Design your own APT7 tour!

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My tour

Below is an image bank of selected art works, some of which feature in the primary and secondary worksheets developed for The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT7) exhibition.

Choose 6 art works from the image bank to form your own APT7 tour.

Then press 'DONE'.

  • Korumbo (Spirit house) (detail) 2012

    STRUCTURES

    Brikiti Cultural Group
    Collaborative group
    Est. 2006
    Abelam people, Brikiti
    Team leader
    Waikua NERA b.1955
    Collaborating artists
    Nikit KAIWAUL b.1979
    Kano LOCTAI b.1976

    Synthetic polymer paint, plywood, pine, steel, bamboo, bamboo leaves, sago, split cane, natural string, synthetic and natural dyes / Installed dimensions variable / Commissioned for APT7 and the Queensland Art Gallery Collection / Purchased 2012. Queensland Art Gallery / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

    The Brikiti Cultural Group are Abelam speakers from the mountainous Apengai area in the East Sepik region of Papua New Guinea. Korumbo directly refers to the spectacular triangular facades found on the spirit houses, or haus tambaran, customarily built by the Abelam for male initiation ceremonies.

    Some 10 to 15 metres high and painted with bold motifs relating to significant ancestral figures, these structures are designed to impress. Repeated exposure to this art, as well as to the secret sculptures housed within the haus tambaran, enables initiated men to respond to the coding, identity and significance of the figures and art with great depth.

    The Brikiti Cultural Group produced Korumbo in Brisbane. For this work, the artists moved away from the natural ochres and panggal (sago stem bark) supports they would use at home, to explore the effects on their traditional designs of brightly coloured synthetic polymer paints and the smooth, flat surface of plywood. According to senior artist Waikua Nera, the big spirit man Puti, found at the top of this work, gave him permission to create a work about the Korumbo in Brisbane as well as to innovate with these materials. The participation of Papua New Guinean artists in APT7 is generously supported by Kramer Ausenco.

  • Painting carved kwat (post) for koromb (Spirit house) 2012

    STRUCTURES

    Kwoma Arts
    Collaborative group
    Est. 2012
    Papua New Guinea
    Kwoma people, Tongwinjamb


    Anton Waiawas
    Papua New Guinea, b.1952
    Kevin Apsepa
    Papua New Guinea, b.1971
    Simon Goiyap
    Papua New Guinea, b.1973
    Jamie Jimok
    Papua New Guinea, b.1982
    Nelson Makamoi
    Papua New Guinea, b.1982
    Rex Maukos
    Papua New Guinea, b.1964
    Terry Pakiey
    Papua New Guinea, b.1974

    Synthetic polymer paint, plywood, blackbutt, steel / Installed dimensions variable / Commissioned for APT7 and the Queensland Art Gallery Collection / Purchased 2012. Queensland Art Gallery / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

    The carvings and paintings created by Kwoma Arts respond directly to the koromb (spirit houses) found in the Upper Sepik villages of Tongwinjamb and Mino. Each Kwoma village has at least one such koromb, which is a place for the discussion of issues affecting the community and for ceremonial displays and ritual performances. Today these ceremonial events relate to the planting and harvesting of yams, rituals associated with ancestral spirits, and the celebration of important community events.

    Like those of the village koromb, the vibrant ceiling created for APT7 comprises over 200 panels. The architectural structure of the koromb has been translated by the artists into an installation using new materials, while retaining its integrity and significance. Each panel is painted with a design from individual artists' clan totems. Represented in this work are the animals, plants, birds and spirit figures associated with four different Kwoma clan groups – Wanyi (cassowary), Teki (dog), Humikwa (bird of paradise) and Guisemb (sea eagle). In a palette of black, white, red and yellow, this vibrant ceiling communicates the energy associated with the spirits housed within.

