Transcript for:
Asian and Pacific Art Triennial Overview

um uh welcome everyone I think I know all of you probably but my my name is Tarin Nesh I'm curatorial manager of Asian and Pacific art um so work closely with the Asian and Pacific art team as well as some curators outside our team um uh developing the tral um so I'll um I'll do just take a couple of quick minutes given it's our first lecture just to give you a little bit of a an an introduction I'm not going to overview it because you're going to hear from all the other curators but just just a few notes kind of on the on the scope um of this trianal um so uh uh I mean of course you know a big difference for this triangual was it was we were really kind of coming out of um the co period um when we started and you know we think about delivering this tral at the end of this year but of course the research started 2 years ago so really kind of ACC to a lot of places was still quite limited was still very expensive um uh and now everything's very expensive um so there's been there's kind of been other challenges which uh you know is is something that I guess we we're always dealing with but um yeah you know quite different from the last developing the last trial but also you know a lot of challenges in the region as well you know the kind of you know a lot has happened in the re different parts of the region as well over the last couple couple of years um but essentially uh uh we're developing 70 projects um from over 30 countries so it is a similar in scope to previous APS in that kind of uh uh Manner and a similar scale um and I've just Aster there some of the new places we've we're uh looking at that we haven't represented in the past or we may have only represented with artists that have have kind of um uh only tempor lived and worked there so Saud Arabia um sorry I've got a typo there but um Saudi Arabia so a couple of artists from from um there that uh Abby will speak to later on uh but you know really noting the kind of new access the new um effort that the Saudi government has put into um promoting its its um its kind of cultural initiatives internationally and the incredible artists that are that are you know kind of um uh being given New Opportunities because of that um Tim oeste so Tim oeste you know Place we've kind of talked about for a long time but um uh and I think probably without Co we would have been able to do something for the last trianal um uh but luckily we're able to conduct some research there Abby and Ruth will talk about that um and also bistan um uh so another region that we've we've kind of worked with some other artists from Central Asia before um but uh not really artists based in usbekistan and some quite significant projects there also the Solomon Islands which we've only kind of um in the past uh uh you know represented in in quite a kind of um in a smaller way um so that's kind of you know the scope and uh as with recent trials you know we're looking all the way into the Pacific really to Hawaii um um and kind of all the other way into kind of uh uh the Middle East um uh I'll just really quickly go over some plans so you can um get an idea of where uh you know kind of where the expanse is um and I I won't go into too much detail but kind of note some of the things that are a little bit different for this triangle um and one of them is you would have already seen in gallery 3 as you enter quag so um uh you know the Gibson entry is this way um house Uriel so big project that's both inside and goes out into the garden there as well um so that's a really kind of interesting different use of that space um uh big water Mall projects as always um into Gallery 4 and then Gallery 5 has a couple of projects and then just creeping into Gallery 6 right at the edge of the screen using that room there as we have in the past as a projection uh room um but one real difference is um is the Melbourne Street entry so we've used um Gallery one and gallery 2 for this trianal um Gallery one with a project by D Harding so some an artist who has um shown work there before um as well as a big Collective from Alo New Zealand in gallery 2 called panu um over in GMA so again you know a similar extent not really using the um the River Room River Lounge whichever one it is ground floor um uh but you know really making the use of of the big galleries downstairs um uh on level two so Gallery 2.1 so I'm really occupying that in quite a significant way and works all the way down the the walkway as well as well as at the top of the escalators on level two um level three so um as I'm sure you all know galleries 3.1 and 3.2 are still being used for um storage and processing artwork so that um those galleries won't be open for the tral but um again using the kind of big Galleries and big projects um on the walkways and in the media Lounge outside the library as well um so just a you know very quick note on some of our some of the kind of bigger projects just to maybe listen out for as they come up in the in the various presentations um but as we've have developed this you know this way of working through co-curated projects often kind of longer lead um very collaborative projects that do provide us access to places that are kind of that we wouldn't be able to represent in that with that kind of depth um otherwise so you know and they're often quite targeted and we've often thought about them for quite a long time um uh as a way to to you know really be able to Eng engage closely with a context or a type of practice or a group of artists or or or something