MEDIA KIT - Queensland Art Gallery - Queensland Government

Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia 

5 December 2009 – 5 April 2010 

www.qag.qld.gov.au/apt6 

MEDIA KIT 

Zhu Weibing, Ji Wenyu / People holding flowers (detail) 2007 / Acrylic paint on resin; velour, steel wire, dacron, lodestone and cotton / 400 pieces: 102 x 17 x 11cm (each) / The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of 

Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased 2008 with funds from Michael Simcha Baevski through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery 

FOUNDING SUPPORTERS 

Principal Benefactor 

PRINCIPAL PARTNERS 

MAJOR SPONSORS 

TOURISM & MEDIA PARTNER 

SUPPORTING 

SPONSORS 

Queensland Art Gallery is assisted by the Australian Government through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, state and territory governments and the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. 

Supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.

30 July 2009 

QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY TO HOST 6TH ASIA PACIFIC TRIENNIAL 

Image: Zhu Weibing, Ji Wenyu 

People holding flowers (detail) 2007 

The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer 

Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. 

Collection: Queensland Art Gallery 

The Queensland Art Gallery today announced ‘The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial 

of Contemporary Art’ (APT6), which will include for the first time contemporary 

artists from North Korea (DPRK), Iran, Turkey, Tibet, Cambodia and Myanmar 

(Burma). 

Queensland Art Gallery Director Tony Ellwood today said that APT6 would be 

held at the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) and Queensland Art Gallery from 

December 5, 2009 until April 5, 2010 and would profile new commissions and 

recent work by more than 100 artists and filmmakers from over 25 countries 

across the region. 

‘The APT is the most extensive event on the international calendar for 

contemporary art in Asia, Australia and the Pacific, and remains the flagship 

exhibition for the Queensland Art Gallery. In APT6, we are thrilled to present 

work from countries that have never before been represented in the Triennial. 

In particular, the exhibition will focus on the importance of collaboration in art, 

with contributions from several important collectives operating in the region.’ 

Mr Ellwood said. 

APT6 will include three groundbreaking presentations: The Mansudae Art Studio project, co-curated with 

filmmaker Nicholas Bonner (UK/China), the first presentation in Australia of contemporary art from North Korea 

(DPRK); Pacific Reggae, co-curated with broadcaster Brent Clough (NZ/Australia), showcasing for the first time 

music and music video by reggae artists from Hawai’i, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Papua 

New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia; and The Mekong, co-curated with artist Rich Streitmatter-Tran 

(Vietnam), featuring painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography and video from Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam 

and Myanmar (Burma). 

Australian artists presented in APT6 are the Philippines-born, Brisbane-based husband and wife team Alfredo 

and Isabel Aquilizan; the Melbourne collective DAMP; Raafat Ishak (Melbourne); and Tracey Moffatt, who lives 

and works in New York and the Sunshine Coast. 

Internationally acclaimed directors Ang Lee (Taiwan/USA), Rithy Panh (Cambodia/France) and Takeshi Kitano 

(Japan) are the artist-filmmakers, to be featured in the Australian Cinémathèque at the Gallery of Modern Art. 

Mr Ellwood said the APT project remained unprecedented for Australian galleries in terms of its focus and 

scale. 

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‘APT6 will occupy the entire Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) building and key spaces in the Queensland Art 

Gallery, including the iconic Watermall. 

‘As with previous Triennials, APT6 will be accompanied by a major publication; a public opening program of 

events including performances, artist talks, lectures and a symposium; the Kids’ APT program of interactive 

artworks and activities; and the Summer Spectacular Festival, which will include a regional component’, Mr 

Ellwood said. 

‘A major thematic cinema program will be held in the Australian Cinémathèque. The program will explore 

the rich cinematic heritages across the Indian subcontinent (including Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, 

Kashmir, Pakistan) to West Asia and the Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, 

Lebanon, Israel and Palestine). 

‘The selection of artists for APT6 is according to their significant and unique engagement with the Asia 

Pacific region. 

’APT6 will consider a number of thematic links, including the dynamism of collaboration, the power of 

popular culture to articulate perspectives on contemporary life, the impact of rapid social change on local 

communities and cultures, and the practice of drawing’. 

For more information on the exhibition and artists represented visit www.qag.qld.gov.au/apt6 

The Queensland Government is Founding Supporter of ‘The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’. 

Queensland Art Gallery is assisted by the Australian Government through the Visual Arts and Craft 

Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, state and territory governments and the Australia Council for the 

Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. 

