah Alimorad /
Editor: Changuiz Sayyad / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Kelid Naghsh (The Role Key) 1990
35mm, colour, stereo, 6 minutes,
Iran / Director: Abdollah Alimorad /
Editor: Mohammad Haghighi / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Ghesehay Bazar-tooti va Baghal (The
Parrot and the Grocer) 1991
35mm, colour, stereo, 32 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) / Director:
Abdollah Alimorad / Editor: Changiz
Sayyad / Print source/rights: Kanoon
Koohe Javaher (The Jewel Mountain)
1994
35mm, colour, stereo, 27 minutes,
Iran / Director: Abdollah Alimorad /
Editor: Changuiz Sayyad / Music:
Fariborz Lachini / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Gheseha-ye Bazar (The Tales of
Bazaar) 1995
35mm, colour, stereo, 77 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Abdollah Alimorad / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Vorood be Donyaye Aroosakha
(Travelling to the Puppet World) 1995
35mm, colour, stereo, 20 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Abdollah Alimorad / Editor:
Changiz Sayyad / Music: Kambiz
Roshanravan / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Yeki Kam Ast (One is Not Enough)
1998
35mm, colour, stereo, 27 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Abdollah Alimorad / Editor:
Changiz Sayyad / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Bahador 2000
35mm, colour, stereo, 27 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Abdollah Alimorad / Editor:
Changiz Sayyad / Music: Saeed
Ansari / Print source/rights: Kanoon
Sepid Balan (The White Wings) 2002
35mm, colour, stereo, 13:45 minutes,
Iran / Director: Abdollah Alimorad /
Editor: Changiz Sayyad / Music:
Fardin Khalatbari / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Rouzi Kalaghi (Once a Crow) 2006
35mm, colour, stereo, 20 minutes,
Iran / Director: Abdollah Alimorad /
Editor: Changuiz Sayyad / Music:
Fardin Khalatbari / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Ahmad Arabani
Iran b.1947
Tabar (The Axe) 1982
35mm, colour, stereo, 8:40 minutes,
Iran / Director/Script: Ahmad
Arabani / Animator: Abdollah
Alimorad / Editor: Mohammad
Haghighi / Print source/rights: Kanoon
Ganj (Treasure) 1989
35mm, colour, stereo, 10 minutes,
Iran / Director: Ahmad Arabani /
Editor: Changiz Sayyad / Music:
Fariborz Lachini / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Noghli va Golhaye (Noghli and the
Sunflowers) 1993
35mm, colour, stereo, 8 minutes,
Iran / Director: Ahmad Arabani /
Editor: Changiz Sayyad / Music:
Saeed Ansari / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
En’ekas (Reflection) 1996
35mm, colour, stereo, 4:30 minutes,
Iran / Director: Ahmad Arabani /
Editor: Changiz Sayyad / Music:
Saeed Ansari / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Khialbaf (The Dreamer) 1996
35mm, colour, stereo, 4:30 minutes,
Iran / Director: Ahmad Arabani /
Editor: Changiz Sayyad / Music:
Saeed Ansari / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Sokoot (Silence) 1998
35mm, colour, stereo, 2 minutes,
Iran / Director: Ahmad Arabani /
Editor: Changiz Sayyad / Music:
Parham Parvas / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Safar Ali Asgharzadeh
Iran b.1940
Hamneshin (Companion) 1990
35mm, colour, stereo, 15
minutes, Iran / Director: Safar Ali
Asgharzadeh / Script: Vadjiollah
Fard Moghadam / Editor: Changiz
Sayyad / Music: Fariborz Lachini /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Bacheha ba Ham (Children Together)
1994
35mm, colour, stereo, 30
minutes, Iran / Director: Safar Ali
Asgharzadeh / Editor: Changiz
Sayyad / Music: Parham Parvas /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Kashti-ye Nuh (Noah’s Ark) 2002
35mm, colour, stereo, 16 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Safar Ali Asgharzadeh /
Script: Seyed Mehdi Shoja’ei / Music:
Fardin Khalatbari / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Maryam Bayani
Iran b.1982
Dastane Sofal (The Pottery Tale) 2008
DVD, colour and black and white,
stereo, 8:34 minutes, Iran / Director:
Maryam Bayani / Sound: Shirmohammad
Espandar (adapted
from Baluchistan Folk Music) / Print
source/rights: Maryam Bayani
Alireza Chitaei
Iran b.1979
Jaryan (The Flow) 2002
35mm, colour, stereo, 3:50 minutes,
Iran / Director: Alireza Chitaei / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Khaab (The Dream) 2007
Digital video, colour, stereo, 4:45
minutes, Iran / Director: Alireza
Chitaei / Sound: Sa’eed Pouresmaeili /
Music: Kayvan Honarmand / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Azhdar Deldadeh
Iran b.1972
Ahmad Bayad Peporsad (Ahmad
Must Ask) 1998
35mm, colour, stereo, 5:30 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director/Script: Azhdar Deldadeh /
Editor: Changiz Sayyad / Music:
Albert Araklian / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Behzad Farahat
Iran b.1968
Man Khdam Peyda Kardan (I Found
it Myself) 2002
35mm, colour, stereo, 16:40 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Behzad Farahat / Editor:
Changiz Sayyad / Music: Halmed
Sabet / Print Source/Rights: Kanoon
Bazgasht beh Khaneh (Returning
Home) 2005
35mm, colour, stereo, 12 minutes,
Iran / Director: Behzad Farahat /
Script: Naser Farahat, Mohammad
Aminolsharieh / Sound: Mahmoud
Mohaghegh / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Ghissihaye ye Khati 1 (Simple
Things 1) 2008
35mm, colour, stereo, 4 minutes,
Iran / Director: Behzad Farahat /
Sound: Mahmoud Mohaghegh /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Ghissihaye ye Khati 2 (Simple
Things 2) 2008
35mm colour, stereo, 4 minutes,
Iran / Director: Behzad Farahat / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Vadjiollah Fard Moghadam
Iran b.1945
Mozahem-ha (The Intruders) 1976
16mm, colour, stereo, 3:50 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Vadjiollah Fard Moghadam /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Taghlid (Imitation) 1979
35mm, colour, stereo, 14:40 minutes,
Iran / Director: Vadjiollah Fard
Moghadam / Editor Mohammad
Haghighi / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Bazgasht (The Return) 1986
35mm, colour, stereo, 17:44 minutes,
Iran / Director: Vadjiollah Fard
Moghadam / Editor: Mohammad
Haghighi / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Dar Kenar Ham (Together With Each
Other) 1992
35mm, colour, stereo, 12 minutes,
Iran / Director: Vadjiollah Fard
Moghadam / Editor: Changiz
Sayyad / Print source/rights: Kanoon
Lili Lili Hosak (Lily Lily Little Pool)
1992
35mm, colour, stereo, 16 minutes,
Iran / Director: Vadjiollah Fard
Moghadam / Animator: Farkhondeh
Torabi / Editor: Changiz Sayyad /
Music: Mohammad Mirzamani / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Yar Ham dar Kenar-e Ham (Being
Friends Being Together) 1998
35mm, colour, stereo, 7:25 minutes,
Iran / Director: Vadjiollah Fard
Moghadam / Editor: Hadi Yaghinlou /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Lida Fazli
Iran b.1977
Why Dogs Hate Cats 2008
Betacam, colour, stereo, 12 minutes,
Iran / Director/Script: Lida Fazli /
Editor: Mohsen Fazli / Music: Mehrad
Nabaei / Print source/rights: Saba
Centre
Behrouz Gharibpour
East Kurdistan, Iran b.1950
Karagah 2 (Detective 2) 1988
35mm, colour, stereo, 70 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Behrouz Gharibpour /
Editor: Samad Tavazoi / Music:
Arsalan Kamkar / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Fatemeh Goudarzi
Iran b.1974
Keshavarz va Gav (The Farmer and
the Cow) 2002
35mm, colour, stereo, 6 minutes,
Iran / Director: Fatemeh Goudarzi /
Editor: Said Pour-Esmaili / Music:
Reza Mahai / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Madar Bororgu-e Parandeh (The
Flying Grandma) 2006
35mm, colour, stereo, 12 minutes,
Iran / Director: Fatemeh Goudarzi /
Editor: Said Pouresmaili / Music:
Nima Hossein-Zadeh / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Shahram Heydarian
Iran b.1973
War Maker 2008
Betacam, colour, stereo, 6:34
minutes, Iran / Director: Shahram
Heydarian / Editor: Orod Peykanfar /
Music: Hamed Kiaee / Print source/
rights: Documentary & Experimental
Film Center
Bozorgmehr Hosseinpour
Iran b.1976
The Good the Bad and the Love 2009
Betacam, colour, stereo, 5:55
minutes, Iran / Director: Bozorgmehr
Hosseinpour / Adapted from
One thousand and one nights /
