11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Louis Lim and Christine Ko conducting a workshop with participant Amelia during their project ‘Departure’, Museum of Brisbane 2024 / Photograph: Haline Ly The responsibility of involving artists and communities and supporting and nurturing their creative practices when developing the Asia Pacific Triennial is significant. Local Australian, Asian and Pacific community groups have played a critical role in situating the exhibition project in south-east Queensland and recognising the care that this requires. In recent editions of the Asia Pacific Triennial, QAGOMA has increased its focus on honouring, investigating and strengthening the role that local communities have in place-making and shaping the dialogue of our region — acknowledging the value of connecting communities with objects and ideas housed within this cultural institution. In developing the Asia Pacific Triennial Community Partners Program, two key questions emerged: what role does engaging with local communities play in shaping our exhibitions; and how do we effectively and meaningfully involve the community in these offerings? These questions go to the heart of the role and responsibility of cultural institutions to extend the care of cultural material towards the communities they are inseparable from. For the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial, community partners have been invited to work with QAGOMA to design and deliver a project in collaboration with specific Asian and Pacific communities involved in the exhibition. The aim is to investigate, co-design and actively foster meaningful connections and interactions between artists, audiences and local Asian and Pacific communities through a series of partner-led programs. These partners include Aniway Aquilizan, alongside members of House of Alexander, and collaborators Christine Ko and Louis Lim, who through their creative practices are interested in community- building and creating new pathways to sharing varied experiences of identity. Aquilizan’s practice is centred on collective and collaborative environments, working with queer people of colour and her family. Embodying an art practice of resistance, Aquilizan and her collaborators create new spaces informed by their previous involvement in Asia Pacific Triennial exhibitions as performers and arts workers. Christine Ko and Louis Lim collaborate closely with migrant communities, sharing their own experience of migration to Australia with others. Ko and Lim are interested in the ways in which engaging with art can have a profound impact on migrant identities’ wellbeing and sense of connection to their cultural identity, particularly in the diaspora. Three community organisations — Australian International Islamic College (AIIC), represented by Mohammed Azhari and Sara Shera; Queensland Māori Society (QMS), represented by Ninotchka ‘Nina’ Taukiri; and the Pasifika Women’s Alliance (PWA) — will also play an important role in situating international and local communities in this Triennial. Working with the AIIC, as a school, presents an opportunity for the Gallery to engage with not only students but also teachers and other connected community members, from diverse backgrounds, with a shared Islamic faith. Similarly, PWA — as a culturally diverse network of women representing various Pacific Island communities in Queensland — operates with the goal of strengthening a sisterhood of Pacific women. The opportunity to work with QAGOMA for a second Asia Pacific Triennial, following APT10, allows PWA to create intergenerational learning spaces for high- school students that draw on artistic practices by women in the region. Responding to a significant Māori inclusion in this Triennial, the QMS strives to maintain cultural connections between Queensland and Aotearoa and foster a sense of shared cultural heritage in the diaspora. QMS brings this sense of Māori whakapapa to their engagement with the museum and expanding their communities’ activities. The Community Partners Program seeks to deepen engagement with the Asia Pacific Triennial by widening the cross-section of local communities co-designing the way community members can participate in and benefit from the exhibition. Longstanding as well as new and diverse experiences of place and identity emerge through the program, expanding Asia Pacific Triennial audiences’ understanding of the many ways we belong, connect and share the varied and interconnected experiences of our region. The program aspires to ensure that these offerings can contribute to the evolution of the Asia Pacific Triennial exhibition model, institutional structures and, above all, relationships with our local communities. RUHA FIFITA+ JOCELYNFLYNN COMMUNITY PARTNERS PROGRAM ARTISTS+PROJECTS ASIAPACIFICTRIENNIAL 216 — 217