The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue (APT2)

vO oanTan (translated from Vietnamese) In the beginning it was a packet of cigarettes which was finished by someone, crumpled and thrown on the table looking just like a sculpture masterpiece. Later it was the urge to imitate the lion's head of children dancing during the August Moon festivities. Then there were the continuous days thinking about the game of Japanese origami paper folding. And those crumpled packets of cigarettes became the masks to live anew life. WONG Hov Cheong I grew up listening to stories. Stories told by my father and mother, grandmothers, aunties and uncles. They were stories of remembrance layered with joy and sorrow, conflict and reconciliation, mysteries and miracles. My paintings take these stories as a starting point. I am interested in how histories of people are made, how the individual 'I' become[s) the collective 'I' and how easily forgotten dreams of one person become the dreams of a people. These are paintings of history, class and culture. They tell of the history of Malaysia, the flow and migration of people from land to land. British colonialism and the colonisation of cultures, the clash and convergence of classes, the hopes and failures of a society. ZAI KUNING 'Perhaps, seeing is just a passing by ... it is as if seeing a dead body on TV. We have no emotional response towards the body. It has lost its aroma, we are not sure anymore if what we witness is a movie, drama or news. The blood that [is) pouring could well just be ketchup. The images are like those of a bad painting; the information tells us nothing but incidental, uninteresting facts. We are too comfortable sitting on our designer couches. Everything is planned, someone bigger than us is behind everything. We thought we had something. But all we have is the remote control. We love the TV, the TV loves us. We want to be in the TV, but the TV doesn't give a damn.' PACIFIC Rene BOUTIN The dry foetus (translated from the French) Sooner or later, every organism is bound to show perverse effects. Culturally, the extent of this perversity may have disastrous and irreversible consequences for our desires to build and cultivate alternatives into a geographic unity. Although the great privilege derived from post-colonialism in multicultural societies lies in the awareness of the relativity of knowledge and the dignity attached to all forms of experience, the colonial syndrome is, paradoxically, what makes all critical and analytical exercise impossible. We are so lost in our attempts at elaborating new options and political correctness that we lose sight of the excesses and abuses which have become as iniquitous as what they are exposing. Because our cultural institutions characteristically find their only justification in their autism, their soliloquy and their stereotyped values, they remain the source of racism in all its forms-anything from xenophobia to paternalism ... We have to put an end to this laxity so that our socio-urban, cultural structures move beyond this subservience to ethnocratic dogmatism and its subsequent ossification. We must aim at setting up less brutal and more ambitious structures that would actualise traditions, fight stagnation, injustices and certitudes and which, above all, would give us an inkling of hope of rehydrating the myth and rise of a community. CAMPFIRE GROUP Clapsticks, coolamons, didgeridoos, paintings-A// stock must go! Engine parts from the truck, hub caps, doors etc. become viable painting surfaces. Deconstruction/reconstruction 'I'll paint on anything that the paint doesn't fall off from.' 'I'll paint on anything that moves, if it doesn't move I'll shake it.' 'You can buy dot paintings in convenience stores, you can buy them off the back of a truck!' SHAKE HANDS WITH A REAL 'ABORIGINE'. All posters signed by a famous Aboriginal artist! 'See Australia through Aboriginal eyes' with our Aboriginal Design sunglasses. (Matching T-Shirts!) Gauging the cultural and economic values of art The international perception of Aboriginal art (as take away culture) SUPPORT ABORIGINAL ART! Roll it up in a tube and take it with you in the plane! It makes economical sense Field trips to the desert, to the Top End, to roundup artists-Letters and liaison with communities, artists, artworkers, art centres. Sponsors, volunteers, friends and family. In the past cattle trucks were used to displace people from their ancestral lands and herd them onto missions and government settlements. Remember this once only event runs right through Christmas. Bargains Galore! Great gift ideas! Wendi CHOULAI Roiroipe is the name of a Mourning Dance that originated with the Nenehi Besena (Clan) of Tatana village near Port Moresby many years ago. This Dance is usually performed at the beginning of the 'Guma Roho'. The Guma Roho is the 'taking off' of the black for the mourners. During the Guma the mourners do not cut their body hair, or participate in any activity that is seen to be joyful, and fast with certain foods. It is also a complex ritual of exchange and is practised by the Besena fervently today in