like that um and so kind of four of them um uh to note so one in the Solomon Islands um one in the Minden now and suu AC capalo uh region of the Philippines um uh you know an art an area that is very very difficult to access um uh a project in Nepal which I'll speak about in a couple of minutes um as well as a project in torba Province um which is the northernmost region of vanat 2 um in addition to that there are some kind of really big Collective projects and and projects that have been kind of developed with a lot of local collaboration and participation um one being house urial which as I mentioned is going up in gallery 3 in the sculpture Courtyard um uh P Manu which I just mentioned is in gallery 2 at Queensland Art Gallery um which is quite a big Collective of artists but also really thinking about uh the local context and consultation with traditional owners um we're also developing a community community partner program so similar to some of the community engagement activities we did we've done in the past um working with local Partners to kind of develop projects in and around the exhbition um and particularly reaching out to some of you to kind of some of our diverse communities and and communities um uh of the Asian and Pacific diasporas um so that's kind of my you know very brief introduction uh you kind of overview but like I said you you you're going to get it all um also just to note I mean the Queensland Art Gallery is opening pretty soon at the from kind of the end of September early October um uh so those spaces are open yeah quite ahead of time so there'll be there's kind of lots to see there it's probably the most I think it's probably the most projects we've had um most individual projects we've had in um Queensland AR Gallery building for a very long time um okay so and I thought I'd start there so um you know one of the artists that is occupying quite a large footprint uh which is a big um uh Queensland AR Gallery watermore commission is um mitt Jen so M Jen really kind of senior artist from uh Thailand uh he was um you know he was studying in the 1980s and kind of not having much opportunity or international access in Thailand at the time um uh actually kind of abandoned his studies and went over to uh to Europe and studied over there and traveled around and then came back in the early '90s um right around the time that the changai social installation was was developing so this was a big exhibition that had quite an influence on uh on the Asia Pacific trianal and artists like monteen buar and arah rasham ruk were very Central to that and so mitt was one of those kind of pivotal figures that developed that and that was really a time when there was kind of a new internationalism but kind of new experimental um uh um uh kind of energy in the art scene in Thailand and so mjan has been very Central to to a lot of that from the start um a big kind of advocate you know someone who's really kind of confronted and challenged a lot of conventions as well um but throughout his career he's also maintained this this practice which really kind of um uh is rooted in in in abstract painting um and he's worked this this from for a very long time since the 1980s kind of um kind of uh you know again kind of experimenting with and challenging conventions of of painting and he really kind of turned these into big sculptures and installations and and um kind of deconstructing the canvas you know playing with the the the three-dimensional kind of possibilities of abstract painting um in various ways and kind of see how some of these different forms um have kind of manifest you know architectural in scale but also you know things that you can you can touch you can walk through that that um that kind of play with social spaces as well um but also designed to be very accessible you know someone who really believes in in you know that art should be kind of accessible for everyone and and you can really be immersed in it um so in the watermore and these are some recent um very recent um pictures of some of his works but in the water ball we're building one of these very large tunnels that you can just see this kind of big block shape um uh on the left there which is a tunnel that you can kind of walk through and you'll see the walkway going up on the water mall now and and the tunnel will kind of wrap around um uh that um the walkway which you can kind of see from the inside there um a very large version of these scroll work Works which you know he does actually reference you know e East Asian scroll paintings and how they were made in Scrolls and you could roll them and unroll them um but making kind of the largest one he's ever made um uh and uh and yeah also some other some um other arrangements that are a little bit more like you can just see around the door frame there um and so these Works will kind of all occupy the the water Mall in different ways and he really thinks about these Works he he talks a lot about them them kind of um representing transformation and like portals um uh you know so you kind of um you know you kind of enter and you're you're um you're experiencing a new space and very interested in inter interiors and exteriors and and he kind of you know plays with that as well but also um yeah just kind of how the the architectural kind of um uh possibilities of abstract painting as well and really responding to that space in particular in the water Mall um and I'll just speak to a couple of the other Southeast Asian artists that um I'm working with one of whom is uh Nadia OB badage so Nadia is