Present Encounters : Papers from the conference of the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, 1996

Victoria LYNN Victoria Lynn has worked at The Art Gallery of New South Wales since 1 987. In 1 99 1 she became Curator of Contemporary Art. She has organised many national and international exh ibitions, including the 1 989, 1 991 and 1 993 'Australian Perspecta' exhibitions - surveys of contemporary Australian art. She has also curated the exhibitions 'India Songs' (1 993) and 'Susan Norrie' (1 994) . Most recently she organised the exhibition 'No Exit, the Guinness Contemporary Art Project' which featured the work of Maureen Burns, Luc Courchesne and Mike Parr. Victoria Lynn has written many articles and catalogue essays on aspects of contemporary Australian and contemporary I ndian art. She has also been j udge of many prizes of contemporary Austral ian art, includ ing the 1 995 'Moet and Chandon Art Award ' and the forthcoming 'Contempora 5' at The National Gallery of Victoria in 1 997. Victoria Lynn was curatorial co-ordinator for the I ndian component, and catalogue writer for the Second APT. lain McCALMAN Professor lain Mccalman, FRHS, FASSA, is Director of the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University, Canberra. He has published several books, and is general editor of The Age of Romanticism and Revolution: An Oxford Companion to British Culture, 1 776- 1832. Professor Mccalman has held visiting fellowships at a number of major universities in Australia and overseas. He is a Fellow of the Royal H istorical Society of Great Britain, and of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. H is work includes a focus on the broad fields of Australian, Asia-Pacific, and comparative Colonial Studies, with a strong emphasis on visual culture . Jonathan MANE-WHEOKI Jonathan Mane-Wheoki , a New Zealand Maori of Ngapuhi tribal descent, is a g raduate of the University of London and also of the University of Canterbury where he has taught the history of nineteenth and twentieth-century, modern and contemporary Western , New Zealand and Maori art and architecture since 1 976. He is a member of the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa (Creative New Zealand) , Vice-President of the New Zealand Academy of the Humanities Te Whainga Aronu i , and Honorary Curator of Maori Art at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch. Jonathan Mane-Wheoki was co-curator for Aotearoa/ New Zealand and a catalogue writer for the Second APT. Neil MANTON Neil Manton retired from his position as Director (South East Asia and Pacific) , Cu ltural Relations Branch of the Department of Foreign Affai rs in 1 993 to establish a consultancy working on Austral ia's cultural linkages with countries in South East Asia and I ndochina. His particu lar interests are Singapore, Malaysia, Laos and Cambodia. He is currently working on two books , one on Australian Frank Sullivan and his role in found ing the National Gallery of Malaysia , the other a h istory of Australia's cultural relations with South East Asia in the visual arts since 1 948. He has just retu rned from Bangkok where he was on the j udging panel for the annual Philip Morris ASEAN Art Awards. Neil Manton was a member of the First and Second APT National Advisory Committees, and was the curatorial co-ordinator for Malaysia for the Second APT. Michael MEL Dr Michael Mel was born in the Mogei area i n the highlands of Papua New Gu i nea in 1 959. He obtained his BEd (Drama and Dance) in 1 984, and subsequently joined the Expressive Arts Department at the Goroka Campus of the University of Papua New Guinea. In 1 995 he compl eted his PhD in Drama and Education at Flinders University in South Australia, and is now Head of the Expressive Arts and Religious Education Department at Goroka Campus. For the Second APT, Michael Mel was co-curator for Papua New Guinea, a catalogue writer and a partici pating artist with the work Pies Name/ (Our place). 1 49