    These spirits are more fully explored in the koromb's sculptural supports, which in this installation consist of six kwat (posts) carved with figurative designs relating to key narratives surrounding Kwoma sikiyawas (spirits). The participation of Papua New Guinean artists in APT7 is generously supported by Kramer Ausenco.

  • Crawl space 2012

    STRUCTURES

    Joanna Langford
    New Zealand b.1978

    Galvanised wire, acrylic paint, electrical wire, LED lights, plywood, recycled silage wrap / Installed dimensions variable / Commissioned for APT7 / Courtesy: The artist and Jonathan Smart Gallery, Christchurch

    Joanna Langford is known for the elaborate installations she makes from discarded mass-produced materials. In Crawl space 2012 Langford uses skeins of recycled plastic silage (stock feed) wrap – commonly used by farmers in New Zealand – to create a synthetic environment that appears to emerge from the ground. This is surrounded by a barrier suggestive of builders' hoarding, while above is suspended a delicate system of tiny ladders, girders and carry-cages, painted in safety orange, which evoke an endless process of engineering and construction.

    Crawl space suggests a future in which the remnants of inorganic materials have become our heritage. According to the Agrecovery Rural Recycling Programme, more than 320 000 kilometres of silage wrap is used in New Zealand every year – enough to circle the world eight times. Although Langford's anti-engineered constructions stem from the imagination, they lead us to reflect on the very real and fragile balance between nature and our constructed environment.

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    HOW DIRTY IS YOUR GLOSSY BLACK IV 2012

    SYMBOLISM

    Mohammed Qasim Ashfaq
    United Kingdom b.1982

    Aluminium foil tape / Installed dimensions variable / Site-specific work for APT7 / Courtesy: The artist and Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai

    Mohammed Qasim Ashfaq combines aspects of Islamic art, North American Modernism, and futuristic sci-fi aesthetics in his works. Paying careful attention to material detail and using a restricted, monochrome palette, Ashfaq manipulates Islamic motifs, and the play between light and texture, to embody a sense of infinity. Installed at QAG and GOMA, HOW GLOSSY IS YOUR DIRTY BLACK IV and V 2012 are composed of symmetrical rosettes, applied directly to the gallery wall with aluminium tape. The geometry of both works is inspired by the Islamic tradition of symbolising eternity through repetition, while its luminous surfaces seem to shift between light and dark as we move around it, recalling the exploration of perception and reflection in minimalist sculpture.

  • Happy Hour (still) 2012

    SYMBOLISM

    Tromarama
    Est. 2004
    Indonesia
    Febie Babyrose
    Indonesia b.1985
    Herbert Hans Maruli
    Indonesia b.1984
    Ruddy Alexander Hatumena
    Bahrain/Indonesia b.1984

    Single-channel video animation on LCD monitor, 1:56 minutes (looped), sound, colour, ed. 2/3 / Music: Panji Prasetyo / Purchased 2011. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

    Tromarama is a collective of three artists from Bandung, Indonesia, formed while they were at university. As students, they began working together on music videos for a number of bands before expanding into stop-motion video, animation and installations. The collective considers art as a process of understanding – a medium through which they can observe and question the ordinary experiences of daily life. Tromarama's works playfully activate these experiences with imagination, humour and fantasy, along with subtle but pertinent political commentary.

    Happy hour 2010 responds to the Indonesian bank scandal of 2009 by injecting a sense of humour into the scenario. The group imagined how they would feel if they were the currency at the centre of the affair. They felt that the money would be stressed by the conflicts and corruption, and so deserved a 'happy hour'. The national heroes on the banknotes sing jovially, like friends in a karaoke bar, to a song performed by the one of the group's regular collaborators, musician Panji Prasetyo.

