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

Artists The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art 56 Boundary fluidity #27 2021 Synthetic polymer paint and marker on tarpaulin / 240 x 180cm / Purchased 2021. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (opposite) Cocos (Keeling) Islands (from ‘Banknote’ series) 2021 Tape on canvas / 150 x 180cm / Purchased 2021. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Chong Kim Chiew is known for his mischievous, thought- provoking work across an ever-broadening range of artistic media and materials, often under an army of pseudonymous identities. A general focus on the idea of nation as an ideological, political and aesthetic construct, and a twofold reading of the word ‘trace’ as both an artistic technique and a vestige or remnant, are the common threads through his multifarious practice. Born and raised in Malaysia, Chong opted to pursue his art studies in China, relocating to Guangzhou to undertake a degree in oil painting at the Academy of Fine Art. While studying, he became aware of the powerful strain of irreverence in Cantonese art and his artist friends’ rich knowledge of local histories. This inspired him on two levels: to make ‘attitude’ the centre of his practice, with an emphasis on finding different ways to create and show work; and to immerse himself more deeply in the history of Malaysia, within the federation’s complex ethnic fabric, particularly in terms of his own Chinese heritage. The towering maps painted on tarpaulin that comprise Chong’s ‘Boundary fluidity’ series 2008–ongoing express the artist’s compulsive reorientation of geographic and political topography of Malaysia and its South-East Asian neighbours. Their large-scale, scroll-like forms enable both spatial installation and performative intervention. Chong describes ‘Boundary fluidity’ as a deliberate misinterpretation of cartography. He works in layers of paint pours and intersecting lines, erasing and re-inscribing names, borders and topographies. Painted on waterproof tarpaulin, the works can be rolled and carried like traditional maps, and potentially — though counterintuitively — followed. This form also lends itself to presentation in a range of ways, including suspension; presented en masse, the maps take on a sculptural aspect, some hanging grandly in space, others rolled tightly, propped against walls. An accompanying video documents the tarpaulins in everyday sites — a car park, a balcony, a beach — what the artist calls ‘third spaces’, familiar yet anonymous. The tarpaulin maps are accompanied by three canvases from Chong’s ‘Banknote’ series — Banana money 2021, Cocos (Keeling) Islands 2021 and 0 Ringgit 2021 — in which he reconstructs historical banknotes from past and present ruling structures in Malaysia, using strips of tape applied either directly to the wall or to canvas. Banana money replicates the ten-dollar note used in Japanese-occupied Malaya from 1942 to 1945, named for the banana tree that figured prominently on one side; while 0 Ringgit is based on the Malaysian one-ringgit still in circulation today. Cocos (Keeling) Islands , a re-creation of a 1902 two-rupee note from the Australian territory, is particularly relevant for Chong as a Malaysian artist participating in an Australian exhibition: the Cocos Islands were annexed by Britain in 1857, with administration shifting between Ceylon and Singapore until they came under Australian sovereignty in 1955. Geographically located in South-East Asia, the islands’ population is majority Malay —the descendants of plantation labourers transmigrated in the mid nineteenth century. Tape is often used to repair torn paper currency. Here, its material distortions conversely give the notes the appearance of falling apart, bringing into question the integrity of the note and therefore its value. Like the tarpaulin maps, they introduce a sense of transience into the edifice of the nation-state. In both bodies of work, Chong Kim Chiew deconstructs graphic representations of the idea of nation, inviting consideration of their historical, metaphorical and speculative aspects. He presents territory as an aesthetic and political fiction that is anything but eternal; the control of geographies and populations as temporal; and representations of power — be they maps, currency, flags or other symbols — as reminders of the transient nature of power itself. Reuben Keehan Chong Kim Chiew Born 1975, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Lives and works in Kuala Lumpur