Editor: Sima Haghshenas / Music:
Nima Pashak / Print source/rights:
Research and Production Centre
Animation
Lisa Jamileh Barjesteh
United States b.1970
Parande-ieh Sokut (Bird of Silence)
2005
35mm, black and white, stereo, 7
minutes, Iran / Director: Lisa Jamileh
Barjesteh / Music: Amirhossein
Jalili / Editor: Reza Bahadorian / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Minoo Janmohammadi
Iran b.1979
Golha (Flowers) 2006
Digital video, colour, stereo, 6
minutes, Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Minoo Janmohammadi /
Based on the story Die Blumen
by Peter Bichsel / Music: Hootan
Pourzaki / Print source/rights: Raiavin
Bahram Javaheri
Iran
Gol Parandeh va Khorshid (The
Flower, the Bird and the Sun) 2001
35mm, colour, stereo, 10 minutes,
Iran / Director: Bahram Javaheri /
Editor: Ebrahim Saeedi / Music:
Mohammad Reza Aligholi / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Mahin Javaherian
Iran b.1950
Baroon Miad Jar Jar (Hajar´s
Wedding) 2008
35mm, colour, stereo, 8 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Mahin Javaherian / Based
on folkloric poems / Editor: Saeed
Pour Esmaeili / Music: Abbas
Dabirdanesh, Omid Fathollahi / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Parviz Kalantari-Teleghani
Iran b.1931
Azadi-ye Amrikayee (Liberty the
American Style) 1980
35mm, colour, stereo, 6 minutes, Iran,
Farsi (English subtitles) / Director/
Script: Parviz Kalantari-Teleghani /
Based on a story by Parviz Kalantari /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Sarvenaz Karimianpour
Iran b.1976
No title 2002
Digital video, black and white,
stereo, 5:32 minutes, Iran, Farsi
(English subtitles) / Director:
Sarvenaz Karimianpour / Editor:
Abtin Mozaffari / Sound: Vahid
Safari / Print source/rights: Sarvenaz
Karimianpour
Untitled 2007
Digital video, colour, stereo,
5:28 minutes, Iran, Farsi (English
subtitles) / Director: Sarvenaz
Karimianpour / Editor: Abtin
Mozaffari / Sound: Vahid Safari / Print
source/rights: Sarvenaz Karimianpour
Amir Kasavandi
Iran b.1962
Turkmen Boy 2008
Betacam, colour, stereo,
15 minutes, Iran, Farsi (English
subtitles) / Director/Script/Editor:
Amir Kasavandi / Music/Sound:
Mohommad Abraham Gorge / Print
source/rights: IRIB Media Trade
246 247

Ali Reza Kavian Rad
Iran b.1967
The Ancient Tales 2006
Betacam, colour, stereo, 11:42
minutes, Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Ali Reza Kavian Rad / Script:
Mohammad Marciano / Editor:
Mohommad Abraham Gorge /
Music/Sound: Mercado Jeanie / Print
source/rights: IRIB Media Trade
Maryam Khalilzadeh
Iran b.1978
Aks (Photo) 2009
Betacam, colour, stereo, 9:32
minutes, Iran / Director/Script:
Maryam Khalilzadeh / Animators:
Maryam Khalilzadeh, Azadeh Moezi,
Maryam Charmchi / Editor/Sound:
Leila Khalilzadeh / Music: Sharareh
Sheikh Khan / Print source/rights:
Elypse Short Film Distribution
Rashin Kheirieh
Iran b.1979
Marde-e-tavan va Khayat-e Hilegar
(The Cunning Taylor and the Young
Man) 2008
35mm, colour, stereo, 9 minutes, Iran /
Director: Rashin Kheirieh / Animator:
Iraj Khossronia / Sound: Changiz
Sayyad / Editor: Iraj Khossronia /
Music: Fardin Khalatbari / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Ali Khodaei
Iran b.1959
Ci Messleh Ci (What’s It Like?) 2004
Betacam, colour, stereo, 3:30
minutes, Iran / Director: Ali Khodaei /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Laleh Khorramian
Iran b.1974
Sophie and Goya 2004
Betacam, colour, stereo, 10:42
minutes, Iran / Director: Laleh
Khorramian / Print source/rights:
Laleh Khorramian, Salon 94
Chopperlady 2005
Betacam, colour, stereo, 9 minutes,
Iran / Director: Laleh Khorramian /
Print source/rights: Laleh
Khorramian, Salon 94
I Without End Meanwhile 2008
Betacam, colour, stereo, 4:20
minutes, Iran / Director: Laleh
Khorramian / Print source/rights:
Laleh Khorramian, Salon 94
I Without End (single channel) 2008
Betacam, colour, stereo, 6:20
minutes, Iran / Director: Laleh
Khorramian / Print source/rights:
Laleh Khorramian, Salon 94
Omid Khoshnazar
Iran b.1981
Sefr darajeh (Zero Degree) 2006
Digital video, colour, stereo, 8
minutes, Iran / Director/Script/Editor:
Omid Khoshnazar / Sound: Behrouz
Shahaamat / Print source/rights:
Omid Khoshnazar
Labyrinth 2007
Digital video, colour, stereo,
9:20 minutes, Iran, English / Director:
Omid Khoshnazar / Animator:
Bezhad Rajabipour / Script: Mehdi
Rajabi / Editor: Arash Karimi / Sound:
Behrooz Shahamat / Print source/
rights: Omid Khoshnazar
Parasite 2009
Digital video, colour, silent, 8:30
minutes, Switzerland/Iran / Director/
Script: Omid Khoshnazar / Animator:
Bezhad Rajabipour / Editor: Arash
Karimi / Print source/rights: Omid
Khoshnazar
Amir Mehran
Iran b.1980
The Lost Waves 2004
Digital video, colour, stereo, 7
minutes, Iran / Director: Amir
Mehran / Script: Mehdi Rajabi /
Editor: Hossein Eghbali / Sound: Amir
Mehran / Music: Sanaz Moradian /
Print source/rights: Amir Mehran
The Injustice Castle 2006
Digital video, colour, stereo, 2:30
minutes, Iran / Director/Script:
Amir Mehran / Animator: Ameneh
Arbaboun / Editor: Mas’ood
Ghodsiyeh / Sound: Houman
Homami / Music: Houman Homami /
Print source/rights: Amir Mehran
Farshid Mesghali
Iran b.1943
Aga-ye Hayoula (Mr Monster) 1970
35mm, colour, stereo, 8 minutes,
Iran / Director: Farshid Mesghali /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Soo-e-tafahom (Misunderstood) 1970
35mm, colour, stereo, 4:25 minutes,
Iran / Director: Farshid Mesghali /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Pesar saz va Parandeh (The Boy the
Bird and the Musical Instrument)
1971
35mm, colour, stereo, 12:21 minutes,
Iran / Director: Farshid Mesghali /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Shahr-e Khakestari (The Grey City)
1972
35mm, colour, stereo, 6:45 minutes,
Iran / Director: Farshid Mesghali /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Kerm-e Kheili Kheili Khoob (A Very
Good Worm) 1973
35mm, colour, stereo, 3:46 minutes,
Iran / Director: Farshid Mesghali /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Dobareh Negah Kon (Look Again)
1974
35mm, colour, stereo, 10 minutes,
Iran / Director: Farshid Mesghali /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Bijan Mirbagheri
Iran b.1968
Mahsa (The Dew) 2003
35mm, colour, stereo, 7:48 minutes,
Iran / Director: Bijan Mirbagheri /
Script: Leyla Mirhadi / Editor/Sound:
Mahmood Mirbagheri / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Mohammad Moghadam
Iran b.1965
Derakht Bakhshande (The Generous
Tree) 1993
35mm, colour, stereo, 14 minutes,
Iran / Director: Mohammad
Moghadam / Music: Saeed / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Maryam 1996
35mm, colour, stereo, 15 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) / Director:
Mohammad Moghadam / Music:
Panahi / Print source/rights: Kanoon
Toulanitarin Safar-e Donya (The
Longest Voyage) 1999
35mm, colour, stereo, 10:15
minutes, Iran / Director: Mohammad
Moghadam / Animator: Elaheh
Goudarzi / Editor: Changiz Sayyad /
Music: Hesamian / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Mashaallah Mohammadi
East Kurdistan, Iran b.1969
Other Being 2006
Digital video, colour, stereo, 1:30
minutes, Iran / Director: Mashaallah
Mohammadi / Script: Siamand
Mohammadi / Music: Cwan Hacoo /
Print source/rights: Mashaallah
Mohammadi
Pain 2006
Digital video, colour, stereo, 3:30
minutes, Iran / Director: Mashaallah
Mohammadi / Script: Hamid Reza
Ardalan / Editors: Mashaallah
Mohammadi, Hooman Rabiei / Music:
Kurdish traditional / Print source/
rights: Mashaallah Mohammadi
The Last Song of My Neighboring
Girl Before They Burn All Her Dreams
2007
Digital video, colour, stereo, 3:30
minutes, Iran/Kurdistan / Director:
Mashaallah Mohammadi / Music:
Rojhin / Print source/rights:
Mashaallah Mohammadi
Colourful Rains 2009
Digital video, colour, stereo, 3:39
minutes, Iran/Kurdistan / Director:
Mashaallah Mohammadi / Script:
Siamand Mohammadi / Music:
Ramiz Qulyev / Print source/rights:
Mashaallah Mohammadi
Human Beings 2009
Digital video, colour, stereo, 3:10
minutes, Iran/Kurdistan / Director:
Mashaallah Mohammadi / Music:
Mozart Piano Concerto No 23 /
Print source/rights: Mashaallah
Mohammadi
Morteza Momayez
Iran 1935–2005
Yek Noghteh-ye Sabz (A Green Dot)
1972
35mm, colour, stereo, 5:14 minutes,
Iran / Director: Morteza Momayez /