APT6 exhibiting artists and projects are: 

Minam APANG 

Alfredo and Isabel AQUILIZAN 

CHEN Chieh-jen 

CHEN Qiulin 

CHEO Chai-Hiang 

DAMP (Dan CASS, Rob CREEDON, Narelle DESMOND, Sam GEORGE, Sharon GOODWIN, Ry 

HASKINGS, Deb KUNDA, James LYNCH, Dan MOYNIHAN, Lisa RADFORD, Nat THOMAS, Kylie 

WILKINSON) 

Solomon ENOS 

Monir SHAHROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN 

Subodh GUPTA 

Gonkar GYATSO 

Kyungah HAM 

HO Tzu Nyen 

Emre HÜNER 

Raafat ISHAK 

Runa ISLAM 

Ayaz JOKHIO 

Takeshi KITANO 

Ang LEE 

MANSUDAE ART STUDIO 

Rudi MANTOFANI 

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APT6 exhibiting artists and projects (continued) 

MATASO PRINTERS (Eddy BULE, Stanley FIRIAM, HENDRICKS, Saires KALO, David KOLIN, Herveline 

LITÉ, Apia Najos, Sepa SEULE, Simeon SIMIX) 

THE MEKONG (BÙI Công Khánh, Jun NGUYEN-HATSUSHIBA, Sopheap PICH, Manit 

SRIWANICHPOOM, SVAY Ken, TUN Win Aung and WAH Nu, VANDY Rattana) 

Tracey MOFFATT 

Farhad MOSHIRI 

Kohei NAWA 

Shinji OHMAKI 

THE ONE YEAR DRAWING PROJECT (Muhanned CADER, Thamotharampillai SHANAATHANAN; 

Chandraguptha THENUWARA, Jagath WEERASINGHE) 

PACIFIC REGGAE (ANSTINE ENERGY (Solomon Islands), O-SHEN (Papua New Guinea/Hawai’i), CHIEF 

RAGGA (Hawai’i), XX SQUAD (Vanuatu), JVDK (New Caledonia), Tiki TAANE (New Zealand), Paula FUGA 

(Hawai’i), 26 ROOTS (Vanuatu), ZENNITH (Australia), SUNSHINERS (Vanuatu/France)) 

Rithy PANH 

Reuben PATERSON 

Campbell PATTERSON 

Wit PIMKANCHANAPONG 

QIU Anxiong 

Kibong RHEE 

Hiraki SAWA 

Shirana SHAHBAZI 

Shooshie SULAIMAN 

THUKRAL AND TAGRA 

Charwei TSAI 

VANUATU SCULPTORS (Freddy BULE, Bongnaim FREDERICK, Chief Joachin KILFAN, MANSAK'S 

FAMILY, Chief Michel MARAKON, Michel RANGIE, Chief Louis WUNBAE) 

Rohan WEALLEANS 

Bale JIONE / Leba TOKI / Robin WHITE 

YANG Shaobin 

YAO Jui-chung 

YNG 

ZHU Weibing and JI Wenyu 

ENDS 

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APT6 Artist Biodata Medium 

Minam APANG (F) 

Alfredo (M) and Isabel (F) 

AQUILIZAN 

CHEN Chieh-jen (M) 

CHEN Qiulin (F) 

CHEO Chai-Hiang (M) 

b.1980, Naharlagun, Arunachal Pradesh, India. 

Lives and works Bangalore, India 

Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan 

b.1965, Manila, The Philippines / 

Alfredo Juan Aquilizan 

b. 1962, Cagayan Valley, The Philippines. 

Live and work Brisbane, Australia 

b.1960, Taoyuan, Taiwan. 

Lives and works Taipei, Taiwan 

b.1975, Hubei, China. 

Lives and works Chengdu, China 

b.1946, Singapore. 

Lives and works Singapore 

Painting/drawing 

Installation 

Film/video 

Installation/video 

Sculpture/installation 

DAMP (M/F) est. 1995 

Melbourne, Australia. 

Dan Cass 

b.1970, Melbourne / 

Rob Creedon 


Narelle Desmond 


Ry Haskings 


Sam George 


Sharon Goodwin 


Deb Kunda 


James Lynch 


Dan Moynihan 

b. 1974, NSW / 

Lisa Radford 


Nat Thomas 

b. 1967, Brisbane / 

Kylie Wilkinson 

b.1971, Melbourne 

Installation


Solomon ENOS (M) 

Monir SHAHROUDY 

FARMANFARMAIAN (F) 

Subodh GUPTA (M) 

Gonkar GYATSO (M) 

Kyungah HAM (F) 

HO Tzu Nyen (M) 

Emre HÜNER (M) 

Rafaat ISHAK (M) 

Runa ISLAM (F) 

Ayaz JOKHIO (M) 

Takeshi KITANO (M) 

Ang LEE (M) 

MANSUDAE ART 

STUDIO (M/F) 

Rudi MANTOFANI (M) 

MATASO PRINTERS 

(M/F) 

b.1979, Wai’anae, Hawai’i, USA. 