  • The Journey 2011

    SYMBOLISM

    Uji Handoko Eko Saputro (aka Hahan)
    Indonesia b.1983

    Synthetic polymer paint on canvas / Diptych: 180 x 210cm (each) / Purchased 2011. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

    Uji Handoko Eko Saputro (aka Hahan) creates satirical and fantastical characters in a graphic cartoon style to make bold criticisms of the contemporary Indonesian art world. Closely involved with the thriving graffiti and comic-book culture of Yogyakarta, Hahan caricatures art world figures in often grotesque parodies – the sculptures in Hahan's 'Trinity' series 2011–12 depict a curator, a wealthy collector and an artist.

    By contrasting the hopes and dreams of artists with the realities of the art industry, he speaks for a generation of young artists caught up in the recent Indonesian art market boom. Letters to the Great Saatchi 2011, an exhibition and publication on Indonesian art, produced in collaboration with the London based Saatchi Gallery, depicts a toppling pile of intoxicated young artists, climbing over each other as they strive to achieve recognition. Big Artist is a Big Factory 2012 portrays the working lives and relationships of artists as an array of difficult networks that must be juggled in the professional realm.

    The apocalyptic panorama The Journey 2011 recounts 'a story of stereotypes of an artist in Indonesia' – revolutionary artists, gallery artists, innovators and a single artist with a head comprised of hands (symbolising hard work). They are all beckoned by a dewa (god) to take the treacherous journey to a portal where their dreams might come true.

  • Ule and Neo (Male and female fish) (Mask) and Sar (Headdress) 2011

    SYMBOLISM

    Alex Gabour and Coastal Arapesh people
    Dagua, East Sepik
    Ule and Neo (Male and female fish) (Mask) (detail) and Sar (Headdress) (detail) 2011 in performance at the National Mask Festival, Kokopo, East New Britain, July 2011 / Purchased 2011 Queensland Art Gallery Foundation, Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / Photograph: Michael O'Sullivan

    Bold colour, dynamic pattern and vertiginous scale characterise the masks created by artists from the New Britain and Sepik regions of Papua New Guinea. Accompanied by the rousing rhythms of drums, a chorus of chanting voices and the heady scent of flowers and leaves, the performance of these objects is designed to engage both audiences and ancestral spirits. These performances are believed to assist in resolving communal conflicts and influencing social processes, from the transition of life to death, to the abundant growth of crops, to even the success of a local business venture.

    Created by men, many of the masks and headdresses featured in APT7 are customarily ephemeral, either because of their organic materials or because they are intended for use on only one occasion. Directly associated with powerful spirit beings or forces, the masks created by the Baining and Sulka people, when used in performance, evoke the potency of these beings and are usually destroyed after they have served their ritual purpose. The participation of Papua New Guinean artists in APT7 is generously supported by Kramer Ausenco.

  • Civilised #2 2012

    SYMBOLISM

    Michael Cook
    Australia b.1968
    Bidjara people QLD

    Inkjet print on paper, ed. 5/8 / 100 x 87.5cm / Purchased 2012. Queensland Art Gallery / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

    With a background in commercial photography, Michael Cook uses his expertise in digital image-making and post-production techniques to create compelling and challenging retakes on Australian history. He presents a uniquely Indigenous perspective of Australian history, reimagining the Aboriginal experience in a series of theatrical photographic scenarios that have a liberating sense of possibility.

    In his 'Civilised' series, Cook dresses Indigenous Australians in the period fashions of Spain, the Netherlands, England and France – the four European imperial powers whose explorers and traders visited Australia before and during the early stages of colonisation. The result is a striking tableau of resplendently costumed models and dramatic props set against evocative shorelines. Through these works, Cook questions the narrow parameters of what is perceived as 'civilised'. He has stated: When I produce art, I feel a stronger connection with my ancestry. This helps me to understand Australian history – in particular, my history.

  • Eeny Meeny Money Moe 2012

    SYMBOLISM

    Tintin Wulia
    Indonesia/Australia b.1972

    Interactive installation with toy passports and synchronised machines / Commissioned for APT7 / Courtesy: The artist and Osage Gallery, Hong Kong

    Drawing on her own experiences of living between Denpasar, Jakarta and Melbourne, Tintin Wulia works with themes of migration and belonging, expressed through humorous videos, installations and interactive games.