um uh an artist from um who grew up in Malaysia and studied then studied in New Zealand um but has been based in Indonesia for the last um 20 or so years years um and she uh one of her parents is um is from New Zealand one of her parents is Malay and um really for a very long time her work has um centered around um some of the kind of um uh social and political uh histories and conditions of Southeast Asia having this this life where she's kind of moved between um uh uh context in Southeast Asia and having a family that's also spread out throughout the region thinking about some of the political histories there and that she's lived through um also thinking about how how mythologies are written in Southeast Asia and and you know and history you her practice has really been looking at how um how the feminine is represented in in mythologies in Indonesia in Indonesia and kind of more broadly around southeast Asia um uh and challenging some of those gender stereotypes um she's also worked in this way of you know she calls these kind of collar uh charcoal collages so it's quite a unique material way that she's developed um in her practice that is really while she works in different media now this has really been a constant for a very long time um and it involves her taking photos of Mo models often wrapped in in textiles and boutiques in in this series so this is the series we're showing um uh and then she works with them on Photoshop to kind of um create a um a shape and then the shape is kind of cut out and then she kind of uses these collage techniques and these charcoal techniques so they have a very unique kind of um materiality and texture to them um and it's a series of works that are actually based on each figure of her family um and so each of her family members and kind of as a way to for her to explore further her her identity her kind of um uh um experience of living between and belonging to different cultures um and each one of them is wrapped in this Boutique and each one of them has a symbol that has a particular symbolism to you know to kind of her upbringing and her um uh association with different cultural contexts so it's her brother her sister herself and her two parents um and I I'll just mention you know we'll share didactics and things so it gives a lot more detail into those things and you can you can kind of look at it in in um in a bit more detail um another artist who were presenting who's um uh grew up in Indonesia and studied in Indonesia before moving to Japan um and uh Albert Jonathan setan so Albert is um is is uh a essentially a ceramic artist he's you know he's he's quite unusual for um an artist studying in Indonesia um really dedicated his practice to Ceramics and has a really passionate interest in Ceramics he did his PhD on um one of the few kind of really well-known um uh ceramic artists uh of the late 20th century um and he really continued this and and so you know moving to Japan I guess had had a bit more access and a bit more um material to look at there um but he he he draws on ceramics to make these kind of big Arrangements he does make floor-based installations as well but we're showing some of his wall-based installations um uh that are usually composed from a couple of from a single or a couple of different motifs uh and then repeated um and so we're showing a work that has um that uh includes these two motifs the hand and the flame um in an installation that's over 3,000 pieces um and really this repetition and the labor involved is something that he's very very interested in so he slip casts all these and he does them all by himself um and he's very interested in that kind of process and you know he calls it it's very much a meditative process and he's very interested in the labor but also how how with repetition you can build patterns and he's he's had a you know an upbringing where he's you know similarly he was um uh brought up as a as you know in quite a devout Christian family living in Indonesia in an Islamic neighborhood um uh and subsequently moved to Japan so he's in this kind of um uh Buddhist country but he's always been really interested in these religious symbolisms um and there and how through repetition you kind of create symbols you know it kind of gives it their meaning um and then that's replicated in the actual process of his Works um and so the hand and the flame also also kind of gesture towards this so you know the hand being you know the handmade um uh but also he's he's very kind of interested in the tension of how in Ceramics slipcasting is almost seen as it's almost seen as the easy way to work it's kind of seen is not handmade even though he does it kind of himself um you know several thousands of times and the flame of course is kind of transformation of of material um uh through Ceramics um uh so I'm going to kind of move on to uh South Asia from there um and uh you know we've got quite a broad representation of artists from South Asia so you know including India Nepal Sri Lanka Pakistan and Bangladesh um but uh I'll I'll begin by talking about the tumber project which is a project from Nepal um and this is one of our kind of C co-curated projects so working with two curators um in Nepal and um it's uh really looking at um and this will be uh displayed in gallery 3.4 um in its own section and it includes seven artists um and it's really looking at a lot of the contemporary artists in in Nepal but also all artists from indigenous communities um and Nepal being a nation that uh more than a third of the population is is indigenous um spread