The Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

are highly labour-intensive, transient, sacred and which return immediately to the earth. Choi’s works celebrates the beauty to be found in cheap plastics, kitsch souvenirs and popular imagery, challenging conventional taste and ideas of value. He intensifies the aesthetic experience of consumer culture, particularly as it manifests in the flea markets and street stalls in Seoul. KIRI DALENA Born 1975, Manila, the Philippines Lives and works in Manila Kiri Dalena’s Erased slogans series of photographs commenced in 2008 and are based on archival newspaper images of protests in Manila prior to the declaration of martial law by former dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1972. These black and white pictures show picketers carrying placards whose slogans have been removed by the artist, leaving only a blank white surface. The absence of words becomes a chilling symbol of the way in which voices of dissent are silenced and forgotten. Simultaneously, by removing them from archival obscurity and subtracting the context of historical specificity, Dalena transforms them into abstract representations of the act or ritual of protest. As demonstrations and protests re-emerge across Asia as a form of popular political expression (for example, in Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan and throughout West Asia), Dalena’s intervention is both historical and topical. JUANDAVILA Born 1946, Santiago, Chile Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia Over the past 30 or more years, Juan Davila’s consistent interrogation of cultural, sexual and social identities has resulted in a rich and provocative body of work. His recent paintings, six of which are exhibited in APT8, draw on a vast array of references, among them the visual iconography of nineteenth-century advertisement posters in Paris, with bold, graphic forms and texts in typefaces or fonts invented by Davila. Hung as a group against walls painted with a design and colours specified by the artist, they continue to address themes from recent politics and history, particularly the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia. The use of literal and metaphorical symbols — such as barbed wire to represent detention camps, and the marginalised figure of mixed gender and race — recurs throughout Davila’s practice as a potent symbol to address the structures against which we define and construct our sense of self and belonging. DESIRE MACHINE COLLECTIVE Established 2004, Guwahati, India MRIGANKAMADHUKAILLYA Born 1978, Jorhat, India SONAL JAIN Born 1975, Shillong, India Live and work in Guwahati, India Desire Machine Collective was established in 2004 by Mriganka Madhukaillya and Sonal Jain. They create films, video, photography, and sound and multimedia installations that consider space and time, with particular reference to human habitation, natural environments and their occupation. Many of their works are based in remote parts of India including Kashmir and their home state of Assam in the far north-east. The style of their videos often incorporates still or slow panning images with only the memory of human presence. Long-term engagement, research and dialogue with local individuals or communities are important components of their works. Residue 2011 was shot in a disused thermal power plant outside the artists’ hometown of Guwahati in Assam. The 39-minute film shows the abandoned power plant being gradually overcome by the surrounding forest, with decaying industrial forms and nature merging into one entity. The work forms a poetic reflection on the cycle of creation, destruction and memory. LAV DIAZ Born 1958, Datu Paglas, the Philippines Lives and works in Manila, the Philippines Lav Diaz is one of the leading figures of contemporary cinema, celebrated for his ambitious films that explore the social and political history of the Philippines. Diaz is also heralded as the most active proponent of ‘slow’ or durational cinema. Running between 4 and 12 hours, and made with the freedom afforded by digital technologies, Diaz’s films describe the everyday with an epic scope. Intensely poetic and beautiful, Diaz’s works have addressed the era of martial law under Ferdinand Marcos (1972–86); the revolution against Spanish colonial rule; and the devastating aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. DUAN JIANYU Born 1970, Zhengzhou, China Lives and works in Guangzhou, China Duan Jianyu’s large-scale paintings present incongruous scenarios drawing on a wide range of sources fromWestern art history, classical Chinese painting, and imagery of traditional rural life. Her paintings parody a masculine, colonialist vision through erotically charged imagery and humour. In works such as her recent ‘Sharp, Sharp, Smart’ series 2014 she uses a faux-naive style that suggests both Mao’s Revolutionary Realism and the French Barbizon school, to portray rural peasant women carrying giant geese with snaking, phallic necks. Her references to these diverse styles intimate the reception and interpretation of European modernist ideas in China following the Cultural Revolution. It also reflects the imbalances that occur between urban and rural, tradition and modernity in a society that continues to undergo enormous change. JANENNE EATON Born 1950, Melbourne, Australia Lives and works in Melbourne Road to the hills — a text for everything and nothing 2014 is an eerie and expansive work that draws together historical and contemporary threads to reflect on racial intolerance. Eaton’s large-scale assemblage combines black modular, reflective panels with a convex mirror and text. Printed on the mirror is a photograph by John B Eaton (the artist’s uncle) of a lonely country road from which the work derives 242—243 ARTIST PROFILES