Music: Esfandiar Monfaredzadeh /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Siah Parandeh (The Bird of Doom)
1973
35mm, colour, stereo, 7:45 minutes,
Iran / Director: Morteza Momayez /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Parviz Naderi
Iran
Esteghlal (Independence) 1973
35mm, colour, stereo, 4:25 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Parviz Naderi / Based on a
story by Noureddin Zarrinkelk / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
The Man and the Cloud 1975
35mm, black and white, stereo, 6:50
minutes, Iran / Director/Script: Parviz
Naderi / Based on a story by Parviz
Naderi / Sound: Herair Atashkar /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Sib (The Apple Tree) 1982
35mm, colour, stereo, 7:30 minutes,
Iran / Director: Parviz Naderi / Based
on a story by Aboutaleb Habibi /
Editor: Mohammad Haghighi / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Vahid Nasirian
Iran b.1971
The Hole 2002
Digital video, colour, stereo,
6 minutes, Iran, Farsi (English
subtitles) / Director/Script: Vahid
Nasirian / Print source/rights:
Documentary & Experimental Film
Center
Contrasts 2004
Betacam, colour, stereo, 7 minutes,
Iran / Director: Vahid Nasirian /
Animator: Saadat Rahim Zadeh /
Music: Mohsen Namjou / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Babak Nazari
Iran b.1974
Mah Boud-o-roubah (The Fox and the
Moon) 2005
Betacam, colour, stereo, 12 minutes,
Iran / Director/Script/Editor: Babak
Nazari / Music: Fardin Khalatbari /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Shekarestian (Sugarland: The Lie,
Which Didn’t Come through the
Gates) 2008
Betacam, colour, stereo, 15 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Babak Nazari / Script:
Mehdi Esmaeili, Saeid Zameni, Babak
Nazari / Music: Jalal Zolfonoun /
Print source/rights: Research and
Production Centre Animation
Jangal-e Ma (Pink Jungle) 2009
Betacam, colour, stereo, 5:53
minutes, Iran / Director: Babak
Nazari / Print source/rights: Research
and Production Centre Animation
Shekarestian (Sugarland: Fake
Brother) 2009
Betacam, colour, stereo, 15 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Babak Nazari / Script:
Mehdi Esmaeili, Saeid Zameni, Babak
Nazari / Music: Jalal Zolfonoun /
Print source/rights: Research and
Production Centre Animation
Sa’adat Rahimzadeh
Iran b.1974
There’s No Beginning 2007
Digital video, colour, stereo, 7
minutes, Iran / Director: Sa’adat
Rahimzadeh / Print source/rights:
Documentary and Experimental Film
Center
Zohal Razavi
Iran b.1975
Happy Birthday 2004
Betacam, colour, stereo, 11 minutes,
Iran / Director: Zohal Razavi /
Script: Faranak Ash / Animator:
Farzad Mousavi / Editor: Mehdi
Saffarpour / Sound: Sam Kashefi /
Music: Rohollah Amirteymouri / Print
source/rights: IRIB Media Trade
Kalaghha (The Crows) 2008
Betacam, colour, stereo, 8 minutes,
Iran / Director/Script: Zolid Nazavi /
Animator: Homed Kamali / Editor:
Mehdi Saffarpour / Sound/Music:
Sepehr Abbasi / Print source/rights:
IRIB Media Trade
Mohammad Reza Khanzad
Iran b.1971
Hich Rouzi (No Days) 2006
Betacam, colour, stereo, 5:40
minutes, Iran, Farsi (English
subtitles) / Director: Mohammad
Reza Khanzad / Script: Mehdi
Abouhashem / Editor: Ebrahim
Gorji / Sound: Nader Alimardani /
Music: Amr MirAqasi / Print source/
rights: Saba Animation Center
Nafiseh Riyahi
Sweden b.1943
Cheghedr Midoonam? (How Much
Do I Know?) 1972
35mm, colour, stereo, 6:30 minutes,
Iran / Director: Nafiseh Riyahi / Editor:
Harayer Atashkar / Music: Sheyda
Gharcheh / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Rangin-kaman (Rainbow) 1973
35mm, colour, stereo, 5:43 minutes,
Iran / Director: Nafiseh Riyahi / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Medad Banafsh (Violet Pencil) 1975
35mm, colour, stereo, 12:40
minutes, Iran / Directors: Nafiseh
Riyahi, Soudabeh Agah / Based on
a story by Nafiseh Riyahi / Editor:
Harayer Atashkar / Music: Kambiz
Roshanravan / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Az Tehran ta Tehran (From Tehran to
Tehran) 1987
35mm, colour, stereo, 24 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Nafiseh Riyahi / Music:
Kambiz Roshanravan / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Ali Akbar Sadeghi
Iran b.1937
Haft Shahr (Seven Cities) 1971
35mm, colour, stereo, 15 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Ali Akbar Sadeghi / Music:
Sheyda Gharcheh-Daghi / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Golbaran (Flower Storm) 1972
35mm, colour, stereo, 7:45 minutes,
Iran / Director: Ali Akbar Sadeghi /
Based on a story by Hossein
Samakar / Animator: Parviz Naderi /
Editor: Harayer Atashkar / Music:
Esfandiar Monfaredzadeh / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Rokh (The Rook) 1974
35mm, colour, stereo, 10:31
minutes, Iran / Director: Ali Akbar
Sadeghi / Based on a story by
Ebrahim Forouzesh / Editor:
Harayer Atashkar / Music: Esfandiar
Monfaredzadeh / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Malek Khorshid (The Sun King) 1975
35mm, colour, stereo, 13 minutes,
Iran / Director: Ali Akbar Sadeghi /
Editor: Harayer Atashkar / Music:
Daruish Dolatshahi / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Zaal and Simorgh 1977
35mm, colour, stereo, 26:30 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Ali Akbar Sadeghi / Music:
Majid Entezami / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Moin Samadi
Iran b.1979
Haft Seen (7 Seen) 2004
Digital video, colour, stereo,
2 minutes, Iran / Director: Moin
Samadi / Music: Arman Mousapoor /
Print source/rights: Raiavin
Nowrooz (Newrooz) 2004
Digital video, colour, stereo,
2 minutes, Iran / Director: Moin
Samadi / Music: Arman Mousapoor /
Print source/rights: Raiavin
Negah Dar, Piadeh Misham!
(Stop It! I’m Out) 2005
Digital video, colour, stereo,
10:30 minutes, Iran / Director: Moin
Samadi / Music: Farzad Golpayegani /
Print source/rights:Raiavin
Aroosak Gomshode (The Lost
Puppet) 2006
Digital video, colour, stereo,
7 minutes, Iran / Director: Moin
Samadi / Animator: Amir Savadkouhi /
Music: Fardin Khalatbari, Rai Avin
Studio, Mehdi Aghahossein Na’eini /
Print source/rights: Raiavin
Boz Bazi (Boz Game) 2007
DVD, black and white, stereo,
2:30 minutes, Iran / Director: Moin
Samadi / Music: Armin Bahari / Print
source/rights: Raiavin
Nazanin Sarbandi
Iran b.1949
Ghali (Carpet) 1980
35mm, colour, stereo, 8 minutes,
Iran / Director: Nazanin Sarbandi /
Editor: Mohammad Haghighi /
Music: Esmail Tehrani / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Etehad (The Unity) 1989
35mm, colour, stereo, 9 minutes,
Iran / Director: Nazanin Sarbandi /
Editor: Mohammad Haghighi /
Music: Saeed Shahrah / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Neshaani (Address) 2006
35mm, colour, stereo, 5:20 minutes,
Iran / Director: Nazanin Sarbandi /
Editor: Shahrzad Akromi / Music:
Mohmoud Riza Mohaghegh / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Marjane Satrapi
Iran b.1969
Persepolis 2007
35mm, black and white, Dolby,
95 minutes, Iran, French/English/
Persian/German (English subtitles) /
Director: Vincent Paronnaud,
Marjane Satrapi / Script: Vincent
Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi / Based
on a graphic novel by Marjane
Satrapi of the same name / Editor:
Stéphane Roche / Cinematographer:
Olivier Bernet / Print source/rights:
Roadshow Films
Farshid Shafiyee
Iran b.1969
Sidewalk 2003
Betacam, colour, stereo, 8 minutes,
Iran / Director/Editor: Farshid
Shafiyee / Animators: Amir Hossein
Jalili, Kaveh Faraji / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Nahid Shamsdoust
Iran b.1952
Baran-e Shadi (Rain of Happiness)
2002
35mm, colour, stereo, 14 minutes,
Iran / Director: Nahid Shamsdoust /
Script: Hormoz Nazempour / Editor:
Changuiz Sayyad / Music: Iraj
Panahi / Print source/rights: Kanoon
248 249

Mehrdad Sheikhan
Iran b.1965
Farkhondeh Torabi
Iran b.1965
Noureddin Zarrinkelk
Iran b.1937
Hossein Ziaei
Iran b.1973
Tanhaai (Solitude) 2008
Betacam, colour, stereo, 10 minutes,
Iran / Director/Editor/Script:
Mehrdad Sheikhan / Animator:
Behzad Rajabipour / Music: Hossein
Alizadeh / Print source/rights:
Mehrdad Sheikhan
Mozaffar and Ramin Sheydaei
Iran b.1957 and 1968
Sib (The Story of Apple) 2000
35mm, colour, stereo, 14 minutes,
Iran / Director: Mozaffar et Ramin
Sheydaei / Editor: Mohammad
Haghighi / Music: Mohammad Reza
