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

Kids The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art 190 Syagini Ratna Wulan, Shannon Novak and Phuong Ngo For APT10, the lower level of GOMA’s Children’s Art Centre draws together the projects of Syagini Ratna Wulan, Shannon Novak and Phuong Ngo, artists who each invite young audiences to experience the transformative potential of art through shared participation. They encourage children to engage with colour — the meaning that can be attributed to it and the physical response it can elicit. In three quite different ways, the artists each create space for us to embrace a state of empathy, for ourselves and for each other. Syagini Ratna Wulan’s installation features geometric metal panels that children can build upon to create mandalas using magnetised wooden triangles painted in subtle gradations of colour. She hopes to ‘invoke in the audience a sense of curiosity’. 1 Ratna Wulan believes the meditative act of moving the triangles around to find an aesthetically pleasing configuration will have a calming, healing effect at a subconscious level and that, through this activity, children and their families might experience a sense of belonging or participation in a greater narrative. Ratna Wulan believes that ‘colour brings happiness, and the spectrum of colour brings forth the notion of individuality that can also be communicated universally’. 2 Shannon Novak shares this interest in the idea of a colour spectrum, with blurred boundaries representing a multitude of possibilities. He creates art ‘with a view to growing and supporting community that values people for who they are’. 3 He is particularly interested in creating art that inspires positive social change for the LGBTQI+ community. He believes that children often exist in a vibrant and diversely coloured world — then this world is sapped of colour over time. For APT10 Kids, Novak has created an immersive, brightly coloured installation that encourages visitors ‘to embrace leaving the world outside behind, for a moment, to be part of a world that accepts you for you’. 4 This is complemented and contextualised by a video work in which local children share their thoughts on diversity, love and feeling safe — a powerful addition to the space that might serve to remind children and families that they are not alone. Novak's project also features a multimedia interactive in which children can create a flag that represents them and what makes them happy. Syagini Ratna Wulan Monad (installation views, GOMA, 2021) / Commissioned for APT10 Kids with support from the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation / Courtesy: The artist / Photographs: Josef Ruckli Shannon Novak Make Visible: All Welcome (installation views, GOMA, 2021) / Commissioned for APT10 Kids with support from the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation / Courtesy: The artist / Photographs: Josef Ruckli and Chloë Callistemon