Photo Blog: Asia Pacific Triennial 8
By Michael Young
The Asia Pacific Triennial (APT), held at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), is the institution’s flagship event that spotlights artworks from across Australia, Asia and the Pacific. Over 600 works have been acquired by QAGOMA through APT since the exhibition series started in 1993. With a tight, short speech, which mentioned all 29 or so sponsors—including Audi, the event’s principal sponsor, whose managing director drew elusive parallels between art, innovation and design—QAGOMA director Chris Saines launched the eighth edition of APT (APT8) on November 20, his first since being appointed to his position in 2013.
With over 80 artists from more than 30 countries, including Mongolia, Nepal, Tibet, Georgia, Myanmar, the Kyrgyz Republic and India, APT8 marks a definite shift in QAGOMA’s focus, as it expands its horizons along cultural fault lines rather than exclusively geographic ones. The exhibition itself is full of surprises—with a strong showing of works by indigenous, and often dispossessed, groups from across the Asia-Pacific region, including incredibly alluring work by the Mongolian, Tibetan, Nepalese and Cambodian contingents, who use traditional iconography to explore contemporary themes.