Lives and works Kalihi, Hawai’i 

b.1924, Qazvin, Iran. 

Lives and works Tehran, Iran 

b. 1964, Khagaul, Bihar, India. 

Lives and works Gurgaon, Haryana, India 

b.1961, Lhasa, Tibet. 

Lives and works London, UK 

b.1966, Seoul, South Korea. 

Lives and works Seoul, South Korea 

b.1976, Singapore. 

Lives and works Singapore 

b.1977, İstanbul, Turkey. 

Lives and works İstanbul, Turkey / Milan, Italy 

b.1967, Cairo, Egypt. 

Lives and works Melbourne, Australia 

b.1970, Dhaka, Bangladesh. 


b.1978, Sindh, Pakistan. 

Lives and works Lahore, Pakistan 

b.1947, Tokyo, Japan. 

Lives and works Tokyo, Japan 

b.1954, Pingtung, Taiwan. 

Lives and works Larchmont, New York, USA 

est. 1959, Pyongyang, North Korea (DPRK) 

b.1973, Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia. 

Lives and works Yogyakarta, Indonesia 

Eddy Bule 

b.1981, Vanuatu / 

Stanley Firiam 

b.unknown, Vanuatu / 

Hendriks 


Saires Kalo 

b.1983, Vanuatu, d.2009, Vanuatu / 

David Kolin 


Herveline Lité 


Apia Najos 


Sepa Seule 

b.1983, Vanuatu 

Simeon Simix 


Live and work Ohlen Village, Port Vila, Vanuatu 

Drawing 

Mirror mosaic 

Sculpture 

Painting/collage 

Textiles 

Video 

Video 

Painting 

Film 

Installation 

Cinema 

Cinema 

Painting/mosaic 

Sculpture 

Printmaking


THE MEKONG 

BÙI Công Khánh 

(M) 

Jun NGUYEN- 

HATSUSHIBA 

(M) 

Sopheap PICH 

(M) 

Manit 

SRIWANICHPO 

OM (M) 

SVAY Ken (M) 

TUN Win Aung 

(M) and WAH Nu 

(F) 

VANDY Rattana 

(M) 

Tracey MOFFATT (F) 

Farhad MOSHIRI (M) 

Kohei NAWA (M) 

Shinji OHMAKI (M) 

THE ONE YEAR 

DRAWING PROJECT 

(M) 

b.1972, Da Nang, Vietnam. 

Lives and works Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 

b.1968, Tokyo, Japan. 

Lives and works Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 

b.1969, Battambang, Cambodia. 

Lives and works Phnom Penh, Cambodia 

b.1961, Bangkok, Thailand. 

Lives And Works Bangkok, Thailand 

b.1933, Takeo Province, Cambodia. 

d. 2008 Phnom Penh, Cambodia 

Tun Win Aung 

b.1975, Yangon, Myanmar / 

Wah Nu 

b.1977, Yangon, Myanmar. 

Live and work Yangon, Myanmar 

b.1980, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. 

Lives and works Phnom Penh, Cambodia 

b.1960, Brisbane, Australia. 

Lives and works New York, USA / Sunshine Coast, 

Queensland, Australia 

Shiraz, Iran. 

Lives and works Tehran, Iran 

b.1975, Osaka, Japan. 

Lives and works Kyoto, Japan 

b. 1971, Gifu, Japan 

Lives and works Tokyo, Japan 

Muhanned Cader 

b.1966, Colombo, Sri Lanka / 

Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan 

b.1969, Jaffna, Sri Lanka / 

Chandraguptha Thenuwara 

b.1960, Galle, Sri Lanka / 

Jagath Weerasinghe 

b.1954, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka 

Ceramics 

Video 

Sculpture 

Photography 

Painting 

Photography 

Photography 

Photography/video 

Painting 

Sculpture 

Installation 

Drawing


PACIFIC REGGAE 

Rithy PANH (M) 

Reuben PATERSON (M) 

Campbell PATTERSON 

(M) 

Wit 

PIMKANCHANAPONG 

(M) 

QIU Anxiong (M) 

Kibong RHEE (M) 

Hiraki SAWA (M) 

Shirana SHAHBAZI (F) 

Shooshie SULAIMAN (F) 

THUKRAL & TAGRA (M) 

Charwei TSAI (F) 

VANUATU SCULPTORS 

(M) 

Anstine Energy (Solomon Islands) / Chief Ragga 

(Hawai’i) / Paula Fuga (Hawai’i) / JVDK (New 

Caledonia) / O-Shen (PNG/Hawai’i) / Tiki Taane (New 

Zealand) / 26 Roots (Vanuatu) / XX Squad (Vanuatu) / 

Zennith (Australia) / Sunshiners (Vanuatu / France) 

b.1964, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 

Lives and works Paris, France / Phnom Penh, 

Cambodia 

b.1973, Tuhoe, New Zealand. 

