The Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

by his father, a master tangka painter. Sherpa is now regarded as one of the foremost contemporary Tibetan artists, although he has gradually moved away from the precise discipline of tangka paintings to deconstruct and explore the abstract possibilities of the associated imagery, while maintaining the refined techniques and rich textures. His works, such as Muted expression 2015, Lucid dream 2015, and This is not a Rorschach 2015, incorporate ink and acrylic with gold and platinum leaf on cotton and canvas, ranging from small sizes to large-scale scrolls and paintings of over three metres. His images of deities and spiritual figures are often fragmented, placed in unusual contexts, or broken up into a swirling composition, acting as a metaphor for the feelings of displacement experienced by the Tibetan diaspora. SHIGA LIEKO Born 1980, Aichi, Japan Lives and works in Miyagi, Japan Shiga Lieko’s photographs are characterised by their intense colour saturation, heavy use of flash and uncanny, dreamlike tone. She deliberately transgresses the conventions of documentary photography, blurring the boundaries between reality and representation, and drawing on local myths and personal accounts. By chance, Shiga became the official photographer for the small town of Kitakama in Miyagi prefecture in 2008. When Kitakama was devastated by the 2011 tsunami, Shiga gathered, cleaned and sorted over 30 000 photographs that had washed ashore. Her powerful RASEN KAIGAN (Spiral Coast) 2008–12 , an immersive installation of the large-scale photographs propped on plinths, reflects upon the community’s experiences in the aftermath of the tsunami. The photographs are encountered in a darkened space as free-standing objects, and reflect the artist’s experience of living intimately among these people who were soon to be affected by tragedy on such a large scale. JUSTIN SHOULDER Born 1985, Sydney, Australia BHENJI RA Born 1990, Sydney, Australia Live and work in Sydney, Australia Justin Shoulder works in live performance, photography and video and is particularly known for his spectacular performances that developed within the underground context of Sydney’s queer performance scene. Shoulder’s performances are based around his highly developed ‘Fantastic creatures’, invented beings and alter-egos based on mythology, fables and fantasy forms. These creatures are embodied through intricately crafted costumes and movement, with full body suits, prostheses and masks convincingly transforming Shoulder’s persona. His practice has its roots in nightclubs and underground live venues and still retains the collective energy of these spaces. In Ex Nilalang 2015, Shoulder collaborates with dancer Bhenji Ra, drawing on their shared Filipino lineage to re-imagine mythologies as celebratory legends. Presenting a mixture of live performance and video-based portraits filmed in the Philippines with queer individuals and collectives, the artists use their bodies to forge connections between queer, migrant, spiritual and intercultural experiences. SIREN EUN YOUNG JUNG Born 1974, Incheon, South Korea Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea siren eun young jung has been researching yeosung gukgeuk (all-female musical drama) since 2008 and has produced films, photographs, performances and installations exploring this historical Korean form. In APT8 she is represented by four video works, Act of Affect 2013, and Lyrics I , II and III 2013. Yeosung gukgeuk draws on classical Korean musical theatre and involves all characters, regardless of gender, being played by women. It emerged in the 1940s and reached its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, but has since been on the decline, with fewer and fewer practitioners. Siren’s interest in the form takes a feminist position, seeing yeosung gukgeuk as a challenge to patriarchal structures within Korean society. Her work creates rich interconnected narratives about the actors’ transformations into male characters, their relationships with each other, and the passing of knowledge from one generation to another. Through yeosung gukgeuk she shows women creating a world for themselves in which they can freely live out their aspirations. STAB (SCHOOL OF THEORY AND ACTIVISM, BISHKEK) Established 2012, Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic STAB is an artistic, research and activist platform co-directed by Oksana Shatalova and Georgy Mamedov. Their work is informed by principles of Soviet avant- garde art and activism, and places emphasis on creating a timely response to issues at hand. STAB has been running a series of animation workshops addressing critical topics in Kyrgyz Republic, including the dominance of the Russian language in Central Asia, urban development, or the passing of a recent bill banning ‘homosexual propaganda’. Completed within a few days, their short videos use simple animation techniques—frompaper-cuts to drawings— to convey snappy and engaging accounts of complex issues. STAB also presents a historical intervention with the archive of the Kollontai commune, a queer communist collective associated with the architecture school in Frunze (now Bishkek) in the 1970s. The archive exhumes the often overlooked feminist and queer politics of the Soviet era. It also reflects on the contemporary relevance of the relationship between avant-garde art and architecture, cosmology and science in the early twentieth century. SUPER CRITICAL MASS Established 2007 JULIANDAY Born 1975, Bendigo, Australia Lives and works in Sydney, Australia LUKE JAANISTE Born 1977, Parramatta, Australia Lives and works in Brisbane, Australia Super Critical Mass is a collaborative group comprising Julian Day and Luke Jaaniste that formed in 2007. Describing themselves as ‘an ongoing sonic arts project’ interested in the creation of ‘evolving sound fields’, the group creates compelling participatory experiences utilising public spaces and temporary communities brought together 254—255 ARTIST PROFILES