The Sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

64 to control the environment in which they are shown, while subtly shifting the dynamics of the gallery space. DAMP’s enormous plinth functions in a similar way, creating a structure that turns inward, its cubby/studio being a room within a room. On top of the plinth is a circle of chairs, which the artists have allocated for meetings by local groups at specified times, transferring social activities traditionally external to the Gallery into the space as a performance. While many collaborations in the past have resisted museums and proposed alternative structures, many recent projects, such as those by YNG and DAMP, are intended to work within this context. Museums, in turn, have been transformed by this process; opening out to more interactive approaches, and bringing broader forms of artistic endeavour into their ambit. The growth of relational practices over the past two decades has indeed been primarily within the circuit of art institutions and biennales; likewise for ‘site-specific’ works, which effectively relocate the studio to each site of display. 7 The translation from the studio to the gallery is a process with which contemporary artists across the region are increasingly familiar, and are embracing as a means of communicating ideas and exchanging information. Artists throughout the world are living and working in a highly interconnected environment, socially and technologically, and their work is circulating more widely in exhibitions around the globe. This requires a continual rethinking, for artists as well as audiences, of context and identity, which is not, and has never been, singular and fixed. This is an obvious but often overlooked point in the case of large international exhibitions, as curator Daniel Birnbaum acknowledged in his essay for the 2009 Venice Biennale: Instead of viewing ourselves and others in terms of a singular identity, we should remember that each and every one of us carries a multitude within . . . If one maintains that a cultural event with participants from many cultures is to be more than a stage where one culture is put on display to another, then it may be important to insist on the complexity of individuals, not to mention the communities that they form. 8 Surasi Kusolwong Thailand b.1965 Ruen pae (During the moments of the day) 1999–2000 Installation at ‘The Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’, Queensland Art Gallery, 1999 / Photograph: Ray Fulton