Aligholi / Print source/rights: Kanoon
Mohammad Ali Soleymanzadeh
Iran b.1955
Kalaghi keh Mikhast Ghavita rin
Bashed (A Crow Who Wanted to be
the Strongest) 1998
35mm, colour, stereo, 12 minutes,
Iran / Directors: Mohammad Ali
Soleymanzadeh, Morteza Ahadi /
Editor: Changiz Sayyad / Music:
Malek-Iraj Panahi / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
General va Badbadak (The General
And The Kite) 2004
35mm, colour, stereo, 14:30 minutes,
Iran / Director: Mohammad Ali
Soleymanzadeh / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Parvin Tajvid
Iran b.1961
Fakhte Tanha (The Lonely Cuckoo)
1995
35mm, colour, stereo, 9 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Parvin Tajvid / Editor:
Changiz Sayyad / Music: Parvas /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Ghesse-ye Panirak (The Story
of Panirak) 1999
Digital video, colour, stereo,
4:30 minutes, Iran, Farsi (English
subtitles) / Director: Parvin Tajvid /
Music: Saeed Shahrah / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Zibatarin Avaz (The Most Beautiful
Song) 2000
Digital video, colour, stereo, 7
minutes, Iran / Director: Parvin
Tajvid / Editor: Ali Tahmasebi /
Music: Albert Araklian / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Parvaz (Flight) 1993
35mm, colour, stereo, 12 minutes,
Iran / Director: Farkhondeh Torabi /
Editor: Changiz Sayyad / Music:
Fardin Khalatbari / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Shangoul-o- Mangoul 1999
35mm, colour, stereo, 18 minutes,
Iran / Directors: Farkhondeh Torabi,
Morteza Ahadi Sarkani / Editor:
Hassan Hassan-Doust / Music: Pirouz
Arjomand / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Risheh dar Asseman (The Sprout)
2006
35mm, colour, stereo, 8 minutes,
Iran / Director: Farkhondeh Torabi /
Editor: Hassan Hassan-Doust / Music:
Ali-Reza Kohandayri / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Jabbar Vaziri
Iran
Sokoot-e Bimogheh (Untimely
Silence) 1997
Digital video, colour, stereo,
9 minutes, Iran, Farsi (English
subtitles) / Director: Jabbar Vaziri /
Editor: Changiz Sayyad / Music:
Ansari / Print source/rights: Kanoon
Khorro Pof (Snore) 1999
35mm, colour, stereo, 7:04 minutes,
Iran / Director: Jabbar Vaziri / Editor:
Changiz Sayyad / Music: Hossein
Moradi, Bekman Alvandi / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Mehdi Zarringhalami
Iran b.1976
Beatle 2001
Digital video, colour, stereo, 3
minutes, Iran / Director: Mehdi
Zarringhalami / Print source/rights:
Mehdi Zarringhalami
One Two Three & Four 2003
Digital video, colour, stereo, 4
minutes, Iran / Director: Mehdi
Zarringhalami / Sound: Ali
Zarringhalami / Print source/rights:
Mehdi Zarringhalami
Starving Inside a Whale 2007
Betacam, colour, stereo, 13:30
minutes, Iran / Director: Mehdi
Zarringhalami / Editor: Farshad
Nekoomanesh / Sound: Mehdi
Zarringhalami / Music: Sadegh
Sajak / Print source/rights: Mehdi
Zarringhalami
Zamin bazi-e Baboosh (A Playground
for Babousch) 1971
35mm, colour, stereo, 6:45
minutes, Iran / Director: Noureddin
Zarrinkelk / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Tadee (Association of Ideas) 1973
35mm, black and white, stereo, 4
minutes, Iran / Director: Noureddin
Zarrinkelk / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Atal Matal Tootooleh 1974
35mm, colour, stereo, 5 minutes,
Iran, Farsi (English subtitles) /
Director: Noureddin Zarrinkelk / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Donyayeh Divaneh Divaneh (The
Mad Mad Mad World) 1975
35mm, black and white, stereo, 3:50
minutes, Iran / Director: Noureddin
Zarrinkelk / Print source/rights:
Kanoon
Amir Hamza the Lover and the
Dancing Zebra 1977
35mm, colour, stereo, 26 minutes,
Iran / Director: Noureddin Zarrinkelk /
Print source/rights: Kanoon
Cheshm-e Tang-e Donia-dar (One
Two Three More …) 1980
35mm, colour, stereo, 18 minutes,
Iran / Director: Noureddin
Zarrinkelk / Editor: Changiz Sayyad /
Music: Abass DabrDanesh / Print
source/rights: Kanoon
Abargodratha (The Superpowers)
1987
35mm, black and white, stereo,
12 minutes, Iran / Director:
Noureddin Zarrinkelk / Print source/
rights: Kanoon
Pood (Persian Carpet) 1998
Betacam, colour, stereo,
17 minutes, Iran, Farsi (English
subtitles) / Director: Noureddin
Zarrinkelk / Based on a story by
Nader Ebrahimy / Animator: Sahar
Yasinpoor / Music: Saeid Zehni / Print
source/rights: IRIB Media Trade
Hassan Zaryabi Yekta
Iran b.1962
Zemzemaye Hasti (Whisper of
Existence) 2005
Digital video, colour, stereo,
8 minutes, Iran / Director/Script/
Cinematographer: Hassan Zaryabi
Yekta / Editor: Arash Karimi / Sound:
Behroz Rezaei Mohammadi / Print
source/rights: Documentary &
Experimental Film Center
Out of the Cup of Tea 2006
Digital video, colour, stereo,
15:39 minutes, Iran / Director:
Hossein Zia’ee / Editor/Sound:
Ramin Naddafi / Print source/rights:
Documentary & Experimental Film
Center
Santosh Sivan
India b.1961
Production still from Tahaan: A Boy with a Grenade 2008
35mm, colour, Dolby Digital, 105 minutes, India,
Hindi (English subtitles) / Image courtesy: IDream
Independent Pictures, Middlesex
250 251

Acknowledgments
Sponsors
Founding supporter:
Queensland Government
Presenting sponsor:
Santos
Principal benefactor:
Tim Fairfax Family Foundation
Principal partners:
Australia Council
Visual Arts and Craft Strategy
(Arts Queensland)
Major sponsors:
Chairman’s Circle
Industrea Limited
Ishibashi Foundation
Tourism & media partners:
Art & Australia
Adshel
Brisbane Marketing
The Courier-Mail
Tourism Queensland
Austereo’s Triple M
Network Ten
ourbrisbane.com
Supporting sponsors:
Australia–China Council
Australia–Korea Foundation
Australia–India Council
Australia–Malaysia Institute
Australia–Thailand Institute
Creative New Zealand
Gordon Darling Foundation
Japan Foundation
Koryo Tours
Sherman Contemporary Art
Foundation
Kids’ APT:
Tim Fairfax Family Foundation
Children’s Art Centre: Santos
Quest Community Newspapers
(Summer Spectacular)
APT regional programs:
Visual Arts and Craft Strategy
(Arts Queensland)
Artists
The Queensland Art Gallery wishes
to thank the artists and filmmakers
and their representatives for their
generous assistance to APT6.
Lenders
The Gallery is grateful to the many
lenders to the exhibition:
Nicholas Bonner, Beijing
Lenzi-Morisot Foundation,
Singapore/France
Private Collection of
Mr and Mrs Shehab Gargash
Newell Harry, Sydney
Isabelle Levy and
Geraldine Galateau, Paris
Kukje Gallery, South Korea
The MAC Collection, Dubai
Dr Oei Hong Djien
The Lekha and Anupam Poddar
Collection
Sigg Collection, Switzerland
Tapi Collection, India
And other private collectors who
wish to remain anonymous.
The Gallery acknowledges and
thanks the many individuals and
organisations that have generously
supported APT6 artists and projects,
as well as sharing advice during APT
research and travel.
Project Support
26 Roots, Vanuatu: David and
Caroline Nalo
3RRR FM Melbourne: Namila Benson
677 Band/One Television: Rineta
‘Rinay’ Bennett
Aboriginal Art Prints Network,
Sydney: Michael Kershaw
Dr Mohamad Abdalla, Brisbane
AddIn, Ho Chi Minh City:
Ngo Thai Uyen
Waleed Aly, Melbourne
Amalgamated Films, Charters
Towers, Australia: Steven Snell
Ambassade de France, Sydney:
Jean-Jacques Garnier
Carl Amneus, Sydney
Annandale Galleries, Sydney:
Bill & Anne Gregory
Arario Gallery, Beijing: June Y Gwak,
Hwajung Choi
Art Vietnam, Hanoi: Suzanne Lecht
Australia Network: Tania Nugent,
Bernadette Nunn
Australian Embassy, Hanoi:
Ambassador Allaster Cox, Julie
Glasgow, Aidan Storer (Austrade)
and Embassy staff
David Baker, Sydney
Dale Berning, London
Bishop Museum, Honolulu: Noelle
Kahanu
Bistaveos Productions, Vanuatu:
Joe Tjiobang, Bong Veta
Bob van Orsouw Gallery, Zurich:
Eleonora Holthoff,
Eveline Baumgartner
Andrew Boe, Brisbane
Brisbane Digital Images: Martin Barry
Buena Vista International, South
Yarra, Australia: Ivan Vukusic
Catherine Dussart Productions, Paris
Celluloid Dreams, Paris: Olivier
Arthur, Anne-Sophie Lehec,
Pascale Ramonda
Central Motion Picture, Taipei:
Gene Yao
Kiri Chan, Brisbane
Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai:
Mort Chatterjee, Tara Lal
Chinese-Taipei Film Archive, Taipei:
Teresa Huang, Winston Lee
CHM Supersound, Papua New
Guinea: Richard Francisco,
Stephen Rae
Chung Tian Temple, Brisbane:
Ven. Chueh-Shan, Peter Cheung
Antonia Cimini, Beijing
Compact Megastore:
Thierry Caupert
