The Ninth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

129 ARTISTS Sabah tanah air-ku (detail) 2017 Woodcut, offset ink on block-out blind, ed. 5/10 / Diptych: 414.5 x 300cm; 411 x 298.3cm / Purchased 2017 with funds from Ashby Utting through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery Established 2010, Ranau, Sabah, Malaysia Based in Ranau The town of Ranau, at the foot of Mount Kinabalu in the East Malaysian state of Sabah, is the home of Pangrok Sulap — a collective of indigenous Dusun and Murut artists, musicians and social activists, who are dedicated to empowering rural communities through art. They first came together in 2010 to conduct charity work in rural schools, orphanages and homes for the disabled. Members of the Indonesian punk activist group Marjinal introduced the collective to woodcut printing in 2013, and they quickly adopted the medium as a means of raising awareness and communicating the perspectives of Borneo’s regional communities. Pangrok Sulap’s composition, locality and orientation is expressed in its name — ‘pangrok’ means ‘punk rock’, and ‘sulap’ means a hut used by farmers as a resting place — which was inspired by a cartoon drawn by members of the group. They were involved in the vibrant Borneo punk scene, and particularly influenced by the ethic of organisational autonomy they observed in classic North American hardcore punk bands like Black Flag and Minor Threat. Pangrok Sulap’s activities extend to running galleries, film screenings, music festivals and T-shirt fairs, community workshops and school-based projects. The group’s ethos is conveyed in the slogan ‘Jangan beli, bikin sendiri’ (‘Don’t buy, do it yourself’). Their collaborative, community-based practice has resulted in an exhibition history that is wide and diverse, and which often operates at a local, grassroots level. The title of Pangrok Sulap’s large-scale woodcut diptych Sabah tanah air-ku 2017 translates to ‘Sabah, my homeland’, which is also the name of the Bornean state’s official anthem. Through intricate carvings and complex composition, the work details the traumatic realities and enduring aspirations of a region whose natural resources are regularly exploited, and which is frequently marginalised within Malaysia. As with Pangrok Sulap’s community collaborations, the process of creating the work followed a clear sequence. First, they discussed the nature of the work, and made sketches of its internal components, which were then organised into a composition. Projections of cut-out human figures were created as models for the larger characters in the image. The process took roughly 12 months, and culminated in a week-long, festival-style workshop in Ranau, held in an outdoor marquee and sponsored by the local council as part of the town’s monthly, all-night markets. Here, the woodblocks were cut, inked and pressed onto block-out curtain fabric — the only available material of substantial width — by members of the local community, who were invited to walk and dance over the fabric in bare feet, accompanied by live music. Impressions of these footsteps are clearly visible in the final work as an enduring trace of its joyful creation. The diptych panels differ markedly in tone, presenting contrasting visions of Sabah. The first is the dream of an autonomous state: bright and open, with figures appearing in a landscape that features Mount Kinabalu, and the state anthem’s final line, ‘Sabah Negeri Merdeka’ (‘Sabah independent state’). The second panel is denser and thematically darker — it represents disappointment with the treatment of the region’s land and people by both national and international interests, and concerns over corrupt officials, illegal logging, persistent flooding, and migration programs aimed at altering the ethnic and electoral demographic of the region. Reuben Keehan Pangrok Sulap