The Seventh Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Michael Parekowhai has amassed quite a menagerie over the years. Beginning in the last decade with a swarm of taxidermied rabbits and a flock of birds, he then added black roosters, gigantic inflatable rabbits and a performing seal balancing a concert grand piano on its nose. More recently, representing New Zealand at the Venice Biennale, he showed a pair of bronze bulls atop pianos. All of Parekowhai’s animals are engaged in some kind of performance. Their acts often articulate particular viewpoints of this region’s colonial history. For instance, the playful antics of Parekowhai’s oversized bunnies, Jim and Cosmo McMurtry, have a dead-serious reference to their 1830s introduction to Australia and New Zealand and the ecological havoc they have caused. To celebrate 20 years of the APT and GOMA's 5th birthday, Parekowhai’s most recent commission presents three life-sized bronzes of dramatically different scale: an uprooted elephant standing on its head with a chunk of earth still attached to its leg; a kuril (a native water rat) preening itself and seemingly oblivious to the havoc beside it; and a chair for participants to sit in and wonder at this extraordinary occurrence. For Parekowhai, it is the kuril that has upended the elephant, the kuril who has turned the world upside down. His presence on this country, specifically on Kurilpa Point — the tract of land named after him — has a causal force that perhaps can make us see things just slightly differently. Parekowhai downplays the elephant. It is the largest and most dramatic form he could think of that would draw attention to Kurilpa Point, and to the kuril. This elephant ‘bookend’ is really a place holder. Its vertical flat edge faces the State Library and QAG, signalling the containment of Western knowledge in books and art history. Just as it was once common to have statues of elephants holding up the world to demonstrate the power of European-based Empires, Parekowhai’s elephant is doing his job. Traditional elder Uncle Des Sandy impressed on Parekowhai that the kuril lives only in the vicinity of Kurilpa Point – it does not appear on the other side of the river, or in neighbouring suburbs. This water rat is inexorably linked to the mangroves that weave in and out of the Kurilpa Point shoreline, feeding it and providing it with shelter. These wiry trees with incredibly strong tentacle-like roots appear as if floating on the banks of the Brisbane River and are the source of nourishment for an entire ecology. This waterway, wide and powerful, winds itself disorientatingly around the city of Brisbane, its beautiful brown hues glistening at different points throughout the day. Uncle Des traces these waters as they flow past well-known Brisbane suburbs — Mt Coot-tha, Woolloongabba, New Farm and Pinkenba — finally journeying into the Pacific and all the way to Japan. Similarly, he points to the migratory water bird that shares the fragile mangrove ecosystem with the kuril, travelling tens of thousands of kilometres yearly from its breeding grounds in the Arctic Circle, via East and South East Asia, New Zealand, through Brisbane and onto the Tokyo wetlands. In this way, he told Parekowhai, our region is linked. 1 The kuril is not seen often and is not commonly known. (Uncle Des remembers when the mangroves suffered from the area’s rapid urbanisation and the kuril was thought to have disappeared.) It has its own dreaming and is one of the caretakers, along with the traditional owners, of the country on which the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art stand. The World Turns 2011–12 acknowledges the significance of this country and the kuril. Its form draws on historical and popular representations and renders the work with a sharp wit that is recognisably Parekowhai’s. 2 Parekowhai meticulously trains his animals to perform difficult acts in a seemingly effortless and playful way. Sometimes, as with the black roosters and the taxidermied sparrows, their mere presence is enough. At other times, when there is a lot to say, a lot at stake, Parekowhai ensures they give their best and most dramatic performance. The World Turns 2011–12 is an awe-inspiring one, choreographed to make you look, encouraging you to then sit and consider where you are and how it is that the kuril manages to upend an elephant. Maud Page 1 Community consultation has been ongoing, including in the early phases of the commission and in the development of the artist’s proposal. Parekowhai met with traditional elder, Uncle Des Sandy. This consultation was led by the Gallery’s Senior Indigenous Liaison Officer, Aunty Joan Collins, with the support of Bruce McLean, Curator, Indigenous Australian Art. 2 Some popular references include the story of the elephant and mouse, which has been told across Asia and, from the 1800s, the United States. The varying versions all rely on blind mice or individuals who, upon touching only one part of the elephant’s body, convey a skewed description of the animal. It is only when all of their voices are joined that the large animal can be pieced together and named. Many other narratives use the elephant as a way to discuss Empire, including George Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’ (1936) — set in Burma — and the 1930s children’s story of Babar the Elephant, exalted for bringing civilisation back to the forest. MICHAEL PAREKOWHAI The World Turns 264