The Ninth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

205 ESSAYS To define myself, I must define others The ways artists create, communicate and travel today expose evolving power structures and the shifting discursive centres of the art world, as well as the continual redefinition of regional boundaries. 1 In doing so, artists unmask the abstractions and erasures inherent in our maps. The active divisions and inscribed borders within the Asia Pacific are a palimpsest of colonial and military histories, migrations, sites of conflict and implications of modern politics. Practices represented in APT9 demonstrate how artists operate through processes that challenge, overcome or ignore imposed or existing borders, creating works that reveal the fluidity of issues, such as mobility and visibility. Beyond stories of one-way migrations are those involving return journeys, itinerant movement, and the exchange and production of art between disparate locations, all of which place artists in unique positions to comment on regional concerns and cultures in flux. In the context of APT9, the movement of artists includes the departures and returns that occur in the face of significant social and political change. Works by Htein Lin, Soe Yu Nwe and Sawangwongse Yawnghwe reveal these artists’ relationships to homeland — in particular, its culture and politics — and are informed by dramatically different experiences of living and working in and away from Myanmar. Artists are also based in countries far from their place of birth, yet their practices remain intrinsically linked to their native contexts, which constantly inspire new vantage points and platforms. Conversely, other artists find restrictions in working globally, as democratic centres drift towards conservative and nationalist agendas that affect unilateral relationships, the control of borders and the movement of people internationally. 2 How art is categorised outside its original context also remains a source of contention. The question of whether contemporary art still acts as a kind of colonial export — with legitimisation reliant on affirmation from Western centres that have yet to come to terms with a multicultural art context — remains pertinent to contemporary practices from the Asia Pacific region. 3 ‘Denying other cultures or peoples from other cultures their subject positions in modernism’ is how Rasheed Araeen has described the process, and, as an integral part of his practice, he advocates for the recognition of artists marginalised from the global canon. 4 Other conceptual and non-objective practices in APT9 have also been vulnerable to reductive readings — works contextualised within international movements that artists had no interest in, or access to, or a prescribed cultural classification being imposed onto an abstract form. Context is significant also where spiritual, linguistic and customary knowledge is embedded in practices which then become instruments that decolonise notions of tradition, as opposed to contexts where they are categorised as static, homogenous and distinct from the development of mainstream contemporary art. 5 In striving to challenge the artistic centres established by ‘dominant’ cultures, Araeen formed allegiances with artists from the Caribbean, Africa and Asia in the 1980s. Similar political relationships — such as the 1955 Bandung Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement (established in 1961), or new concepts of regional partnerships, such as MENAP or MENASA, which acknowledge a network of wealth and labour that extend through parts of South Asia, Africa and the Arab World — deliberately recalibrate directional flows of power. 6 These networks reflect evolving trends in global travel and economic growth that position the Persian Gulf at the world’s centre, while simultaneously establishing new hubs for art markets at a midway point between Asia and Europe. An influential figure in the region, Hassan Sharif responded directly to Dubai’s emerging status as a wealthy business and trading hub, while Monira Al Qadiri explores the industries that have placed the Persian Gulf at the centre of the global economy, probing how these manifestations of wealth are often forgotten in local histories. Regional distinctions classify parts of Asia and the Pacific and are also influential in categorising art practices. The etymology of the term 'South-East Asia' carries implications of historical colonisation and conflict driven by foreign interest, and the region is now increasingly characterised by the influence of ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) as a result of political and trade interests. 7 Exchanges between South-East Asian artists and the super-economies of South and East Asia remain limited, although they share cultural roots and have been affected by the same political and power structures that have influenced the wider region. Lao–Hmong artist Tcheu Siong expresses aspects of Hmong spirituality, a belief system that originated SHILPA GUPTA India b.1976 For, In Your Tongue I Can Not Fit 2018 / Installation view, Edinburgh College of Art’s Engine House / Photograph: Johnny Barrington / Image courtesy: The artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA (San Gimignano, Beijing, Les Moulins, Habana)