Creative New Zealand (development
grant to Reuben Paterson)
CulturesFrance, Paris
Adrian Dannat, New York
Linda Degeoffroy, New Caledonia
Meredith Desha, Honolulu
Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon:
Anupam & Lekha Poddar,
Amit Kumar Jain, Jaya Neupaney,
Shweta Wahi
Do Dat Jump, New Caledonia:
Mike O’Flynn, Andre Gaspart
Edition Holiday Music, New
Caledonia: Jean Luc Martin
Fest’Napuan, Vanuatu:
Ralph Rengenvanu
Film Distribution, Paris:
Martin Caraux
Further Arts, Vanuatu: Tom Dick
(now Brisbane)
Gajah Gallery, Singapore:
Jasdeep Sandhu, Aisha Amrin,
Kimberley Croy, Krisstel Martin
Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney:
Barry Keldoulis
Gallery Nature Morte, New Delhi:
Peter Nagy, Amrieka Takhar
Erin Gleeson, Phnom Penh
Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland
Josh and Los Green, Kuala Lumpur
Grey Noise, Lahore: Umer Butt
Benjamin Milton Hampe, Brisbane
Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong:
Chang Tsong-zung, Marcello Kwan
Han Bridge School, Ho Chi Minh City:
Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao,
Le Thi Cam Giang
High Stakes Records, Auckland,
New Zealand: Tiopira McDowell
Justice Holmes, Brisbane
The Honolulu Advertiser, Hawai’i
Hopscotch Films, Sydney:
Janine de Bry
Hsiao-pei Chan, Taipei
Huarere, Vanuatu: George Tapeta
Kirk Huffman, Sydney
Hui-ting Ho, Taipei
Ibiza Bar & Restaurant, Hanoi:
To Hanh Trinh, Tran Vu Hoai
Institut National de l’Audiovisuel,
Paris: Sylvie Dargnies
Jan Manton Art, Brisbane: Jan Manton
JBA Productions, Paris:
Capucine Henry
Nicholas Jose, Boston
Jumbunna Indigenous House
of Learning, Sydney:
Jason De Santolo
Katchafire, Hamilton, New Zealand:
Logan Bell, Leila Tarawa
Koganecho Bazaar, Yokohama:
Mayumi Hiran
Koryo Tours, Beijing:
Hannah Barraclough,
Simon Cockerell, Cécile Matet,
Emily Qiu
KTUH 90.3, Hawai’i: Nick Yee
and staff
Kukje Gallery, Seoul:
Hanyoung Chung, Suzie Kim,
Yumi Koh, Seungmin Lee,
Eunsie Park, Gimo Yi
Deddy Kusuma, Jakarta
LASALLE College of the Arts,
Singapore: Milenko Prvacki
Long March Space, Beijing:
Lu Jie, Zoe Butt, Sheryl Cheung,
David Tung
Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington:
Hamish McKay
Madman Entertainment, Melbourne:
Paul Tonta
Schultze Maetola, Solomon Islands
Nasrin Maleki, Tehran
Mai Tung, Ho Chi Minh City
Mangrove Productions,
New Caledonia: Anne-Lise
Barbou, Stéphane Hervé,
Alain Lecante
Jack Siviu Martau, Port Vila, Vanuatu
Max Protetch Gallery, New York:
Josie Brown, Max Protetch
Michael Lett, Auckland: Michael Lett
Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo:
Miho Osada
Moving Productions, Auckland,
New Zealand: Dave Allan
National Arts Council, Singapore
New Zero Art Space, Yangon:
Aye Ko and New Zero/
New Generation artists
Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington:
Peter McLeavey
Principal Norbert, Vanuatu
One TV, Solomon Islands:
Dorothy Wickham, Terrence Ziru
Osage Gallery, Hong Kong:
Eugene Tan, Ong Puay Khim
Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo: Hidenori Ota,
Yasuko Kaneko
ozreggae.com
Pakipika Productions, Hawai’i:
Spencer Toyama
Tina Pang, Hong Kong
Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong:
Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya,
Sherona Chan
Phare Ponleu Selpak, Battambang,
Cambodia: Srey Bandol,
Anna Tuyen Tran
Tobias Putrih, Slovenia
Michael Quennell, Brisbane
Raking Leaves, London:
Sharmini Pereira
Roadshow Films, Brisbane:
John Anderson
Rodeo, Istanbul: Merve Elveren,
Sylvia Kouvali
Roi Roa Productions,
Solomon Islands:
Geoffrey ‘Gibby’ Molia
rokrokmusic.com, Papua New
Guinea: Emmanuel Narakobi
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney:
Roslyn Oxley
Rossi & Rossi Gallery, London:
Fabio Rossi
Runa Islam Studio, London:
Ewout Vellekoop
John Salong, Vanuatu
Sammy ‘Sharzy’ Saeni,
Solomon Islands
SCAI The Bathhouse,
Shiraishi Contemporary Art Inc.,
Tokyo: Fumiko Nagayoshi
Catrin Seefranz, Vienna
Alexandra Seno, Hong Kong
ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai:
Chen Yan; Lorenz Heibling,
Jin Sun, Laura Zhou
Sharpnote Records, Honolulu:
Laka Preis Carpenter
Shochiku, Tokyo: Yusuke Okada
Shugo Arts, Tokyo
Singapore Film Commission
Solomon Islands Music Federation:
Placid Walekwate
Sony Pictures, Sydney:
Michael Atkins
Subodh Gupta Studio, Gurgaon:
Flora Boillot, Pia Goswamy
Sunshiners: La Chimiz Productions
France/Vanuatu, Feal Cool
Jazz, Gael Gag Chosson, Bibou
Sebastien Pujol, David Nalo
Sutton Gallery, Melbourne:
Irene Sutton
Tamasa Distribution, Paris:
Laurence Berbon,
Philippe Chevassu
Tapi Collection, India:
Praful Shah, Munira Akikwala
Television Blong Vanuatu (TBV)
Terrasphere Productions/
Australasian World Music Expo:
Simon Rayner
The Japan Foundation, Sydney:
Masafumi Konomi
The Japan Foundation, Tokyo:
Aiko Yatsuhashi
The Third Line, Dubai:
Tarané Ali Khan, Laila Binbreck,
Claudia Cellini, Katrina Weber
Tikidub Productions, Hamilton,
New Zealand: Ninakaye
Tokyo Gallery+BTAP, Tokyo:
Miho Doi, Hiroyuki Sasaki
Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo:
Satoko Hamada, Kosaku Kanechika,
Tomio Koyama, Tomoko Omori
Unisound Studios, Solomon Islands:
Ronnie Buaoka, Inca Chow
Unity Pacific, Auckland,
New Zealand: Bryn Evans,
Tigilau Ness
Universal Pictures, Sydney:
Daniel Fairclough
Upper Hutt Posse, Aotearoa:
Dean ‘Te Kupu’ Hapeta
Uplands Gallery, Melbourne:
Jarrod Rawlins
Urban Art Projects, Brisbane:
Daniel Tobin, Matthew Tobin
Vanuata Productions, Vanuatu:
Jean-Marc Wong
Vinausteel and SSESTEEL, Hanoi:
Henry Lam, Alan Young
White Cube Gallery, London: Hayley
Embleton, Sophie Grieg
XX Squad, Vanuatu: Marcel ‘Mars
Melto’ Meltherorong
Zennith and Andrea Gower, Kuranda,
Australia
Cambodia
Java Café and Gallery, Phnom Penh:
Dana Langlois
Reyum Institute, Phnom Penh:
Ly Daravuth, Van Sovanny
China
Ai Weiwei
Australian Consulate-General,
Shanghai
Australian Embassy, Beijing:
Ambassador Dr Geoff Raby,
Jill Collins and Embassy staff
Beijing Commune: Leng Lin
China Academy of Art, Hangzhou:
Gao Fu Yan, Zhang Peili:
Gao Shiming
Qiu Zhijie
Red Gate Gallery, Beijing:
Brian Wallace
Song Dong
Shanghai Art Museum: Zhang Qing
Wang Qingsong
India
Nancy Adajania
Art India: Abhay Sardesai
Australian High Commission, New
Delhi: High Commissioner Peter
Varghese and Commission staff
Rustom Bharucha
Galerie 88, Kolkata: Supriya Banerjee
Gallery Chemould, Mumbai:
Shireen Ghandy
Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke,
Mumbai: Ranjana Mirchandani
Gallery SKE, Bangalore
Goethe-Institut, Kolkata: Raju Raman
Suman Gopinath
Ranjit Hoskote
Geeta Kapur
Deeksha Nath
Photoink, New Delhi:
Devika Daulet-Singh
Project 88, Mumbai: Sree Goswany
Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai:
Geetha Mehra
Chaitanya Sambrani
Kumar Shahani
Pooja Sood
Vivan Sundaram
Talwar Gallery, New Delhi/New York:
Deepak Talwar
Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi:
Roshini Vadehra
Grant Watson
Japan
Art-iT/Real Tokyo: Tetsuya Ozaki
Mori Art Museum, Tokyo:
Fumio Nanjo
Australian Embassy, Tokyo:
Ambassador Mr AM McLean,
OAM, Hitomi Toku and Embassy
staff
The Japan Foundation, Tokyo:
Yasuko Furuichi, Aki Hoashi
Hisako Hara
Tokyo Wonder Site:
Yusaku Imamura
Yokohama Museum of Art:
Taro Amano
Korea
Alternative Art Space Bandee, Busan:
Seong-Youn Kim
Alternative Space LOOP, Seoul:
Jinsuk Suh, Yonghee Sung;
Australian Embassy, Seoul:
Ambassador Sam Gerovich and
Embassy staff
Busan Biennale, Busan: Seung Bo Jun
Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces,
Melbourne: Alexie Glass-Kantor
Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art,
Ansan: Kim Hong-hee
Manu Park
PKM Gallery, Seoul: Yoewool Kang,
Hye seung Chung
SSamzieSpace, Seoul: Hyunjin Shin,
Hyunsook Ahn
Young-hae Chang & Marc Voge
Malaysia
Australian High Commission, Kuala
Lumpur: High Commissioner
Penny Williams and Commission
staff
Roslisham Ismail (Ise)
Eva McGovern
Myanmar (Burma)
Aung Ko
Australian Embassy, Rangoon:
Ambassador Michelle Chan
and Embassy staff
Chaw Ei Thein
Phyu Ei Thein
Pacific
Peter Brunt, Wellington
Govett-Brewster Gallery, New
Plymouth: Rhana Devenport
Tjibaou Cultural Centre, Noumea:
Emmanuel Kasarerhou
Karen Kosasa, Honolulu
Kapulani Landgraf, Honolulu
Robert Leonard, Brisbane
Sean Mallon, Wellington
Ngahiraka Mason, Auckland
Justin Paton, Christchurch
Jeannette Paulson Hereniko,