out throughout you know um quite dramatic geographies as well uh and so that's a very kind of big big part of the national identity um the project tumber it takes it name from um and one of the works in the show or video Work depicts this tumber so the tumber are the um the people on the right there and so uh they're kind of oral storytellers and singers and they use this this drum the tumber um uh to tell these stories in from one of the communities and so that's what the Project's based on um a little bit of background uh so you might remember the big video we showed from subash TV limbu in the last last um trianal uh you know so we do we have been kind of working with a few artists from Nepal um and if you remember that film there's a lot of the similar um uh ideas uh um uh in some of the works in tumber um he subash works very closely with a couple of those artists and they belong to the same Community as well um also if you remember Hitman gurun who was an artist who um showed in the uh in ap8 um who is one of the curators from this project and ap8 was the first time we'd shown artists from Nepal um and this project almost kind of really grew out of that representation representation so Hitman you'll see in the center there and shilha on the left of the two co-curators um and they both visited when Hitman was included um and so over a lot of discussions over many years as this kind of project formed up um so Hitman and chilasa they belong to a collective called archery which is on the top right there um and they're really one of the most influential collectives in um in Nepal um very kind of active with um Community projects uh you know post the earthquake they sent up they set up the um uh an in initiative called Camp Hub which brought a lot of people together immediately following the earthquake and they could do art activities and that kind of thing just to kind of give them something to do um and also kind of help them help them through what was happening it was a project that was only you know planned to go for a very short time but ended up going for several months it was kind of so successful in in helping the community cope with all of that um they're also known for their activism so you know indigenous rights land rights um are very very big issues in in in Nepal um and so they've you know them with other artists around them have done a lot of kind of demonstrations as well as um inap menu as well as an act act you know um uh activist kind of um uh events and initiatives um as well as going out to communities all around the country and and you know helping helping them with um with struggles as well um so uh yeah you can kind of see how the um indigenous communities were all spread out through the region um uh and these are some of the artists and one of the for a couple of the artists one of the big um uh topics is you know uh the Civil War which lasted for 10 years in Nepal quite recently um a lot of that was around the the Restriction that a lot of the um uh indigenous communities had had survived and in the process a lot of them started to Turning towards communism and it became this um this long and you know really devastating conflict between what was termed as maest forces throughout the regions of nepo opposing the government um and many of the artists in the show you know had parents that many of them were killed at the time or disappeared um but many of them were involved in some of these uprisings and and you know indigenous languages for example things like that were were banned for a very long time um uh so there was a lot of activities and a lot of these younger artists are now looking at that older generation and kind of what they did and what they went through and so this comes through um uh the project as well as these connections to um you know traditional knowledge to storytelling um to some of the uh shamanistic practices um as well as longer histories of you know indigenous peoples in Nepal um and how some of them you know from different communities have been um uh have have kind of um had regulations and things imposed on them at different times um subas tamang from the tamang community he looks at the history of his that Tong people and they were kind of seen as these um uh you know uh seen as this um inferior kind of group that were um that were almost in kind of indentured laborers during colonial times and there's this story of them having to carry this this car through the mountains um uh so just some of the other artists there's really rich Tex in this project there's also video um there's also Ceramics and and um and a lot of these techniques and things have you know quite um uh interesting connection to communities and just to mention alien phoning so this is a big um textile installation is actually from across the border in the northeast of India and so it was also recognizing that you know the the history of this this part of South Asia has you know has really strong connections across what we now know as National borders as well with other indigenous communities and so this artist from the Lea people who has very strong connections to one of the other groups across the border in Nepal um and you know similar kind of uh practices um so that's kind of the tumber project so seven artists as I mentioned um moving to Bangladesh so um uh and a a project that will be right beside tumber and has some really strong resonances with it um is an artist named Jo deer from um again from an indigenous Community called the chura people um in the Chittagong Hills Hill tracks area