APT 2002 Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia : Report

Nalini MALANI b. 1946, India Nalini Malani, Remembering Toba Tek Singh Nalini Malani constructs installations that are energised by the familiar immediacy of video and filmic languages. The artist also extends the practices of drawing and painting into video and film. Her installations often utilise her own drawings as projected animations as one component within larger works. Committed to the role of the artist as social activist, Malani is a senior multimedia artist with an extensive exhibition history. Malani's practice has been described as a `site for playing out the utopias and anxieties of all that is seen as being "outside" the given agendas, programs and reassurances that shape our present.' Using texts that have been generated through the memories of those who are often ignored or sidelined by the canons of history, Malani uses her practice to draw attention to 'other' stories. Malani was born in Karachi in 1946 and lives in Mumbai, India. ‘Pasifika Divas’ Various Pacific Islands + Aotearoa New Zealand Pasifika Divas, In performance Niki Hastings-McFall, Piha Blowhole from ’Afio Mai Aukilani’ series (Detail) ‘Pasifika Divas’: In Performance is an interdisciplinary performance-based project devised by Samoan Lisa Taouma who directs the Tagata Pasifika program for TVNZ. It brings together a Pacific collective including fa’afafine performers, designers and artists. Fa’afafine means ’like a woman’ in the Samoan language and denotes an active and creative cultural group within Pacific Islander communities. Performed as an opening event for APT 2002, ‘Pasifika Divas’ comprised a series of performances in conjunction with the presentation of fashion and body adornment. These striking performative pieces were interspersed with dance music and projections of still and moving images. The extravagant and political nature of the ‘Pasifika Divas’ performance focuses attention on the diversity of human experience in contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand. The event was documented in video and presented with body adornment works by Sofia Tekela-Smith and Niki Hastings-McFall. (Divas: Shigeyuki Kihara, ‘Sha-ne’ne’, Phylesha Brown-Acton, ‘Buckwheat’ + Lindah E; Body Adorners and Costumers: The Divas and Sofia Tekela-Smith, Niki Hastings-McFall, Alicia Courtney, Lara Kastelan) 28