Honolulu
Momoe Von Reiche, Samoa
Pakistan
Australian High Commission,
Islamabad: High Commissioner
Timothy George and Commission
staff
Green Cardamom, London:
Hammad Nasser
Salima Hashmi
Quddus Mirza
Huma Mulji
Rashid Rana
Philippines
Poklong Anading
Australian Embassy, Manila:
Ambassador Rod Smith
and Embassy staff
Ringo Bunoan
Joselina Cruz
Gina Fairley
Patrick Flores
Judy Freya Sibayan
Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila:
Norberto (Peewee) Roldan
David Griggs
252 253

Barbara Hermon
Jose Legaspi
Ramon Lerma
Movement 8
Singapore
Australian High Commission,
Singapore: High Commissioner
Doug Chester and Commission
staff
Heman Chong
Lee Weng Choy
Matthew Ngui
Tan Boon Hui
Jose Tay
June Yap
Taiwan
AKI Gallery, Taipei: Rick Wang
Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei:
Joanne CW Huang
Francois Elphick
Galerie Grand Siècle, Taipei:
Tseng Chi-rung
Lee Mingwei Studio, Taipei
VT Art Salon, Taipei; Sean Hu
and staff
Yu Cheng Ta
Thailand
100 Tonson Gallery, Bangkok:
Aey Phanachet
Australian Embassy, Bangkok:
Ambassador Paul Grigson,
Piyarat Suksiri and Embassy staff
Bangkok Art & Culture Centre:
Chatvichai Promadhattavedi
Bangkok University Gallery:
Ark Fongsmut
Gallery Ver, Bangkok:
Pratchaya Phinthong
Gridthiya Gaweewong
David Teh
Vietnam
San Art, Ho Chi Minh City:
Dinh Q Le, Zoe Butt
Do Tuong Linh
Gallery Quynh, Ho Chi Minh City:
Quynh Pham
Sue Hajdu
Tran Luong
Australian Cinémathèque
Promised Lands
Kasim Abid, London
AFD/Typecast Films, Seattle:
Alex O Williams
Agav Films, Paris: Sandrine Beeri
Kamal Aljafari, Cambridge,
United States
Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam:
Carolien Sijberden,
Floor Wullems
Nora Armani, Paris
Artavazd Pelechian, Moscow
Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Brisbane:
Maxine Williamson
Nurith Aviv, Paris
Yael Bartana, Tel Aviv
Beofilm, Copenhagen:
David B Sørensen
Rinkoo Bhowmik, Singapore
Brisbane International Film Festival,
Brisbane: Anne Demy-Geroe
British Film Institute, London:
Andrew Youdell
Canadian Filmmakers Distribution
Centre, Toronto: Larissa Fan
Celluloid Dreams, Paris:
Pascale Ramonda, Olivier Arthur,
Anne-Sophie Lehec
Centre for Contemporary Art
Afghanistan, Kabul
Neel Chaudhury, New Delhi
Doc&Film International, Paris:
Hwa-Seon Choi
DreamLab Films, Le Cannet, France:
Nasrine Médard de Chardon
Ego Films Art, Toronto:
Marcy Gerstein
Films Boutique, Berlin:
Charlotte Renaut
Films sans Frontières, Paris:
Christophe Calmels
The family of Ritwik Ghatak, Calcutta
Golden Apricot Fund For Cinema
Development, Yerevan, Armenia:
Tatevik Manoukyan
Griffith University, Brisbane:
Dr Debra Porch
Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige,
Paris and Beirut
Héliotrope Films, Paris:
Laurent Aléonard
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy,
Islamabad
IDream Independent Pictures,
Middlesex, United Kingdom:
Kanika Vasudeva, Soniya Kulkarni
Iranian Independents, Tehran:
Mohammad Atebbai
Lamia Joreige, Beirut
Sanjay Kak, New Delhi
Harutyun Khachatryan, Yerevan
Le Galerie La B.A.N.K, Paris:
Celine Brugnon
Les Films du Losange, Paris:
Thomas Petit
Tareque Masud & Catherine Masud,
Dhaka
Mk2, Paris: Saadia Karim
Momento Films International, Paris:
Marion Klotz
National Film and Sound Archive,
Canberra: Quentin Turnour
National Film Archive of India, Pune:
Vijay H Jadhav
Norwegian Film Institute, Oslo:
Toril Simonsen
Oslo Dokumentarkino, Norway:
Sarah Prosser
Ayman Ouda, Melbourne
Palace Films, Melbourne: Tony Zrna
Dharmasena Pathiraja, Colombo
Pyramid International, Paris:
Paul Richer
Pervez Sharma, New York
Jocelyne Saab, Paris
Larissa Sansour, Copenhagen
Serendipity Point Films, Toronto:
Wendy Saffer
Seventh Art Releasing, Los Angeles:
Udy Epstein
Sharmill Films, Melbourne: Elly Smart
Sinefilm-Pelin Esmer, Istanbul: Tolga
Esmer, Armagan Lale
Sarah Singh, New York
Eyal Sivan, London
South Asian Cinema Foundation,
London
Supriyo Sen, Kolkata
Tamasa Distribution, Paris: Laurence
Berbon, Philippe Chevassu
Gariné Torossian, Toronto
Unlimited Films, Paris: Philippe Avril,
Marc Troonen
University of Sydney:
Dr Laleen Jayamanne
Urban Media International, Paris:
Clément Duboin
Vtape, Toronto, Canada:
Wanda vanderStoop
Prasanna Vithanage, Colombo
Wide Management, Paris: Camille
Rousselet, Amélie Garin-Davet
Wild Bunch, Paris: Esther Devos
Akram Zaatari, Beirut
The Cypress and the Crow:
50 Years of Iranian Animation
Esfandiar Ahmadieh, Tehran
Parsooa Ahmadieh, Toronto
Arya Sanat Takhayol, Boroujerd, Iran:
Daryoush Dalvand
Abbas Banaei, Tehran
Maryam Bayani, Tehran
Mahbod Bazrafshan, Shiraz
Giannalberto Bendazzi, Tehran
Brisbane International Film Festival,
Brisbane: Anne Demy-Geroe
Documentary and Experimental
Film Center (DEFC), Tehran:
Shirin Naderi
Dreamlab Films, Le Cannet, France:
Nasrine Médard de Chardon
Elypse Short Film Distribution,
Cáceres, Spain: Muriel Gravouil
Farabi Cinema Foundation, Tehran:
Reza Tashakkori
Vadjiollah Fard Moghadam, Tehran
Shahram Heydarian, Tehran
Bozorgmehr Hosseinpour Tehran
Iranian Young Cinema Society (IYCS),
Tehran: Hassan Dezvareh
Fatemeh Jafari, Tehran
Kanoon, Institute for the Intellectual
Development of Children and
Young Adults (IIDCYA),
Tehran: Maryam Bafekhpour,
Zohreh Shamloo Fard
Sarvenaz Karimianpour, Tehran
Maryam Khalilzadeh, Tehran
Laleh Khorramian, New York
Omid Khoshnazar, Isfahan
Les films du Paradoxe,
Bois-Colombes, France:
Anne-Laure Morel
Les Films du Préau, Paris:
Emmanuelle Chevalier and
Marie Bourillon
Amir Mehran, Sabzevar, Iran
Melbourne International Animation
Festival (MIAF): Malcolm Turner
Mashaallah Mohammadi, Sanadaj,
Iran
Shirin Mozaffari, Chicago
Siavash Naghshbandi Tehran
Najmeh Namjou, Tehran
Raiavin Studio, Tehran: Moin Samadi,
Minoo Janmohammadi
Rasaneh Fard Company, Tehran:
Sholeh Soltanpoor and
Arash Yaghmaeian
Zohal Razavi, Tehran
Research and Production Centre
for Animated Motion Pictures
(RPCA), Tehran: Maryam Naghibi
Saba Center, Tehran: Changiz Hasani
and Maryam Mousavi
Salon 94, New York: Sirui Yan,
Fabienne Stephan,
Alissa Friedman
Farshid Shafiyee (Shafiei), Tehran
Alireza Shahrokhi, Tehran
Mehrdad Sheikhan Tehran
Mohammad Hossein Tehrani, Tehran
Mehdi Zaringhalami, Tehran
Noureddin Zarrinkelk, Tehran
Queensland Art Gallery
Board of Trustees
Professor John Hay, ac (Chair)
Dr Amanda Bell
Tim Fairfax, am
Mark Gray
John Lobban
David Millhouse
Avril Quaill
David Williams
Executive Management Team
Tony Ellwood, Director
Andrew Clark, Deputy Director,
Programming and Corporate
Services
Lynne Seear, Deputy Director,
Curatorial and Collection
Development
Celestine Doyle, Manager, Marketing
and Business Development
Curatorial Team
Tony Ellwood, Director
Lynne Seear, Deputy Director,
Curatorial and Collection
Development
Suhanya Raffel, Curatorial Manager,
Asian and Pacific Art
Russell Storer, Curator,
Contemporary Asian Art
Maud Page, Curator, Contemporary
Pacific Art
Andrew Clark, Deputy Director,
Programming and Corporate
Services / Kids’ APT
Kathryn Weir, Curatorial Manager,
International Art and Australian
Cinémathèque / Australian
Cinémathèque
Jose Da Silva, Associate Curator,
Film, Video and New Media /
Cinema, South Korea, Taiwan
Julie Ewington, Curatorial Manager,
Australian Art / Australia
Miranda Wallace, Acting Head of
Managerial Research / India
Assisted by:
Mellissa Kavenagh, Assistant Curator,
Asian and Pacific Art
Robyn Ziebell, Project Officer, Asian
and Pacific Art
Ruth McDougall, Curatorial Assistant,
Asian and Pacific Art
Naomi Evans, Assistant Curator,
International Contemporary Art
Francis E Parker, Curator,
Contemporary Australian Art
Bree Richards, Curatorial Assistant,
Contemporary Australian Art
Rosie Hays, Assistant Curator, Cinema
Acquisitions and Programming
Olivia Malheiro, Australian
Cinémathèque Intern
Co-curators
Nicholas Bonner, Beijing
Brent Clough, Sydney
Rich Streitmatter-Tran,
Ho Chi Minh City
Australian Centre of Asia Pacific Art
(ACAPA) Visiting Scholars
Shihoko Iida, Tokyo
Rose Issa, London
Yvonne Low, Singapore
Jose Tay, National Museum
of Singapore
Para/Site Art Space Curatorial
Training Program, Hong Kong:
Alvis Choi, Michelle Lee,
Wong Wing Fung
Children’s Art Centre programs
Kids’ APT
Andrew Clark, Deputy Director,
Programming and Corporate
Services
Don Heron, Design Manager
Kate Ryan, Program Officer,
Children’s Art Centre and Youth