of Bangladesh um uh and this area um also has kind of undergone you know um uh really abrupt um changes and challenges for its indigenous communities it was once overwhelmingly this part of Bangladesh was overwhelmingly indigenous peoples I think it was more than 90% um and uh over time pre-independence of Bangladesh and post-independence um there's kind of been this huge Force displacements early on through big damning projects um uh and later on as as Bangladesh um uh went through it Independence in the early ' 70s um uh with the kind of um development of of of the nation um a lot of the indigenous peoples kind of lost a lot of their agency um you know language became a big problem and they're actually and this also resulted in big uprisings in these with these kind of Guerilla forces in this area and so Joy Deb himself grew up with you know they would hide he talks about he would hide in the forest from the military they would enter his home in search of insurgence um uh and this has been kind of an ongoing part of his practice thinking about this history um and his first paintings he made you they dep depicted the military around his community and he actually hid them and destroyed them because he thought he might get into trouble um uh and it was quite a long time before he returned to his painting practices but he became you know he he was also very in interested in installation but he never really had the resources to to continue these parts of his practices so he started turning to Performance and kind of became one of the few performance known performance artists in Bangladesh before he returned to this very distinctive monochrome um uh approach to painting um which continues to kind of intersect with performance practices and installation um but the series he's showing and this has become kind of like you know it's a real kind of signature way that he works in this monochrome um uh uh way um on quite a large scale but it depicts these indigenous peoples from his his own communities and the peoples around him on this kind of enormous scales and as they um morph into nature um you know they them being kind of custodians of nature but also having very strong connections to that land um while living through um uh displacement and also kind of you know their their threats to their sovereignty um and around them you see this um motifs of the military as well as the media and um tourists and that kind of thing and there has been this process of you know they call them kind of settler communities of of of people from outside those Communities going to to live in this area as well as tourists going into these um areas and and uh really this series was inspired by him seeing some of these um tourists and non-indigenous peoples taking photos and kind of interrupting traditional um ceremonies um another artist from Bangladesh Saka pratik so pratique is um is um primarily a photographer very kind of established photographer in In Living in Daka um uh Bangladesh having this very strong presence of Photography um and something that's really um had a big presence in the Contemporary Arts landscape for a long time due to some of the um some of the schools and initiatives in in Daka um and really uh you know he practices this modor photography where that really looks in in great depth into different Regional contexts and um and areas and parts of the natural landscape in Bangladesh and this series is is kind of his longest that has spanned you know over a decade and it's looking at the Padma river system which is one of the big rivers in in Bangladesh and how it's changed over time and it's a river system that is actually um stems from the ganes um across the border in India there's a huge Dam that was built many decades ago um which started control controlling the flow of water and together with the flooding that happens in Bangladesh this river system go undergoes this enormous kind of constant erosion and change and so it's documenting both the natural landscape and the communities around it and how it's changed if anyone's been um hearing about the um the floods in Bangladesh at the moment um you might have heard some of the reports about how um a lot of that the water flow is is controlled by India and actually you know across the border they could manage that differently um which would have helped with the flooding you know a lot of people are reporting as well um but so showing a great series of of works from pratique from different parts of this ongoing body of work um over time um moving to Pakistan and laor so uh one artist from Pakistan W shabir so w is um is a uh trained in miniature painting at the laor National College of the Arts um and uh you know this Center of miniature painting for a very long time and artists you know many artists that we've shown um uh that have come through that school so while you know these are Miniature painting they're also very experimental in kind of their composition in their color and they're all based on her studies of lore itself and she's really interesting really interested in studying um the local environment both the what you call the curated Gardens you know people's houses but also a city that has the you know incredible U Mogul Islamic Gardens as well as Colonial architectures and then the natural landscapes of the city um and she uses these to make these paintings but then also um uh you know in quite metaphorical ways thinks about these compositions as expressions of her identity as well um and and particularly uh you know her living as a woman in wh and that