11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Jagdish Moktan / Drifting Toward the Red Star 2022 / Oil on canvas / 137 × 92cm / Purchased 2024. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Subas Tamang / KAAITEN: History, Memory, Identity (detail) 2024 / Woodcut prints on Nepali handmade paper / Four panels: 304 x 153cm (each); 304.8 × 612cm (overall) / Purchased 2024. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / Image courtesy: The artist non-belonging, as we endeavoured to make sense of our indigeneity in the new climate of discourse. Our collective questioned how we understand and embrace indigeneity, how we define our artistic practices and how we can move beyond categories that exoticise or reduce our worldviews. But following centuries of trauma, we also felt a sense of disconnect — with our land, language and ancestors. As artists, we actively looked for accounts and traces of what our peoples were like before we encountered loss. We wondered whether it is possible to generate energy from such forced detachment. Can we draw on ancestral wisdom in order to reclaim what has been lost — and to reinvent ourselves? Mekh Limbu’s video and sound montage Mangdem’ma – an invocation for the healing of Adivasi spirits and lands 2022–23 features a poem by Birkha Bahadur Muringla, in the Yakthung language, that captures the liminality of contemporary Indigenous identity: Are you standing on this soil? Or did you fly away? I searched for you in our village, but did not see you. In our hills, I couldn’t even find you. Are you well? Or in woe? Oh, Yakthung! Where are you lost now? Dispersed in all directions, where did you reach? Perhaps you’re alive? I did think of you. Alas, to seek you, was all in vain. 4 COMMUNISMANDDISILLUSIONMENT The Adivasi movement propounds that not only class, but dimensions of culture, society, history, and land tenureship are also a basis of capital . . . When we speak of liberation, do we regard only economic oppression as true oppression? Is political oppression, not oppression? What about cultural oppression? . . . For Marx, class is primarily a product of the economic production system. But the Adivasi movement cannot easily accept this axiom. Dambar Chemjong, Professor of Anthropology, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Nepal 5 As a young boy, Phurnamgel Moktan migrated to Kathmandu. There, like many young men from the Tamang community, he joined the thangka painting industry (women worked in carpet factories) as a means of survival. The Asia Pacific Triennial includes paintings by his son, Jagdish Moktan. In the ongoing series ‘Drifting Toward the Red Star’ 2022–, the artist delves into his father’s archives, bringing together family photographs, socialist literature, communist brochures and pamphlets. We find that Phurnamgel’s experience as a thangka painter, like that of many working-class Adivasi individuals, drew him towards the ideals of communism in the 1990s. Both Marxist-Leninism and Maoism became potent forces in Nepal for rising sociopolitical awareness among the oppressed, galvanising them into action. Through both large-scale demonstrations and armed resistance, thousands of martyrs gave their lives to the cause of dismantling feudal and casteist structures in favour of a federal, democratic, inclusive and secular state. Since Nepal’s monarchy ended in 2008, there has been marked disillusionment with the subsequent model of governance, driven by political ideology. Many Indigenous people feel that political parties merely exploit Indigenous issues to strengthen their own powers. At the same time, there has been a growing realisation that independent initiatives are necessary to validate ourselves as Adivasi-Janajati peoples, reflect on our position and recognise our contributions, past failures and insecurities. Indu Tharu’s work presents an intimate account of Nepal’s recent communist movements, as well as the broader concerns of the Indigenous Tharu peoples living along the Nepal–India border. Tharu is an activist and poet, and her practice traces the aftermath of the People’s War; particularly the role of women in contributing to political change in the continued fight for Indigenous sovereignty. Her work also builds on the legacy of her father, Jokhan Ratgaiya, who was murdered by the state during the People’s War for his association with the Maoist movement. A memorial was consequently built in Tharu’s village to commemorate her father as well as her uncle, Jagat Ratgaiya. However, following Nepal’s local elections in 2017 . . . a new concrete gate was erected, which did not display the names of Tharu’s relatives. An ambiguous Martyr’s Memorial Gate now stands at the village entrance with no mention of the identity of the martyrs. This current realpolitik of selective amnesia glosses over both the severity of trauma and the persistent impunity within Nepal’s political sphere. Remembering the lives lost remains an important act of resistance for justice that has yet to come. 6 In 2023, Indigenous artist Lavkant Chaudhary, who is also from the Tharu community, was commissioned by Voices of Women Media to create an onsite monument at the Kumbharadda Memorial ARTISTS+PROJECTS ASIAPACIFICTRIENNIAL 188 — 189