The Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Today when we talk about performance art in China it usually relates to performance art festivals, which are marginalised and usually excluded from contemporary art discourse and have very specific audiences. This creates great barriers to understanding what performativity is and could be within the contemporary art context. Although internationally we see institutional interest, this is still not the case with Chinese museums. Exhibitions in China rarely show live-based works and if they do they are more of an event for the opening rather than work that could challenge this presentation. In 2010, Hu Xiangqian, now based in Beijing, started an ongoing project called Xiangqian Museum , presenting his body as a museum. He would give public performances that led audiences through the collection in his head. He would describe works that he had actually seen or heard about, and some were imagined. This ever-growing museum is a life-long project, but also a beautiful reminder of the possible museums in all our heads, posing questions about what it means to establish certain values through them and make that public. I think Hu Xiangqian posed a very political question through this work. Yee I-Lann Performance art has grown exponentially in Malaysia if you widen what the genre may encompass in public spaces. Performance has been adopted by dissenting voices and is found on the street and online, although less in the confines of the formal gallery or museum. It has been fascinating to see the language of performance art being adopted this past decade for active commentary and participation within a particularly tumultuous yet engaged political period in Malaysia. Lisa’s comment regarding performance being used as a form of activism has much resonance in Malaysia. The most visible example of this has been the three Bersih mass demonstrations staged around Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square) in central Kuala Lumpur. The demonstrations grew from tens of thousands of participants in 2007 to over 250 000 people in 2012. Bersih (‘clean’ in Malay) advocates for electoral reform to ensure clean, free and fair elections. The movement was initiated by leftist civil society groups, although it was also quickly adopted by opposition political parties. Its steering committee included national laureate poet, and artist A Samad Said; theatre director, comedian, filmmaker and artist