experience and so you see these kind of forms have a lot of um uh kind of symbology um you know fences being kind of barriers that she's worked through um uh shrubs that um you can kind of stand on but then very resilient and kind of grow back and return to form almost like weeds um uh and this kind of black hole um uh that she's also that she's also talked about as you know expressing her you know part of herself um uh so moving to Sri Lanka so a couple of artists from Sri Lanka um Abdul halik aiz who is um showing a group of Works outside the library upstairs um he was trained as you know studied as um uh studied economics and languages but also worked as a journalist and he has this really interesting approach to his um to his projects where he's really interested in kind of media practices in different forms of media so you know photography and video and um social media different ways of presenting um kind of um the images of Sri Lanka um and he's really interested in the in the kind of social histories and social context of Sri Lanka and you know kind of both the national identity but as well as um different Notions of ethnicity um and one thing for him is really about how you know he's from an is Islamic um uh family um and kind of the history of um how Muslims have have been kind of perceived in Sri Lanka both in you know um earlier histories as well as more recently um uh as well as some of the kind of you know nuances and um and um uh different kind of um uh cultural practices in Sri Lanka today um himmer shiron another the other Sri Lankan artist to we're showing a suite of Works in um in Queensland Art Gallery in gallery 4 um it's this lovely dedicated um practice around textiles and embroidery and applique um working you know quite meticulously in in a lot of these works but also um uh you know her practice really interested in um in uh ethnic divisions and um uh and um you know the histories of conflict in Sri Lanka um uh and kind of politics around things like language you know so one of the works this newspaper on the right which is all stitched um in very fine detail has um uh languages of Tamil and salala and English on the same page something you never see in Sri Lanka um and you know language has this kind of very strong strong history and influential history in Sri Lanka as well as recording some of the stories of families and and kind of economic struggles in Sri Lanka um you see the um on the right there um the the um national colors of Sri Lanka each one depicting um a symbol of the recent um uh protests and uprisings and a disappearing flag as well working with this technique where she stitches over paper and then dissolves the paper so you've got this kind of um disappearing image um couple of other artists from uh India as well so Veronica saraf um has practices this lovely um painting practice very dedicated and passionate Pig pigment maker um she's spends a lot of time making pigments and is very interested in the process and and how she can get the right pigments for work she wants to make um and we're showing a group of her Works a couple from an earlier series as well as a new Commission um and these you know she's very interested in um art histories and um and literature and you know kind of very broad um histories of Mythology and belief and she brings this into her practice but they're very much expressions of the political landscape now in India um so a work on the left here for example that she made called it Reign this winter um uh that she made after big protests uh in Delhi and there's kind of a lot of these acts of violence and you can see these figures depicted there um uh and she was in Delhi and she's lived there before and she talks about in late winter you get this really horrible rain that's almost toxic um so it's kind of on this raining um Skyscape and then a very big new work she's making for us we're showing in gallery 5 um which is you know one of her most ambitious Works to date called thieves in the forest and it really talks about how how um how the environment is treated in India in the kind of in um in terms of kind of political rhetoric and so how development um uh is spoken about in in in India and how so much of the um natural environment is kind of threatened and so it's this incredible forest and and in it you see these groups of figures lots of really subtle kind of political inuendo and and gestures in these um with these figures but also kind of depicted slightly anonymously but you can see them kind of encroaching on this forest and then hidden in the forest are all these um figures and often drawn from uh art histories um you know including miniature painting and mythologies that inhabit the forest and so it's kind of a a gesture that um you know losing um the environment you also are losing culture um uh the other artist from India R Merchant who also A really lovely painter has a bit of a design background done fashion collaborations um but practices this quite distinctive um painting practice mainly in watercolors and it's kind of an ongoing body of work that's had several iterations but it's all around based around her very deep thinking in kind of creating these science and speculative fictions around what happens when the world becomes uninhabitable and so she thinks about she's created a number of these series about how she creates these beings so they're neither human nor animal um thinking about a you know a kind of distant future um who in previous series have had to come to terms with their world being uninhabitable and then this