The Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

and the contemporary, as well as its diverse geographical manifestations, is an appropriate metaphor for the art forms in the exhibition. In the mid to late twentieth century, many locally specific art forms in India began to adapt as external interest and knowledge of them grew, artists were given access to materials such as pen and paper and their works shown to a broader audience in gallery or museum contexts. 1 The Asia Pacific Triennial was part of this history. In APT3, visitors to the Queensland Art Gallery were able to enter into a curious, ornamental world created by Sonabai (c.1930–2007). Sonabai took an inherited convention of clay-relief sculpture that existed in a much simpler and pared back form, and transformed it with her own artistic vision. Isolated from her community for over 15 years, she created the sculptures to decorate her home and to keep her young son entertained. In the lead up to APT3, Sonabai travelled to Brisbane from Puhputra, her remote village in Chhattisgarh in central India, to create a work that replicated part of her home environment in a new context. 2 Rajwar houses are mud and thatch and typically comprise a series of rooms and semi-covered verandahs surrounding an open courtyard. Sonabai worked in the QAG space over several weeks, creating perforated screens made of bamboo and wood, covering them in locally sourced clay, and sculpting figures and reliefs painted with white and brightly coloured pigments. Entering the installation was like stepping into a different time and place, of colourful musicians, dancers, gods and goddesses, plants and animals. Sonabai’s inclusion in APT3 divided critics, with some regarding it as a pivotal moment in the exhibition’s history and curatorial practice, and others commenting that it was an awkward inclusion not in dialogue with other works and other artists. APT3 curator Caroline Turner described it as ‘a strong statement based on the questioning of definitions of contemporary art . . . binding her practice Sonabai working on her site-specific work for ‘The Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane 1999 / Courtesy: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Research Library Archive BHAGAT RAMRAJAWAR Puhputra, Chhattisgarh, India b.1971 Untitled (panels, jali (screens), figures) (detail) 2015 Multaniclay,bamboo,wood,coir,naturalcolour / Installed dimensions variable / Proposed for the Queensland Art Gallery Collection