Beyond the Future: Papers from the Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

indigenous, and pure or quaint, depend ing on the way one may privilege or deride the term. Here it would be interesting for us to examine the possibil ities of the indigenous performance/ceremony presented last night in the larger context of the APT and in the context of our notions of the word 'local'. 3. It is useful to remind ourselves that the terms themselves are not fixed entities, rather, they are created to suit particular points of view or prejudices and predilections. As Edward Said and Arjun Appadurai have pointed out in their publications, often such seemingly binary terms need each other to set up the contrast and viewing perspective from which to judge the d ifferences . 4. As some scholars have pointed out, the very debate about local/global issues seems to be embedded in the north/south issues . The powers that seem to dominate the so-called global ising trends do not talk about them in the global/local paradigms. One could say that for these dominant powers, the global is in fact local as well . More likely however, is the fact that they do not seem to be concerned about the contrast. The implication is that local would simply mean provincial and/or exotic to be seen in contrast to the ever-changing world of the postmodern age. On the other hand, the powers that feel threatened by the forces coming from outside their borders, equate the globalising forces as poisoning elements. Or to put it differently, they see them as a drop of red wine wh ich colours everything that it touches and makes it impossible to go back to the purity of the 'original'. 5. In any discussion about local/global connections and/or confrontations, a sense of history is crucial, and yet, often that important ingredient is missing from the discourse. Connections between and among nations or cultures go back to the beginning of ancient civilisations and cultures have affected one another for thousands of years. Clearly, what was once seen as a foreign or an outside element - Buddhism in China for example - soon became localised with its own unique and idiosyncratic forms . The special features of the current globalisation phenomenon notwithstanding, we can all cite numerous similar examples through various periods to recognise that the terms 'local' or 'global' are moving targets and not fixed entities. The interesting and perhaps more meaningful interrogation of the terms may lay in the context surrounding them - who uses the terms, how, and for what purposes. On the occasion of the last Asia-Pacific Triennial of this century, we may usefully explore the implications of global/local or even the term in the context of the work produced by the artists assembled here, and the reception of the work by diverse audiences - all of us - who are part of the international contemporary Asian and non-Asian art . world and the international art critics who may or may not be part of this very art scene. We may also think about these terms from the perspective of the other audiences - non-specialist audiences in the countries where the artists reside as well as abroad where the work is seen . It is only when we begin to pay attention to the users of the terms - the artists, the aud iences, the critics - and parse the context in wh ich they are used , that we can begin to understand the nuances of the terms in any useful way. 89 glocal