    Eeney, Meeney, Money, Moe 2012 invites audience participation through the use of claw machines — sources of much frustration and amusement in arcades and shopping centres across the world. Wulia frequently uses the motif of the passport in her art, and is working towards replicating the travel documents of all United Nations Member States. Only one machine is playable, while the others copy its movements, slightly increasing the odds of winning.

    As enjoyable as the game may be, it also evokes the frustrations inherent in the bureaucratic control of borders, foregrounding the role of chance in determining which nationality we hold, where we might end up, and who is allowed free passage.

  • Leaf fall 2008

    SYMBOLISM

    Neha Choksi
    United States/India b.1973

    Single-channel HD digital video projection, 14:14 minutes (looped), sound, colour, ed. 4/4 + 2 AP, English subtitles / Purchased 2011. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

    Motifs of absence and erasure pervade Neha Choksi's work, which is inspired by influences ranging from the artist's Jain heritage, with its central belief in non-violence towards all living beings, to her formal education in Greek and the classics. Choksi's autumn 2008 performance Leaf fall was carried out by a group of rurally-based Indian actors who denuded a deciduous peepal or Bodhi tree by hand, leaving behind a single leaf. In a lyrical video of the performance, members of the group move around a wooden scaffold and offer comments on their actions, speculating on how the process will change the environment around the tree. Scenes from the film are reproduced as large monochromatic paintings, while an additional short video emulating the fall of a leaf completes the installation. The tree becomes a symbol of decay and renewal, part of a collective ritual; the solitary leaf will soon be lost among the tree's new growth.

  • Bisj pole 2011

    SYMBOLISM

    Paulis Pokman
    Indonesia b.unknown
    Asmat people, Yawis

    Mangrove wood, natural pigments (lime, ochre charcoal), bamboo leaves, cockatoo feathers / 403 x 150cm / Purchased 2011. Andrew and Lilian Pedersen Trust / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

    Asmat men create impressive full body masks for use in feast cycles that are held to farewell the recently deceased. The masks are knotted from bark fibres using a standard technique. Each is embellished with decorative pieces, such as eye and nose ornaments that link it to a specific individual, and it is believed the masks give material form to the spirits of these individuals. In order to engage the spirit and enact such transformations, the masks are made in secret and in accordance with strict ceremonial protocols. When worn, long fringes of fresh sago palm fronds are included, obscuring the wearer. The presence of masked spirits as part of such feast cycles is believed to confirm the harmonious unification of the dead and the living. It also strengthens relational ties, ensuring harmony within Asmat communities.

  • Written room 1999–ongoing

    SYMBOLISM

    Parastou Forouhar
    Iran/Germany b.1962

    Synthetic polymer paint / Installed dimensions variable / Site-specific work for APT7 Courtesy: The Queensland Art Gallery

    Parastou Forouhar was born in Iran and left the country in 1991. Based in Germany for many years, she makes works in a variety of media, including photography, textiles and installation, combining traditional and modern references. Forouhar often emphasises the deceptive nature of ornamental surfaces and images – what may first appear as beautiful, reveals on closer inspection a sense of chaos or violence.

    Written room 2012 is part of an ongoing series of text-based installations. For these works, Forouhar covers the surfaces of the gallery space with the elegant lines of Farsi script. Variously recording names, fragments of words and memories, the meaning of this swirling calligraphy is fragmented and obscure even to those familiar with the language. Forouhar describes the effect this might have on an audience: I hope this will encourage them to question their perception of language, and their orientation to it. What might be understood initially as a loss of meaning can instead be interpreted simply as abstract visual language – an environment that cultivates subjective experience.