series when they moved to this new world and they've they've learned different ways to manage the environment different ways to survive different rituals um um and often they're kind of inspired by Nature so on the right she talks about um anthills and how this could be a way of um you know creating structures to live in um thinking about the whale and how the whale can store food and travel long distances and how this might be like a technology or an architecture in this in this otherworldly place um uh uh um another group from um Mumbai in India called Camp an artist Collective um uh who very well known for working with different film histories and different Imaging practices um they run this great kind of collective space in Mumbai with the theater on top but they've had this very long interest in CCTV technology going back about 20 years um and how it could kind of be deployed um and the kind of authorative implications it has um and this is kind of culminated in a recent work kind called Bombay tilts down that will show in gallery 2.1 um and it uses a single ccdv camera to create these kind of dramatic images of Mumbai tracking some of its architectures and you know it's very been very you know very considered the way that this moves and it actually goes through some of you know the the um buildings in Mumbai including those that are you know house some of these you know political figures and um and celebrities often with very kind of dubious um uh uh you know um uh you know kind of business interest and a lot of um uh allegations of corruption buildings that have these kind of long histories and attracts through the city and finally gets to kind of the ground where these local community members in Mumbai kind of looking back at the camera um and I think this is yeah finally s Moen Simpson who's a very local artist actually with a studio in West End um that I'm working with stia some of you may know um who um you know her work is very much well she's studied a little bit of miniature painting kind of techniques and approaches in India um and works on these handmade Indian papers um uh her work work is very much about histories of um uh indentured labor during the colonial era um being a descendant of many family members that were taken from India to South Africa um to work on plantations and I think she's tracked something like it's 19 family members some of whom were only children when they were boarded these ships and she's been a long long part of her career collecting a lot of these archival materials studying these histories not only of Indian labor to South Africa but of of indentured systems and many Indian laborers being sent all around um uh the world um but uses this study in these histories and you know the individual stories to make she's making a very big set of works for us um that depict these um this Plantation landscape um uh yeah so I've just about gone on time um but I can take a oh of course I don't need to do that um uh there's no individual thing came to AP this year um however like in the past we've had a number of kind of thematic interests that we kind of tease out and really tease out through the through the display and through the writing and that kind of thing um I'll share an introdu our um curatorial introduction for the catalog before it's printed so you can get a sense of them but some of the big ones are and you know some of it is noting kind of coming out of this um Co era um uh kind of Notions of care particularly for the environment um I think coming out of that time where there was just a lot of uncertainty and a lot of rethinking about how um the environment can be managed you know a big thing that's kind of reemerged with new new attention for artists in Asia and the Pacific is um is the environment and so some of those Works touched on that um but I think that comes out in a few different ways that we've that we'll try and tease out in the in the show um one of them is just the way um artists kind of care for particular um uh environments and draw materials from it so there's like a huge project from Tonga all about a read that is cultivated by the community there um uh artists like de Harding and they go out to their land and actually collect pigment um also this gardening practice that you've already heard me speak about a couple of times and we're actually thinking about how the garden operates in this way and house Uriel having this big Garden that's growing now in the sculpture Courtyard um so that's one of them um there's quite a strong one that you'll see um with a number of artists shown together in um on level three around s ca's work which looks at these histories of Labor migrations um Jasmine Togo brisby some of you know who's in the next trienal as well um so some of these are coming from quite local stories looking at family histories of migration but also how systems of Labor have um have influenced that um and another one that's quite strong is um uh is looking at kind of um uh systems of like uh surveillance and how to um kind of rep perceive the city and so Camp is is a is a really good example of that um but you'll see there's you know quite a quite a few other artists in the show that you you can look out for um quite a few in in Queensland Art Gallery actually um uh yeah so I think there's some of the strong ones that hopefully um you know will be kind of palpable as just see the show um and some of them are grouped in that introduction essay so I'll try and share that with you um uh so you can kind of get a bit of a sense of that as well thank you