The Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

and national identities in the process. This phenomenon forms the premise of works by Hit Man Gurung, Prabhakar Pachpute, Angela Tiatia and Zhou Tao, each relying on local narratives that resonate across the world. Kathmandu- based Gurung draws attention to the thousands of workers departing Nepal each month for sub-standard conditions on development sites in the Persian Gulf where death and injury are common. These large numbers of emigrants remove a significant section of Nepal’s population. The consequences of this exodus were keenly felt after the devastating 2015 earthquake, which saw poorly built buildings and infrastructure imploding, while huge numbers of Nepali labourers were building skyscrapers and sports stadiums abroad. 12 His series, ‘I Have to Feed Myself, My Family and My Country’ 2015, highlights how places, acts and consequences of work have come to define how people live, with implications for migration, geopolitics, society and industry. Pachpute’s expansive charcoal wall drawings depict the labour force of his hometown and connections to other working communities around the world. From an area known as ‘the city of black gold’, three generations of his family have worked in one of the oldest mines in the country, in an industry that is known for financial scandals, violation of human rights and environmental pollution. The ritual of work, groups taking to and inhabiting land in which they toil, is the subject of his vast illustrations. The figures populate desolate, surrealist landscapes that contort into a dream- like repeated act. Rendered in charcoal and clay, they offer an industrial texture through which he captures the global phenomenon of the workplace and the bleak realities of proletarian life. Australian–Samoan artist Angela Tiatia pairs her mother sewing alone in Auckland with the repeated actions of Guangzhou sewing factory workers in her video Edging and seaming 2013. Like Pachpute’s hometown, China’s Pearl River Delta Economic Zone has come to be PRABHAKAR PACHPUTE India b.1986 Dark Clouds of the Future (detail) 2014 Charcoal, pastel and clay on wall / Site-specific work for 31st Bienal de São Paulo / Image courtesy: The artist, 31st Sao Paulo Bienal and Clark House Initiative, Bombay 142—143 THE SOCIAL MEDIUM