Kerrie Campbell, Exhibition Designer
Donna McColm, Senior Program
Officer, Education, Children’s Art
Centre and Membership
Michael O’Sullivan, Senior Exhibition
Designer
Maud Page, Curator, Contemporary
Pacific Art
Kate Perry, Designer
Suhanya Raffel, Curatorial Manager,
Asian and Pacific Art
Paul Smith, Multimedia and Web
Designer
Russell Storer, Curator,
Contemporary Asian Art
Warren Watson, Installation
Coordinator
Tim Walsh, Education and Public
Programs Assistant
Jessica White, Assistant Exhibition
Designer
Kids’ APT Summer Spectacular
Andrew Clark, Deputy Director,
Programming and Corporate
Services
Donna McColm, Senior Program
Officer, Education, Children’s Art
Centre and Membership
Kate Ryan, Program Officer, Education
and Children’s Art Centre
Mellissa Kavenagh, Curatorial
Assistant, Asian and Pacific Art
Fiona McFadyen, Project Officer,
Children’s Art Centre and Youth
Dana Mam, Marketing Assistant
Melinda Nutt, Assistant Exhibition
Designer
Maud Page, Curator, Contemporary
Pacific Art
Francis E Parker, Curator,
Contemporary Australian Art
Kate Perry, Designer
Raymonda Rajkowski, Project
Assistant, Managerial Research
Suhanya Raffel, Curatorial Manager,
Asian and Pacific Art
Bree Richards, Curatorial Assistant,
Contemporary Australian Art
Claire Robertson, Education and
Public Programs Assistant
Russell Storer, Curator,
Contemporary Asian Art
Camilla Tunnell, Project Officer,
Regional Services
Tim Walsh, Education and Public
Programs Assistant
Project Team
Graeme Archibald, Head of
Protection and Services
and staff
Suzanne Berry, Financial Services
Manager
and staff
Allan Brand, Head of Technology
and staff
Tarragh Cunningham, Exhibition
Manager
and staff
Celestine Doyle, Manager, Marketing
and Business Development
Bronwyn Klepp, Senior Marketing
and Advertising Coordinator
Alexis Wheatley, Acting Marketing
and Advertising Coordinator
Shirley Powell, Senior
Communications Officer
Amelia Gundelach, Media
Coordinator
Elliott Murray, Senior Project
Designer, Marketing
Hayley Owen, Acting Projects and
Events Coordinator
and staff
Andrew Dudley, Head of Registration
Catherine Henderson, Assistant
Registrar, Major Projects
and staff
Don Heron, Design Manager
Michael O’Sullivan, Senior Exhibition
Designer
Jenna Scurrah, Acting Senior
Graphic Designer
Sarah Ballard, Graphic Designer
Kerrie Campbell, Exhibition Designer
Rebekah Coffey, Assistant Exhibition
Designer
John Francia, Exhibition Project
Assistant
Peter Liddy, Installation Coordinator
Warren Watson, Installation
Coordinator
and staff
Linda Mehan, Commercial Services
Manager
and staff
Amanda Pagliarino, Acting Head
of Conservation
and staff
Kate Ravenswood, Head of Access,
Education and Regional Services
Donna McColm, Senior Program
Officer, Education, Children’s Art
Centre and Membership
Helen Bovey, Program Officer, Visitor
Services
Melina Mallos, Curriculum and
Education Programs Officer
Sarah Stratton, Program Officer,
Education and Public Programs
and staff
Miranda Wallace, Acting Head
of Managerial Research
and staff
Volunteers
The Gallery also wishes to thank the
many volunteers who have given their
time and expertise to the project.
Publication
Publication committee:
Tony Ellwood, Director
Lynne Seear, Deputy Director,
Curatorial and Collection
Development
Suhanya Raffel, Curatorial Manager,
Asian and Pacific Art
Russell Storer, Curator,
Contemporary Asian Art
Julie Ewington, Curatorial Manager,
Australian Art
Kathryn Weir, Curatorial Manager,
International Art and Australian
Cinémathèque
Miranda Wallace, Acting Head of
Managerial Research
Don Heron, Design Manager
Design: Emily Engel,
Graphic Designer
Judy Gunning, Head of Information
and Publishing Services
Editor: Rebecca Dezuanni,
Acting Senior Editor
Curatorial editor: Russell Storer,
Curator, Contemporary Asian Art
Editorial assistants: Kylie Timmins,
Publications Assistant; Stephanie
Kennard, Project Assistant
Additional editing: Sarah Stutchbury,
Senior Managerial Researcher
Copyright and images: Robyn
Ziebell, Project Officer, Asian
and Pacific Art
Photography of art works by Natasha
Harth, Queensland Art Gallery,
unless otherwise credited. All other
photography credited as known.
Research assistance:
Queensland Art Gallery Research
Library staff
254 255

Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
The Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation, the Gallery’s fundraising
arm, assists with the development
of the Gallery’s Collection and
exhibition programs by raising vital
funding from individuals and the
corporate sector.
Special Patron
Adshel
Ai Weiwei
Annabel Anderson
Australia Council
Philip Bacon, am
Michael Simcha Baevski
Brisbane Marketing
Henry and Amanda Bartlett Trust
Francesco Conz
Grace L Davies (dec’d)
Nell C Davies (dec’d)
In honour of Tory & Beatrice Cossart
of Boonah – the gift of James Ellis
(dec’d) & Jessica Ellis (dec’d)
Gina Fairfax
Tim Fairfax, am
Ann Gamble Myer
Max Gimblett
Nicholas Jose and Claire Roberts
Lawrence F King (dec’d) in memory
of the late Mr and Mrs SW King
Yayoi Kusama
Lee Ufan
Daphne Morgan
The Myer Foundation
Network Ten (Brisbane) Pty Ltd
Timothy North
and Denise Cuthbert
Queensland Events Corporation
Pty Ltd
Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd
Santos Ltd
Singapore Airlines Limited
James C Sourris
Tim Fairfax Family Foundation
Tourism Queensland
Xstrata Coal Pty Ltd
Patron
Dr Norman Behan, ao, cmg, lld
(Hon.) (dec’d)
Foster’s Australia
Idemitsu Kosan Co. Ltd
Dr Jann Marshall
Mike Parr
Dr Robert Piaggio
Alan and Jancis Rees
Rio Tinto Alcan
William Robinson, ao,
and Shirley Robinson
Win Schubert
Sir Hercules Sinnamon, obe (dec’d)
In memory of Vincent and
Johanna Stack
Wang Qingsong
Vice Patron
Airey family
Art Exhibitions Australia Limited
Austereo Brisbane Ltd
David Baker
Lawrence Daws
Gadens Lawyers
Professor John Hay, ac,
and Barbara Hay
Dr Geoffrey Hirst
Professor Lawrence Hirst
Major Brisbane Festivals
Cathryn Mittelheuser, am
Margaret Mittelheuser, am
Margaret Olley, ac
Valmai Pidgeon, am
The Thomas Foundation
Xstrata
Governor
Ah Xian
Andrew Thyne Reid Charitable Trust
Anonymous
Anonymous
Ausenco Pty Ltd
Australia–Indonesia Institute
Bank of Queensland Limited
Thomas Bradley
Mr and Mrs Peter W Bray
Brisbane City Council
Centenary of Federation Queensland
Christopher Chapman
Clemenger
Coles Myer Ltd
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Patrick Corrigan, am,
and Barbara Corrigan
Creative New Zealand Arts Council
of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa
Lauraine Diggins
James Fairfax, ao
Gordon Darling Foundation
Ian Holland (dec’d)
James Hardie Industries Limited
W Ross Johnston
Geoff Kleem
A Ray Lewis
Dr Morris Low
Jack Manton Benefaction
Mazda Australia Pty Limited
Phillip and Barbara McConnell
Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance
Company
James Mollison, ao
Motorline BMW
National Australia Bank Limited
Nikko Securities Australia
Nomura Australia Limited
Roslyn and Tony Oxley
Pioneer Sugar Mills Limited
The Potter Family Trust
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Betty P Quelhurst (dec’d)
Quest Community Newspapers
Conty M Robinson (dec’d)
Samsung Electronics Australia
Alan CA Thiess
G Bette Tipper
Melvyn G Tipper
Lady Trout (dec’d)
Ashby Utting
Sir Bruce Watson, ac (dec’d)
Lady Watson
Lyn Williams, am
Greg Woolley
Founder Benefactor
ABC Television
Accor Hotels and Resorts
ANZ Banking Group Ltd
Australia–China Council
Australia–India Council
Australian Posters
Robin Bade and Michael Parkin
Dr Anne Best
BHP Billiton Limited
Boral Limited
Marion Borgelt
William D Bowness
Stephen Bush
The Hon. Ian Callinan, ac
Castlemaine Perkins Limited
Estate of the late Margaret Cilento
Corrs Chambers Westgarth
Dr Jim Cousins, ao,
and Libby Cousins
CSR Limited
David Jones Limited
Estate of the late Sally Welch Edwards
Dr Paul Eliadis
Friends of the Queensland
Art Gallery
Robin F Gibson, ao
Simryn Gill
Dr Nicholas S Girdis, cbe
James T Gleeson, ao
Goldman Sachs JBWere
Jocelyn R Gow
Charles and Cornelia Goode
Barbara and Peter Grant
Robin Greer
Katharina Grosse
Doug Hall, am
Evelyn F Harrison
Phillip C Harrison
HarrisonNess
Haulmark Group
May Heck
Hitachi Australia Ltd
Margaret Hockey, oam (dec’d),
in memory of Patrick Hockey
Ishibashi Foundation
Japan Foundation
Japan Travel Bureau (Aust.) Pty Ltd
J Johnstone
Dr Dominic H Katter, ranr
