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

Volunteers appeared and devoted themselves lovingly to banal tasks. Time distorted and expanded . Many artists found themselves engaged in long conversations with Gallery visitors as they worked within Gallery spaces. The materials of this exh i bition are eclectic and incl ude a lounge room , ash from burned houses, swimming goldfish , whale bones, cacti , neon signs, a chandelier, a truck, sushi d ishes from Zupangu, fake fur, 'mysterious' white powder, 480 i ntravenous drip bottles, a set of cookie jars, plastic skulls, a moving hospital bed , carved yellow soap and a coffi n . Shifting Dialogue The fourth phase involves shifti ng dialogue. The exhibition opens, the point of closu re becomes the poi nt of departure. Yet the momentum continues. Yanagi's ants wi ll continue to shift the definitions of the Asia-Pacific nation states, Den ise Tiavouane's taros will continue to grow and 'lament', Chen Yan Yin's 600 roses wi ll wither, while a new object appears i n Navin's room on every one o f t he 1 1 5 days o f t he exhibition. The exh ibition becomes a catalyst for dialogue. Artists' talks, performances, the visitors program, the catalogue and this conference provide alternate opportun ities for artists (and others) to speak and be heard . Languages, like meanings, are various. Artists were invited to accompany their work with texts that offer another strata to the discourse . The tales told a re subtle and nuanced , they speak of faux nostalgia, of yearning for the future, of song cycles, voyages through h istory, com ic dreams, the ploys of fast culture, insidious violence, location of the spiritual, the subtleties of gender, hope, and reinvesting i n the material and practice of traditions. At the site of the Triennial, in this particular sense of place, what is found? Rather than track a number of themes, I would like to suggest g rouping the work around three territories: the space of the body, the space of the psyche, spirit and memory, and the space of the social. The Space of the Body Many works deal directly with the very immed iate and visceral territory of the body and sexuality - the sexual ambiguity informing Emiko Kasahara's marble pieces, the romantic allusions i nherent i n Chen Yan Yin's dying red roses and the effects of global, parasitic g reed on the human condition ra ised in Nalini Malani's work, Body as Site. Through their work, some artists refer to analyses of the body, the medical, the corporeal , the classifications of neuroses and narcotic d rugs, the laboratory, scientific practices, manipulations a nd documentations, genetic experimentation and gender formation. The Space of the Psyche, Spirit and Memory Many artists in the Triennial are explori ng aspects of the psyche, the spirit, the soul a nd memory. Baud rillard reminds us that 'collections are the dimension of our life that is both essential and imagi nary - as essential as d reams'. 4 From the body we move to collected stories of home and the family, accumu lated photographs, the loss of past, the resonance of history, previous lives, time, illusions of perfection, sites of recollection, fictions and portraiture, the col lision of the profane and the sacred , and of public and private spaces. Geeta Kapur writes eloquently on Nilima Sheikh 's Shamiana: She cues into painterly traditions where images seem always to be on the bri nk: pretending to be intimate they skirt an immensity; bonded by love they figu re as renunciates. . . . The tent is a camouflaged abode hoisted for a season , it could be something of a mirage. Painted on all sides, its polyvocal imagery breathes life and easily reverses the inside-outside protocol of public and private space . 5 The Space of the Social A number of artists d isclose phases of the psyche as metaphors for the social condition . Alternately, issues of social change become allegories for t he pri vate realm . I n commenting on the work of Francesca Enriquez, Patrick D. Flores says, 'The site of excavation becomes the site of looking and finding , and the process of transformi ng a sense of place i n a season of exile, diaspora and re-covery'. 6 38