The Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

The term ‘vernacular’ is broad-ranging. Initially employed in a linguistics context, it is now also used to describe the regional, folkloric, handmade or locally specific manifestations of popular culture. In contemporary art, it can encompass a specific mode of working, one that attempts to integrate the everyday into the process or is embedded within a cultural paradigm. In APT8, the role of the vernacular is visible in the practices of artists who engage with everyday materials and events — from plastics, domestic materials, household goods, street stalls and flea markets to quotidian gestures or sounds. The deployment of, and reference to, the vernacular is a means for artists to engage with narratives of social ritual, a sense of place and to negotiate and question the broader cultural ethics of globalisation. Vernacular is frequently used in relation to indigenous or regional cultures and here the relationship between it and the ‘contemporary’ becomes more complicated. Vernacular art — often interpreted as tribal, ethnic, craft or folk — in modernist history and theory has been inextricably linked to tradition and the culturally loaded concept of the ‘other’. As a result, the word ‘tradition’ has taken on problematic connotations, representing values of the timeless and unchanging, outside history and progress. These are old debates, but they still influence the ways in which vernacular and indigenous art are framed. Often artists are only fully accepted into the contemporary art world if they meet the conditions of global modernity and depart from the use of customary, communal or inherited techniques and materials. Since its inception in 1993, the Asia Pacific Triennial has been a place where these debates are confronted and made visible. There are numerous references to indigeneity and vernacular methods throughout APT8 — from Yamashiro Chikako’s investigation of Okinawan history and narratives and Khvay Samnang’s photographs of himself in the rubber plantations of Cambodia, to the revival of Mongol zurag painting and works by Australian artists such as Gunybi Ganambarr, Segar Passi and Yukultji Napangati. The APT8 project Yumi Danis (We Dance) 2015 brings together dancers and musicians fromMelanesia and addresses the issues around translating and contextualising complex performance practices. In this context it is possible to explore the intersection of the vernacular and the global in APT8 by concentrating on a special focus project within the exhibition, Kalpa Vriksha: Contemporary Indigenous and Vernacular Art of India, which highlights a number of themes, including the use of materials, techniques and communal inheritances that reappear across the exhibition. KALPA VRIKSHA: CONTEMPORARY INDIGENOUS AND VERNACULAR ART OF INDIA A multi-artist project for APT8, Kalpa Vriksha: Contemporary Indigenous and Vernacular Art of India, features artists from indigenous or rural-based communities in India who extend traditional practices that were either ephemeral and transitory or made for a context other than a museum display. The project investigates how ancient or locally-prescribed techniques and subjects are still being employed in individual practices, as well as how these have evolved as instruments to express contemporary concerns. Concentrating on a small group of younger generation artists, it incorporates narratives of spiritual and historical significance as well as those of everyday life, through a range of painting and sculptural devices drawing on the traditions of Warli, Gond, Mithila, Kalighat, Patachitra and Phad painting, Kaavad shrines and Rajwar sculpture. Kalpa vriksha is a Sanskrit term for a divine or wish- fulfilling tree. It is mentioned in scriptures that tell stories of the earth’s creation, and also describes, depending on local beliefs, numerous actual tree species. The kalpa vriksha, with ties to the everyday and the mythical, the ancient