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

The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art 36 Projects View approaching Chuuk Lagoon from the Islandhopper flight, October 2019 / Photograph: Greg Dvorak Air Canoe curators with students from the Centre for Entrepreneurship, College of Micronesia, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, October 2019 / Photograph: Greg Dvorak Burt Moses Federated States of Micronesia b.2001 Urohs sohn deidei (seamstress) Vicky Itiota, Deeleeann Daniel (co-curator), Virginia Tom, Rodleen Daniel, Beverly Ann Seiola and Eriuter Route with Aileen Gallen (photographer) at Last Stop store, Pehleng Kitti, Pohnpei 2021 Digital print / 21 x 30cm / Purchased 2021 with funds from the Oceania Women’s Fund through the Queensland Art Gallery l Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Displayed in the entrance to the Air Canoe gallery is a woven paafu mat, made by Polowatese now living in Hawai’i, that contains a circle of shells around a model waa herak , or sailing canoe. Paafu refers to the rising and setting points of stars and constellations whose locations and trek across the skies are used for mapping meaningful locales and marking significant events at sea and on land. The shells on the mat — a visual representation of these directional and marker stars — are a simple but powerful tool, along with daily and nightly study of the skies, to teach the fundamentals of celestial navigation. In addition to furnishing directions to specific islands in a flowers by two more Kosraean artists who pioneered a method of working with taro plant fibres. Like the many weavings that adorn the walls, these are also examples of inventive, intricate and functional art by Micronesian women. In another area of the exhibit, Marshallese artist Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner’s installation and performance piece invites visitors into a space of ritual and remembrance. Honouring the suffering of atomic testing survivors from Enewetak, Bikini and other atolls in the RMI, she positions mounds of carefully gathered erak (coral gravel) as a ritual for grieving land loss from nuclear displacement and rising waters. Meanwhile, photographer Deonaire Keju’s portraits from his hometown of Ebeye, Kwajalein Atoll, RMI, depict young children growing up in the shadows of the nearby US missile-testing base as they playfully sculpt toy canoes out of discarded cans. Not unlike the women of Wotje, RMI, whose vibrant woven bouquets adorning the entrance are hewn from unbraided Japanese military power cables, these artists upcycle adversity into beauty, strength and resistance. Ironically, this exhibit was in fact mostly conceived without flying, at least not literally. When QAGOMA curators Ruha Fifita and Ruth McDougall and I conducted initial curatorial research in Northern Oceania, we were fortunate to spend time with everyone in person but presumed we would later return and gather all the artists together in a workshop. The COVID-19 pandemic disallowed this, closing borders and reducing the Islandhopper to an infrequent cargo flight, halting travel even between neighbouring islands. Forced to gather online as we brainstormed with our collaborators across and around the ocean, what resulted was a rich and ongoing conversation that made us more grateful for precious relationships that extend beyond horizons. Having to creatively navigate across and between dimensions, as Islanders have done for thousands of years, we all began imagining a post-pandemic world in which we would be connected to each other more by air canoes of shared dreams and intentions, not only by aeroplanes. Greg Dvorak Endnotes 1 Pohnpeian scholar Vicente Diaz attributes information about the wawangiru to the late Polowatese navigators Sosthenis ‘Hote’ Emwalu (Utt/Canoehouse Wenimai, Weriyang School of Navigation). Diaz directs the Native Canoe Program at the University of Minnesota’s Department of American Indian studies and serves as an advisor to this exhibit. 2 This interpretation of aelōñ is credited to navigator Alson Kelen. 3 Collaboration between Vicente Diaz and Dan Keefe’s I/V Interactive Lab with Celestino Emwalu and Mario Benito of utts/canoe houses Lefanifahr and Hapoilol. 300-degree circle around a particular home referent (or moving canoe, or even individual person), celestial bodies’ movements also ‘map’ meaningful individual, social and cultural events on Earth. The inclusion of a traditional paafu mat, part of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge of seafaring, is meant to invite visitors to reflect on what technologies they rely on to find their way around, how these connect or do not connect to natural phenomena, and how they shape relationships with people and the surrounding world. But as this mat has also been digitally ‘augmented’ through collaboration between navigators from canoe houses in Polowat and interdisciplinary researchers at the University of Minnesota, the viewer can also navigate the exhibition through a realm of virtual objects and images. This augmented mat also gestures toward the production of new Islander futures when ancient technologies become intentionally fused with state-of-the-art digital media. 3 Crossing horizons Air Canoe especially introduces artists to APT10 from the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), two neighbouring independent nations that together comprise over 4.5 million square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean and 1800 islands. Many of these (such as the aforementioned Polowat) are low-lying atolls on the frontlines of ocean inundation; and many Marshallese northern islands continue to struggle with legacies of disease and displacement from the 67 massive nuclear tests conducted in the region by the United States Department of Energy during the Cold War. Compacts of Free Association with the United States enable thousands of Islanders to migrate for education and work each year — sometimes in the US military — to support families back home. These nations are nonetheless resilient and richly creative, exemplified in part by their navigation heritage but also by their vibrant cultures of textiles, music, dance, ritual and food. More recently, poetry, spoken word and film from this region have also received international acclaim. Beyond the circular horizon of the paafu space, Air Canoe co-curators Emelihter Kihleng and Deeleeann Daniel introduce a stunning selection of embroidered urohs skirts from Pohnpei, FSM. These ubiquitous and symbolic textiles belong to an important woman-centred network of art and exchange, so intensely collected, sold and gifted all throughout Northern Oceania that they are associated with a phenomenon called ‘ urohs fever’. The opposite side of the gallery resonates with a cappella harmonies by the Rookie Boys, a gospel group from Kosrae, FSM, who named themselves after Rook, the card game they play each night as they sing. Celebrating togetherness while mourning the loss of loved ones who died too young or migrated to the United States, these young men nurture their neighbourhood through song. Their music is complemented by elaborate arrangements of ikebana-like