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

The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art 50 Projects (opposite) Masiswagger Zingrur Dialogue – Token 2021 Kilned clinker soil and gravel / 18 parts: Installed dimensions variable Aluaiy Pulidan Find a habitat 2021 Wool, ramie, cotton, copper, silk / Dimensions variable Ruby Swana Dancer of light 2021 Aluminium foil, cellophane, hot glue, epoxy resin, clay / Installed dimensions variable / Commissioned for APT10 Courtesy: The artists and Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Development Centre Co-curated by Paiwan artist Etan Pavavalung and Makotao curator Manray Hsu, and produced in collaboration with the Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Development Centre, Between Earth and Sky: Indigenous Contemporary Art from Taiwan explores land, ecology and cosmology through a cross-generational selection of Taiwanese indigenous artists working in painting, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, installation and performance. Inhabiting a geographic space at the meeting point of Northern Oceania, East Asia and South-East Asia — and with cultural, linguistic and ancestral links across the Austronesian world — Taiwan’s indigenous people have called the island home for millennia, arriving well before the first Han migrations at the end of the seventeenth century. Dispossession and forced assimilation at the hands of successive colonial regimes has resulted in the loss of language, land and culture. Officially, indigenous people number around 560 000 — 2.8 per cent of Taiwan’s population — with 16 recognised ethnic groups living predominantly in the island’s central ranges and on its east and south-east coasts. (Further populations in ‘non-status’ communities still seek formal recognition.) Self-assertion through the Aboriginal People’s Movement in the 1980s gave birth to the first determined expressions of contemporary art in the 1990s, and artistic practice has flourished through a number of autonomous initiatives, international exchanges and the establishment of dedicated funding streams and collecting programs. Indigenous contemporary art is now a major vehicle for the expression of collective identity, the revival of cultural traditions and the interrogation of contemporary issues. A full-time pastor as well as a painter, Anli Genu seeks a vocabulary of images and patterns that articulate the balance between his customary beliefs and his Christian faith. In addition to artistic and theological studies, he lived in Bolivia while researching Incan civilisation and culture, and became the first Atayal artist to complete advanced academic training. The Atayal are the most widely distributed of Taiwan’s indigenous groups; they are also regarded as the fiercest. Genu sought to express this vitality from an early stage in his depictions of Atayal faces, clothing and ancestral beliefs, gradually incorporating themes of sustainable development and social stability, imbuing his work with a spiritual aspect. With intricate collaged elements and a multi-panelled composition, his paintings detail the dances, hunting rituals, dress and adornment of his people, with attention to the facial tattoos that have largely disappeared from Atayal life. According to Etan Pavavalung, ‘There is no written form of the Paiwan language, so art, handicrafts and music are our literature — our forms of expression’. 1 During campaigns for land rights and the use of indigenous personal names in the early 1990s, Pavavalung took to printing the lily — the spiritual token of his people and symbol of Taiwan’s emergent democracy — on posters and T-shirts, in an attempt to strengthen cultural identity. After Typhoon Morakot devastated indigenous communities in southern Taiwan in 2009, the artist developed a ‘trace layer carve paint’ technique of picture-making as a means of cultural reconstruction. 2 His vibrant compositions on wooden board are rich in Paiwan motifs and narratives, including lilies, signifying beauty and virtue, and the eye totem, symbolising respect and equality. Every open space in these works is filled with flowing lines carved directly into the wooden surface. Drawing on the Paiwan notion of vecik — the interconnectedness of all things — as expressed in engravings and embroidery, Pavavalung’s works represent the intangible, such as the ‘pellucid winds’ in which the artist finds solace and inspiration. As the leader of a Paiwan tribe, Aluaiy Pulidan was also profoundly influenced by the typhoon. When her village was destroyed and its population forced to relocate, she initiated weaving workshops as a way for her community to reconnect and share in a creative process. These became unofficial councils, where women could come together and work through issues confronting them. Pulidan works from a process of winding strands of found fabric into cords, which are then looped into concentric circles in a technique known as Lemikalik . From this point, her works expand outward, replicating recognisable forms, such as Paiwan pottery, and integrating other objects, such as coins, until they become large, flexible structures of an almost organic appearance. Her elegant installations reference the human heart, which she regards as the core of the living body — whose pulse transcends ethnicities and possesses a ‘horizontal spreading kinetic energy’ — and vines, which connect different parts of the land while mimicking the nerves and capillaries that spread across the human skin. 3 They are metaphors for her community’s efforts to reconnect in the face of displacement, and to develop ways of surviving in a disturbed environment. Between Earth and Sky: Indigenous Contemporary Art from Taiwan Co-curators: Etan Pavavalung and Manray Hsu Artists: Anli Genu, Meihua tribe, Atayal people, born 1958, Jianshi township, Hsinchu County, Taiwan; Dondon Hounwn, Tomong tribe, Truku people, born 1985, Tongmen Village, Xiulin Township, Hualien County, Taiwan; Fangas Nayaw, Amis people, born 1987, Taitung, Taiwan; Etan Pavavalung, Tavadran tribe, Paiwan people, born 1963, Dashe village, Sandimen, Pingtung Country, Taiwan; Aluaiy Pulidan (Aluiay Kaumakan), Tavadran tribe, Paiwan people, born 1970, Dashe village, Sandimen, Pingtung County, Taiwan; Ruby Swana, Changguang tribe, Amis people, born 1959, Changbin township, Taitung Country, Taiwan; Yuma Taru, Atayal people, born 1963, Xiangbi community, Tai’an township, Miaoli County, Taiwan; Masiswagger Zingrur, Paiwan people, born 1972, Timur community, Sandi village, Sandimen, Pingtung County, Taiwan