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    THE KUDA: The Untold Story of Indonesian Underground Music in the 70s 2012

    TELLING OF HISTORY

    ruangrupa
    Est. 2000
    Indonesia

    Ade Darmawan b. 1974
    Reza Afisina b.1977
    Indra Kusuma b.1974
    Iswanto Hartono b.1972
    Band art work / Commissioned for APT7 / Image courtesy: The artists

    Founded in Jakarta in 2000, ruangrupa is an artist collective known for socially engaged projects through which they consider 'the city' both as a physical environment and an idea. Often spontaneous and experimental in nature, ruangrupa's work is characterised by a collaborative and researchbased approach. They construct narratives in which personal experience, imagination, humour and memory hold as much authority as official history.

    Inspired by Indonesian rock music of the 1970s and accounts of Queensland's music underground at the same time, during the Joh Bjelke-Petersen era, ruangrupa's APT7 presentation is a mini-museum of memorabilia relating to the story of a fictional, and now defunct, Indonesian rock band and its connection to the Brisbane music scene. The collective has explored this influence by working with Brisbane-based artists, musicians and enthusiasts, who not only assist with re-creating the former band's graphic imagery but also cover the songs and provide anecdotal accounts relating to the band and its impact in Brisbane.

  • Asia / Pacific / Triennial 2012

    TELLING OF HISTORY

    Heman Chong
    Malaysia/Singapore b.1977

    Image courtesy: The Queensland Art Gallery / Installation view GOMA

    Heman Chong works with the imagined futures expressed in literature, politics and philosophy. He draws on personal emotions and commonplace urban experiences around the world, often working readymade objects and texts into his own distinctive designs.

    For his contribution to The 20-Year Archive, Chong turned his attention to the past. Investigating the archives of the Australian Centre of Asia Pacific Art (ACAPA), the research arm of the Gallery's Asian and Pacific activities, which are housed in the QAGOMA Research Library, he paid particular attention to the history of the APT. A spoken soundtrack in a red-lit room offers readings of fragmentary texts drawn from catalogues, articles, correspondence and other documents. Curious about the archive's daily usage, Chong left the selection of material to Gallery staff. He describes the work as a kind of 'epic poem' with multiple authors, inviting viewers to make their own associations between these historical fragments and moments from a shared past.

  • The 20-Year Archive

    TELLING OF HISTORY

    Reuben Keehan, Curator, Contemporary Asian Art
    discusses The 20-Year Archive

    The twentieth anniversary of the APT encourages us to look back over the vast changes that have taken place throughout the Asia Pacific region in this period. Art and culture are key registers of change, and the APT since 1993 has been able to track some of these transformations through the work of contemporary artists.

    In the Asia Pacific region, archives have been crucial to the formation of critical understandings of history. The 20-Year Archive, on display at QAG and GOMA, makes links between four of these by presenting projects that draw on archival approaches and reflect on the past two decades of art, society, politics and culture.

    Projects featured at QAG include an installation by MAP Office, created during a residency with the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, and a display by Raqs Media Collective of materials from the Sarai archive, New Delhi. The project, {disarmed}: imagining a Pacific archive, brings together works by Torika Bolatagici, Teresia Teaiwa and Mat Hunkin to explore a history of militarisation in the Pacific. Also featured is an archive of Kids' APT drawing projects, presentations of previous APT performances and commissions, and a resource hub of publications and online resources. The latter includes QAGOMA TV, the Gallery's dedicated video channel, which screens talks, performances, interviews and panel discussions from past Triennials.

    At GOMA, two projects draw on the APT Archive, which is part of the Australian Centre of Asia Pacific Art, the research arm of the Gallery's Asia Pacific activities. A sound installation by Heman Chong responds to 20 years of catalogues, texts and documents on and around the APT, while a series of artist interviews from previous APT exhibitions offers a range of personal perspectives.

