The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10) Catalogue

The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art 16 APT10 artist Kaili Chun Foreword This process allows the shape of the APT to be set to a large extent by artists and ensures the immense complexity of contemporary practice is not pressed into the service of a preconceived theme. The COVID era has also necessitated new ways of working with communities, and arguably heightened the imperative to ensure that those ties, often developed over the long term, remain robust. Multi-artist projects have been part of the Triennial from the outset, and APT10’s large-scale collaborative undertakings speak specifically from places of community and express unbroken connections between them. When the APT launched in late 1993 its potential, if not its long-term future, was immediately apparent. From the beginning, the exhibition seemed unlike any other occurring at the time. It was selected by a local and regional curatorium; included work that was all but unknown to Australian audiences; and blurred the boundaries between contemporary and customary practices. Its ambition was destined to become as necessary and essential for the development of the Queensland Art Gallery as for the 1200 artists, including members of groups and collectives, it has now showcased across ten editions. As the Triennial expanded its curatorial focus and geographic reach, well beyond what was first imagined, the interest it generated and the regionally important collection it fostered impelled expansion onto a second site, the Gallery of Modern Art. While there are various models for the production and presentation of biennials and triennials, relatively few are exclusively art museum–generated. Of those, fewer still make such an ambitious and longitudinal commitment in their organisational models to ongoing research and collection development — around 1250 objects have been acquired either for or from the APT to date, many of them commissioned and ambitiously site-specific. The APT does this alongside its unique children's program of 84 artist-developed projects since 1999, and its cinema component of 28 film programs since 2005. With every element, the APT seeks to attract and retain the broadest possible community interest in its work, here in Australia and more widely across the region. It has, with the passage of time, become more than a window onto our part of the world, progressively opening up the contemporary art of the Asia Pacific to a truly global audience. In an increasingly fractured world, where trust in institutions is being eroded, allowing the developmental and curatorial arc of the Triennial to be continuously challenged, from within and without, can promote a sense of what we share, what binds us together, rather than what holds us apart. We hope the APT will continue to do that for many years to come. QAGOMA’s Executive Management team of Simon Elliott, Deputy Director, Collection and Exhibitions; Tarragh Cunningham, Assistant Director, Development and Commercial Services; Duane Lucas, Assistant Director, Operations and Governance; and Simon Wright, Assistant Director, Learning and Public Engagement, as well as the Gallery’s Senior Leadership team have been vital lynchpins in this whole-of-institution undertaking. The APT series has a particularly complex and rigorous curatorial process, and I acknowledge the defining work of former Curatorial Manager of Asian and Pacific Art, Dr Zara Stanhope, and the very capable steerage of her successor Tarun Nagesh, who leads Anli Genu Atayal people Taiwan b.1958 Weave my face 2021 Oil and mixed media on canvas / 175 x 368cm / Courtesy: The artist and Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Development Centre the Asian and Pacific art team that includes Reuben Keehan, Curator, Contemporary Asian Art; Ruth McDougall, Curator, Pacific Art; Abigail Bernal, Associate Curator, Asian Art; Ruha Fifita, Curatorial Assistant, Pacific Art, and their colleagues in the Australian art teams in undertaking that work. The curators’ vision and the brilliant contributions of the participating artists are executed through the exemplary efforts of our entire organisation to design, mount, promote and engage hundreds of thousands of visitors with APT10 over summer 2021–22. I want to thank every member of that team, who are acknowledged elsewhere, for their commitment and belief in the value of the Triennial. The Gallery’s Indigenous Advisory Panel has also been a source of generous advice on our engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander matters, including the complex issues that can arise around a cross-disciplinary and highly collaborative exhibition of this nature. Beyond QAGOMA, we are privileged to be assisted by a group of interlocutors who bring specific areas of expertise to the table. These in-country industry experts and peers, respected curators, artists and thinkers, join with the curatorial team in a series of high-level discussions that are integral to keeping our work on point, guiding and challenging our response to the practices of the region.