Wayne N Kratzmann
Leighton Contractors Pty Limited
Nigel Lendon
Louis Vuitton Australia Pty Ltd
Macquarie Group Foundation
The Manton Family in loving memory
of Joyce Mary Snelling, mbe
Jennifer J Manton
Estate of the late Ouida Marsten
Joyce G McCracken (dec’d)
Mary McKillop
John M Michelmore
Naomi Milgrom
Mitsui & Co. (Australia) Pty Ltd
Ivor G Morris, cmg
Douglas GM Murphy, am (dec’d)
and A Nancy Murphy
NQX Freight System
ourbrisbane.com
Playking Foundation Pty Ltd
Qantas Airways Limited
Queensland Alumina Ltd
Scott Redford
Anne Regan
Rio Tinto Limited
George V Roberts, cbe
Sir Albert Sakzewski (dec’d)
Screen Offset Printing
Lady Yoko Fukano Sewell
Shell Company of Australia Limited
Noela Shepherdson (dec’d)
The Sidney Myer Fund
Christopher Simon
Drs Philip and Lenna Smith
Heather M Stoney
Thiess Pty Ltd
Steven Tonge
Utah Foundation
Carl Warner
Westpac Banking Corporation
Fellow
ACI Glass Packaging Australia
Allens Arthur Robinson
John G Allpass
Richard Anderson, oam,
and Margaret Anderson
Anonymous
Anonymous
Joy A Anton
Architectus
Arija Austin
Artbank
Australia–Korea Foundation
Russell F Banham
C Ian Barclay, cbe, am
Sylvia D Bassingthwaighte
Barbara Bedwell
Adeline G Bell (dec’d)
Edward P Benson, am
John L Bickford
Barbara Blackman
BP Australia Limited
British Council Australia
Brookfield Multiplex Developments
Pty Ltd
Geoffrey Brown
Kay E Bryan
Bundaberg Sugar Ltd
Avril Burn
Dr Sheena Burnell
Thomas R Burrell, obe (dec’d)
Con & Anne Castrisos
Irene Chou
ClarkeKann Lawyers
Daryl Clifford
The Hon. PD Connolly, csi, cbe, qc
(dec’d)
Elizabeth M Cooper (dec’d)
Tim BI Crommelin
Dr Ailbhe M Cunningham
Dr W Frank Cunningham
Winifred Davson, mbe
Robyn Daw
Domenico De Clario
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
eX de Medici
Department of Foreign Affairs
and Trade
Kiernan D Dorney, am, qc
Barbara Duhig
G June Dunn
Professor Hugh Dunn, ao (dec’d)
and Marney Dunn
Dr Damon Eisen
Robyn Elphinstone
Ergon Energy
Ernst & Young
The Hon. Paul Everingham, ao
B R Fadden
Peter Fay
Joan I Fletcher
The Follent Family
Dr Ross Forgan-Smith
Dr Ian H Frazer
Islay W Frazer-Ryan
Carrillo Gantner, ao,
and Ziyin Gantner
Ian and Christine George
Frances Gerard
Marian Gibney
Ailsa J Gillies
Dr Judith H Gold, cm,
and Dr Edgar Gold, am, cm, qc
Professor Kenneth L Goodwin, am
Wayne K Goss
Jack Grace and Janet Grace
Ian J Gray
Alan E Greenaway
Paul Greenaway, oam
Dr Margaret Greenidge
Lillian B Gresham, mbe (dec’d)
CD Neil Griffin
Richard and Bettina Groves
Andrew and Felicity Gutteridge
Dr Bruce H Gutteridge, am, ed (dec’d)
Dorothea Haly
Gail Ann Harrison
Tricia Hatcher
Michael B Hawkins
Robert A Henderson, cbe (dec’d)
Dr Keith E Hirschfeld
E (Manny) Hirsh
Graham Hobbs
Margaret I Hofmeister
HSBC Stockbroking
Dr Frederick Hunt
Hyne & Son Pty Ltd
Industrea Limited
ITOCHU Australia Ltd
JL Mactaggart Holdings Pty Ltd
Keith M James
Elizabeth M Jameson
Anthony and Francine John
Dr Elaine B Katte
Mary Jo Katter
Shirley King, oam
Kraft Foods
Dr Gertrude Langer, obe (dec’d)
Lady Leggo (dec’d)
Janet L Leighton
Philip M Leslie
Shirley Leuthner
A Muriel Loveland (dec’d)
Alex Mackay
Dr James MacKean
John A Maclean, mbe
Macmillan Publishers Australia
Pty Ltd
John Mainwaring
Frank J Manning
David and Jan Manton
Melissa M Manton
Mathers Shoes Pty Ltd
Dr and Mrs BT McCann
Christine A McDonald
Donald FT McDonald, am, obe
Cameron McTavish
Rosemary C Mercer (dec’d)
Don Mitchell
Mobil Oil Australia Ltd
Moët & Chandon Australian
Art Foundation
Milton Moon, am, and Betty Moon
Dr John Morris
Estate of the late Kathleen Elizabeth
Mowle
Donald F and Anne Munro
Judith Musgrave
Myer Queensland Stores Ltd
Kenneth B Myer, ac, dsc (dec’d)
S Baillieu Myer, ac
AJ Myers, ao, qc
Deborah Newell
Elizabeth A Nosworthy, ao
Christine Nye
Daniel L O’Connor
Ewan G Ogilvy
Elizabeth Ord Burns
Orica Limited
John Panizza, obe (dec’d)
Mary Panizza
William A Park, cbe, am
Ross C Parry
Constantine M Philippides, obe
(dec’d)
Perpetual Foundation Beryl Graham
Family Memorial Gift Fund
Sally Pitkin
Blayne and Helen Pitts
Queensland University of Technology
Rashid Rana
Marilyn Redlich
Lyndal Reid in memory of the late
James Baxter Reid
Barbara Reye
Ruth Richardson
Margaret Ridley
Dr Gillian J Ritchie
Dr John & Mrs Elizabeth Rivers
Professor Alan G Rix
Richard A Roberts
Carl C Robertson
Editha M Robinson (dec’d)
R Scott Robinson
Patricia L Ryan
Sarina Russo Group
Tony Schwensen
Ross Searle
Professor Tom Shapcott, ao
Marion and Tom Sharman
M Ann Shevill
Leonard Shillam, am (dec’d)
and Kathleen Shillam, am (dec’d)
Anne Maitland Slater
David G Slater
Nigel GW Smith
Sir Edward Stewart (dec’d)
Mary Stewart, mbe (dec’d)
Kerry Stokes, ao
Warren Tapp
Estate of the late Betty Taylor
Everil Taylor
Johanna J Thannhauser
Nicholas Thompson
Ian Thornquest
Transfield Pty Ltd
Beverley A Trivett
Margaret Tuckson
Dr Caroline Turner
and Dr Glen Barclay
Peter Tyndall
Edite Vidins
Mo Wedd-Buchholz
Richard Werner
Westpac Private Bank
Brian White
Robert M Wilson (dec’d)
Bruce Wolfe
Ken Woolley, am
Judith Wright
Wellington and Virginia Yee
256 257

Contributing authors
Nicholas Bonner is a British-born
filmmaker and landscape architect
based in Beijing, and the co-curator
of the Mansudae Art Studio project.
Bonner and director Daniel Gordon’s
award-winning documentary films
include The Game of Their Lives
2002, A State of Mind 2004, and
Crossing the Line 2008.
Aotearoa-born Brent Clough is coproducer–presenter
of The Night Air
on ABC Radio National, and the cocurator
of the Pacific Reggae project.
He is a writer and DJ (selector) with
a longstanding interest in Jamaican
and Pacific music and culture.
Abigail Fitzgibbons is Curatorial
Officer, Queensland College of Art
Gallery, Griffith Artworks.
Shihoko Iida is Visiting Curator,
Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery
of Modern Art, and was formerly
Curator, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery.
Yvonne Low is a freelance writer and
researcher based in Singapore. She
was formerly a Curatorial Volunteer,
Asian and Pacific Art, Queensland Art
Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art.
Napong Norbert is Principal of
Topol Junior Secondary School,
North Ambrym, Vanuatu.
Rich Streitmatter-Tran is an artist
based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam,
and the co-curator of The Mekong
project.
Queensland Art Gallery /
Gallery of Modern Art
David Burnett Curator,
International Art
Ellie Buttrose Curatorial Office
Coordinator
Nicholas Chambers Curator,
Contemporary International Art
Andrew Clark Deputy Director,
Programming and Corporate
Services
Jose Da Silva Associate Curator,
Film, Video and New Media
Naomi Evans Assistant Curator,
International Art
Julie Ewington Curatorial Manager,
Australian Art
Angela Goddard Curator, Australian
Art to 1970
Michael Hawker Curatorial Assistant,
Australian Art to 1970
Rosie Hays Assistant Curator, Cinema
Acquisitions and Programming
Mellissa Kavenagh Assistant Curator,
Asian and Pacific Art
Donna McColm Senior Program
Officer, Education, Children’s Art
Centre and Membership
Ruth McDougall Curatorial Assistant,
Asian and Pacific Art
Maud Page Curator, Contemporary
Pacific Art
Francis E Parker Curator,
Contemporary Australian Art
Suhanya Raffel Curatorial Manager,
Asian and Pacific Art
Bree Richards Curatorial Assistant,
Contemporary Australian Art
Lynne Seear Deputy Director,
Curatorial and Collection
Development
Amanda Slack-Smith Curatorial
Assistant, Film, Video and New Media
Russell Storer Curator,
Contemporary Asian Art
Sarah Stutchbury Senior Managerial
Researcher
Dr Miranda Wallace Acting Head of
Managerial Research
Kathryn Weir Curatorial Manager,
International Art and Australian
Cinémathèque
Ian Were Editor
Kids’ APT artist projects
Zoe De Luca (ZDL), Project Assistant,
Managerial Research
Kate Ryan (KR), Program Officer,
Children's Art Centre and Youth
Russell Storer (RS), Curator,
Contemporary Asian Art
Tim Walsh (TW), Education
and Public Programs Assistant
Minam Apang
India b.1980
He wore them like talismans all over his body (detail) 2008
Ink, synthetic polymer paint and tea on fabriano
cold-pressed paper / 138.5 x 184cm / The Lekha
and Anupam Poddar Collection / Image courtesy:
The artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai
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