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    Ressort 2012

    SITE-SPECIFIC INSTALLATIONS

    Huang Yong Ping
    China/France b.1954

    Aluminium, stainless steel / 5300cm (l) / Purchased 2012 with funds from Tim Fairfax, am, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

    Huang Yong Ping emerged as a key figure in the Chinese avant-garde of the 1980s and has been based in Paris since 1989. Huang is internationally recognised for his allegorical works, which draw on the artistic and philosophical traditions of China and Europe to reflect on new global realities. Chance and fate, conflict and humour inflect his vision of how different societies operate and interact with each other. He reworks architectural and animal forms to create massive sculptures and installations that often reference the history, culture and landscape of the site in which the works are shown.

    Ressort 2012 is the latest in a series of large-scale sculptures to depict a snake or dragon, a central symbol in Chinese culture as well as many others around the world. The work plays on different interpretations of the snake, from creation and temptation to wisdom and deception. Symbolically linking sky and water, Ressort (a French word meaning 'spring', but also 'resilience' and 'energy') epitomises Huang Yong Ping's ability to offer an open interpretation while making deep connections to human experience and belief.

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    Big Yellow 2012

    SITE-SPECIFIC INSTALLATIONS

    Richard Maloy
    New Zealand b.1977

    Cardboard, paint, wood / 600 x 3120 x 560cm (installed, approx.) / Site-specific work for APT7 / Courtesy: The Queensland Art Gallery

    Richard Maloy transforms humble, ephemeral materials – including cardboard boxes, plastic bags, tape and timber – into sculptures and installations that are usually underpinned by an element of performance. Interested in the methods and systems involved in art-making, Maloy seeks to engage viewers in this process, often immersing them in an environment or experience in which they play a central part.

    For APT7, Maloy uses cardboard boxes, tape and paint to build a vibrant amorphous structure, 30 metres in length, which occupies most of the space in this room. Its brightly coloured angles and small peepholes offer different viewpoints, creating visual and spatial possibilities. The conventional act of viewing an art work from outside is shifted into a performance in which we become the actors.

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    Kagoshima Esperanto 2012

    SITE-SPECIFIC INSTALLATIONS

    Tadasu Takamine
    Japan b.1968

    Installation view, Kirishima Open Air Museum, 2010 / Image courtesy: The artist

    A strong social consciousness is a feature of Tadasu Takamine's work, along with a questioning of moral certitude. Takamine was involved with the radical performance collective Dumb Type during the 1990s, and he maintains their experimental energy as well as their interdisciplinary approach to ethical questions. His work extends to theatre, dance, sound and interactive technology, driven by the histories and structures that determine the character of a given place, particularly those threatened with disappearance. In the wake of the recent disasters in Queensland and Japan, Takamine created the multimedia installation Fukushima Esperanto 2012 for APT7, presenting a narrative of memory, uncertainty and loss that plays out across a landscape of disappearing languages and abandoned possessions.

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    Paramodel joint factory 2012

    SITE-SPECIFIC INSTALLATIONS

    Paramodel
    Est. 2001
    Japan
    Yasuhiko HAYASHI b.1971
    Yusuke NAKANO b.1976

    Site-specific work for Kids' APT, toy train track components, carpet, styrofoam / Commissioned for Kids' APT7 with support from the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation / Courtesy: The artists

    Artists Yasuhiko Hayashi and Yusuke Nakano work collaboratively as Paramodel to produce vast accumulative installations. They often create works using readymade materials and common Japanese toys, injecting a sense of fun into the art-making process. Paramodel has a cross-disciplinary approach that includes art, architecture and design, transforming gallery spaces into 'workshops' or 'architect studios'.

    Hayashi and Nakano grew up in East Osaka, a region dominated by manufacturing and construction industries, which has had a significant influence on Paramodel's work. They play with the concept of the ideal city as a work in progress; even after their installation is finished it remains perpetually under construction, with cranes, trucks and diggers left on site. In this sense, Paramodel prompts us to imagine what our cities could be like, rather than merely accepting how they already are.