what is now a forty-eight hour Dance Ritual. The period of time spent in Guma depends on the mourning family, taking into account such considerations as the time needed for growing food, collecting pigs as well as a reasonable amount of time spent fasting. The Dancing ground is cleared and 'Pata Palas' (Shelters) are built for the Guma Roho. The family with the Guma have invited another clan (to whom they usually owe an exchange) to dance this ritual for them. My own participation with this custom occurred with the death of my Grandmother Agnus (Daihanai) Solien in 1976. What unfolded as the news of her death spread was a layering of ritual and customs that lasted for almost three years. We did not dance the Roiroipe at my Grandmother's Guma Roho and so I have 'called' her Besena to do this with me at the Queensland Art Gallery placing two skirts that I have designed in juxtaposition with ritual dance. TomDEKO My country Papua NewGuinea is very rich with its cultural traditions. And speaking well over seven hundred different languages and each language having its own different cultural and traditional beliefs and practices, just imagine how much time and task that will be involved in trying to capture all these in my piece of artwork. I have made it my number one and foremost intention to adapt these traditional themes and express them in my work with the hope of recording, in art form, what I believe are fast disappearing cultural and traditional heritages which were once proudly practised and protected by the forefathers. My second intention is to express in my work these new changes, events and activities which occur every time in the society and within the environment I live in. Kaibel KA'A Extract from Kaibel Ka'a's autobiographical note (written by the artist in the third person) 'Most of his drawings were flat and never looked life [like). He more or less concentrated on the shape, sizes and the general appearances of his work. He had no clue ... on 'shading', 'lighting' and dimensions, but they became part of his work as he did a little bit of research work on them. All of his drawings were not done perspectively [sic) but that was not & concern, so long as the subjects were formed or stood out. After trying different mediums he decided to stick to ordinary house paints as his best medium. He was never informed of experiment paints or colour like acrylic, oil paints, arno water colour and so forth. Kaibel works now with ordinary house paints (on card boards, plywood, canvas and [the) back of floor mats) ...A lot of his framed paintings are now seen ... on walls in some of the big offices in Hagen, Kundiawa and Goroka .. .' Michael MEL & Anna MEL Performance spaces in the very physical sense can be identified with various cultures where people hold rituals, ceremonies, dances and other activities. For us to be able to understand meaningfully the spaces and structures it is necessary to consider the world view within which the space is rendered significant. In our context the pies name/ or village centre in actual physical presence represents a temporary and temporal location. The physical space, while it may be distinguished by various markers like particular shrubs, cordyline leaves and trees, becomes a social space. It is no more when the social occasion has ended. All that remains of the occasion and performances are the friendships, relationships, recollections and memories of personal experience .. . Our role as contemporary artists in Papua New Guinea is to be able to draw from our rich heritage and enunciate and revitalise these processes and practices today. Indeed, in this way we will be able to maintain our traditions, teach our young people. and bring an awareness to people around the world [of) our varied and in many ways contrasting art experiences. Eric NATUOIVI Conflict over equality The piece reflects the changing role of women in Vanuatu's society. There is a dialectical relationship between past– when the historic role of women was submissive, and present-as women increasingly play their part in deter– mining the future direction of society ... Materials chosen for the piece reflect the indigenous and extraneous influences that blend to fashion the present status of women in Ni-Vanuatu society. It is a mixed media work, consisting of terracotta clay, wood, woven coconut fibre cord and pigs tusks. The pots are representative of the society itself while the wooden stems and attached pigs' tusks are symbolic of power structures. Possession of numerous pig tusks traditionally illustrated the high chiefly powers of the bearers. The tusks are bound to the stems with coconut fibre, coconuts are a traditional source of building material. The lower limbs of the piece show the traditional and subservient position of women while upper ones reflect the contemporary situation of emerging and statutory equality Micheline NEPORON La Foret des Ancetres (The forest of the ancestors) (translated from French) La Foret des Ancetres (The forest of the ancestors) is the title of this installation of bamboo tied together, symbolising for me the past and present of Kanak