The Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

defined by its industry, and its capital of Guangzhou has emerged as a global centre of changing consumer habits and labour structures. Tiatia is the great granddaughter of a Chinese immigrant to Samoa, and her mother, Lusi, was part of a generation from across the Pacific encouraged to migrate to New Zealand in the 1950s and 60s to form a much-needed labour force. These people were considered ‘overstayers’ through the 1970s when the economy began to slow, leaving an enduring negativity toward Pacific communities. 13 In Edging and seaming , Lusi is shown completing the last company order in a working- class suburb of Auckland before the long-anticipated outsourcing of her trade. Tiatia reminisces about the migrant suburb in which she grew up and contemplates the effect of globalisation on Pacific communities in New Zealand. Depicting personal experience in a global industry, it is a sympathetic observation that acknowledges that the workers who carry out the menial actions in Guangzhou are also usually migrants from rural China whose futures are uncertain. While Tiatia’s engagement with Guangzhou is that of a visitor, Zhou Tao depicts the city from a resident’s perspective in Blue and red 2014. Like Tiatia, Zhou balances visions of the Pearl River Delta megalopolis alongside experiences of cities elsewhere. Known for portraying a range of eclectic scenarios, Zhou performs, documents and presents public spaces, workplace conventions and amusing public interactions. He invites us to re-evaluate the ways our public and commercial spaces operate through video-documents that have variously recorded: a goose’s final journey from country to city, and its exchange between economic networks, from paddock to consumer; the artist living for an entire day in a supermarket; the morning rituals of staff from over 50 shops and companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen; and intriguing physical navigations of public spaces. Blue and red presents personal experiences of distant