The Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

painting from them. A group of artists then collaborated with him, creating comic book illustrations depicting his Mothman character for the Biennale. Curator Jyotindra Jain revisited his ground-breaking exhibition ‘Other Masters’ in 2010, showing works by many rural-based artists from India at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. Warli artist Jivya Soma Mashe participated in an international exhibition with British land artist Richard Long, and Long also visited Mashe’s village in the Thane district to create a number of ephemeral, site-specific works there in 2003. These various projects indicate that the field of contemporary indigenous and vernacular art of India is still developing and forming, as artists transform their practices to create art objects with a degree of permanency and mobility, while still retaining the vitality and unique visual languages that have evolved through history. PASSAGES AND CONNECTIONS: PERFORMATIVE AND POST-OBJECT ART IN APT8 From the intertwining of the vernacular and the contemporary in Kalpa Vriksha, it is possible to see how the concept of the vernacular — both as a process and as material — is an underlying aspect of contemporary art in general. As a process it encompasses works that seek direct engagement with their audience, moving away from prioritising the art object to emphasising the viewer, or attempting to shift the making and experience of art away from the studio and gallery to sites more commonly embedded in everyday life. In terms of materials, it includes the use of local, often domestic, materials, the handmade rather than industrialised. It tends to incorporate a performative element, which again frequently involves the viewer as a participant or component of the work. The development of indigenous and vernacular practices in India described above would seem to act as a mirror to AsimWaqif inspecting recycled timber at Kennedy’s Timbers, Brisbane, 2015 / Photograph: Mark Sherwood OPPOSITE ASIMWAQIF India b.1978 Bordel Monstre 2012 Site-specific installation, Palais de Tokyo, Paris / Trash from Palais de Tokyo, Miscanthus Giganteus, electronics, microphones, sensors, speakers, motors / Realised with the generous support of SAM Art Projects / Photograph: Romain Meriaux Delbarre / Image courtesy: The artist and SAM Art Projects