The Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

migration has caused, including those resulting from the devastating earthquakes of 2015. RAMINHAERIZADEH Born 1975, Tehran, Iran ROKNI HAERIZADEH Born 1978, Tehran, Iran HESAMRAHMANIAN Born 1980, Knoxville, USA Live and work in Dubai, UAE Ramin and Rokni Haerizadeh are brothers who collaborate with Hesam Rahmanian to construct provocative installations that challenge conventional modes of display and standards of value. Persian street- theatre or Ta’ziyeh is a particularly important influence on their practice, with its use of props, theatricality, cross-dressing and irony. In the their installation “All The Rivers Run Into The Sea. Over.” / “Copy. Yet, The Sea Is Not Full. Over.” 2015 they recreate a version of their Dubai home-studio, with their own and other artists’ works, found objects and bric-a-brac displayed in an over-the-top, domesticised installation that occupies and consumes the space of the gallery, blurring the boundaries between art and life. Every inch of the room is covered, including walls and floors, with no concern for hierarchy and preciousness. Their medley of influences ranges from satirical folk theatre, illuminated manuscripts, miniature painting and Persian poetry, to modernist art and pop culture. TALOI HAVINI Hakö people Born 1981, Arawa, Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia STUARTMILLER Born 1983, Sydney, Australia Lives and works in Sydney and London, UK Taloi Havini and Stuart Miller’s photographs respond to the history and culture of Havini’s native Bougainville. A descendant of the Nakas clan, Havini’s ‘Blood generation’ 2009–12 portraits engage with the deep connection to land that her people have, as well as the ravages of open-cut mining and over ten years of civil war (1988–2000). The portraits of Buka youth feature and are dedicated to a group of young people born during the bloody Bougainville conflict. They are taken in the environments around Bougainville, including the devastated landscape around the Panguna mine. Naming her subjects and rendering her portraits in crystalline detail, Havini draws attention to their individuality and their shared experiences of loss. Her strong portraits also assert cultural resilience, reminding audiences of ongoing battles for native title and the right to self-determination. HAIDER ALI JAN Born 1983, Lahore, Pakistan Lives and works in Lahore Fusing photographs and digitally illustrated imagery, Haider Ali Jan’s panoramas allude to the contradictions inherent in political rhetoric and conventions of belief. Jan grew up in the old city of Lahore, which forms the backdrop of his images. Jan comes from a Shiite family, and several of his works have been composed around Shiite ritual, particularly the public performance of religious customs and ceremony in Lahore. The ritual associated with the Mourning of Muharram is a public one, and Jan describes it as ‘both routine and larger than life’, a kind of ‘carnival where everything is exaggerated and everyone is involved in some sort of performance’. ‘Laughing series’ 2008 shows the streets lined with locals waiting for the sacred coffin to be carried past, but recognises the irony of the spectacle in which participants wait for hours to view a coffin that is in reality empty. The same laughing figures appear in Let’s Walk 2009, a reflection on good and evil in relation to the perception of martyrdom. GULNARA KASMALIEVA Born 1960, Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic MURATBEK DJUMALIEV Born 1965, Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic Live and work in Bishkek The ancient trade route known as the Silk Road runs between the mountains that connect China and the Kyrgyz Republic in Central Asia. In their A New Silk Road: Algorithm of Survival and Hope 2006 Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev use the road as a symbol of the complicated process of ‘migration, survival and transformation’ that has taken place in the Kyrgyz Republic over the last 100 years. Kyrgyz people were originally nomads, but in the last two decades with their independence from the Soviet Union and transition to a free-market economy, their lives have been transformed. The Silk Road itself reflects this history — statues of former communist leaders Mao and Stalin still remain by the side of the road, and a runway for military airplanes now exists as a parking lot for trucks, with formerly nomadic shepherds providing food and shelter. A New Silk Road tracks the passage of a caravan of dilapidated trucks carrying scrap metal to China in exchange for cheap products such as clothing, reflecting on the relationship between overlapping histories, and globalisation and local identity. KHVAY SAMNANG Born 1982, Svay Rieng, Cambodia Lives and works in Phnom Penh, Cambodia Khvay Samnang has created several groups of works centred on development and human rights issues in Cambodia. Utilising video and photography, Khvay’s ‘Untitled’ 2011 series exposed the controversial development projects around Phnom Penh, where thousands of residents were forcibly removed from their homes in low socio-economic areas. His 2014 ‘Rubber Man’ works are the result of several trips to the rubber plantations in Cambodia’s remote north-eastern province of Ratanakiri Province, and explore their effect on the local environment and indigenous communities. Khvay’s photographs were shot in several locations and depict the artist pouring buckets of white rubber sap over his face and naked body, obscuring his features and masking his identity. The series alludes to the recent and ongoing establishment of more than 300 000 hectares of foreign-owned rubber plantations, displacing local villagers and destroying the homes of communities and places of spiritual significance.