Lives and works Auckland, New Zealand 

b.1983, Portsmith, UK. 


b.1976, Bangkok, Thailand. 

Lives and works Bangkok, Thailand 

b.1972, Chengdu, China. 

Lives and works Shanghai, China 

b.1957, Seoul, South Korea. 

Lives and works Seoul, South Korea 

b.1977, Ishikawa, Japan. 


b.1974, Tehran, Iran. 

Lives and works Zurich, Switzerland 

b.1973, Muar, Johor, Malaysia. 

Lives and works Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 

Jiten Thukral 

b.1976, Jalandhar, Punjab, India / 

Sumir Tagra 

b.1979, New Delhi, India 

Live and work Gurgaon, Haryana, India 

b.1980, Taipei, Taiwan. 

Lives and works 

Paris, France / New York, USA / Taipei, Taiwan 

Freddy Bule 

c.1947, Ambrym Island, Fanla Village, Vanuatu / 

Bongnaim Frederick 

c.1957, Ambrym Island, Newea Village, Vanuatu / 

Chief Joachin Kilfan 

c.1953, Ambrym Island, Halhal Village, Vanuatu / 

Mansak's Family 

Ambrym Island, Ranpupupre Village, Vanuatu / 

Chief Michel Marakon 

c. 1950, Ambrym Island, Newea Village, Vanuatu / 

Michel Rangie 

c.1950, Ambrym Island, Olal Village, Vanuatu / 

Chief Louis Wunbae 

b.1951, Ambrym Island, Newea Village, Vanuatu / 

Live and work North Ambrym, Vanuatu 

Music/video 

Cinema 

Painting 

Video 

Installation 

Video 

Installation 

Video 

Painting/photography 

Collage/installation 

Painting/ sculpture/ installation/ 

video 

Installation/video


Rohan WEALLEANS (M) 

Bale JIONE / Leba TOKI 

/ Robin WHITE (F) 

YANG Shaobin (M) 

YAO Jui-chung (M) 

YNG (M) 

ZHU Weibing (F) & 

JI Wenyu (M) 

b.1977, Invercargill, New Zealand. 


Bale Jione 

b.1952, Moce, Fiji. 

Lives and works Suva, Fiji 

Leba Toki 

b.1951, Moce, Fiji. 

Lives and works Lautoka, Fiji 

Robin White 

b.1946, Te Puke, New Zealand. 

Lives and works Masterton, New Zealand 

b.1963, Tangshan, Hebei Province, China. 

Lives and works Beijing, China 

b.1969, Taipei, Taiwan. 

Lives and works Taipei, Taiwan 

Yoshitomo Nara 

b.1959, Hirosaki, Japan. 

Lives and works Toshigi, Japan 

graf media gm 

est. 1993, Osaka, Japan 

Ji Wenyu 

b.1959, Shanghai, China 

Painting/ sculpture/ 

cperformance 

Textiles 

Painting/sculpture 

Photography 

Painting/installation 

Sculpture 

Zhu Weibing 

b.1971, Heilongjiang, China. 

Live and work Shanghai, China

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES 

MINAM APANG 

b.1980 Naharlagun, Arunachal Pradesh, India 

Lives and works in Bangalore, India 

Minam Apang creates evocative drawings that draw upon the imagery of India’s cities, as well as the mythology of her native 

Arunachal Pradesh in India’s far north-east, located between China, Bhutan and Myanmar (Burma). Her most recent body of 

work, War with the Stars 2008, is inspired by folklore particular to the ancient animistic culture of this region, which is 

traditionally conveyed by storytelling or song. Apang’s fantastical miniature landscapes are characterised by a precision of line 

and a delicacy of touch. Her works are made with calligraphic ink, initially spattered and trailed across the paper to create an 

unrestricted, dynamic structure. Working into these random drips and stains, Apang creates detailed, multi-layered drawings 

within drawings, developing stories within stories. Referencing human and animal forms as well as natural elements, these 

works suggest the interconnectedness of the world as she sees it. Trained in traditional Buddhist thangka (scroll) painting, as 

well as contemporary Western practices, Apang investigates the forms, methods and language of drawing, while reflecting a 

culture that is rich in narrative. 

Exhibitions (solo): Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, India, 2008, 2007. Exhibitions (group): ‘Present-Future’, National Gallery of 

Modern Art, Mumbai, 2005. 

ISABEL AND ALFREDO AQUILIZAN 

Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan 

b.1965 Manila, the Philippines 

Alfredo Juan Aquilizan 

b.1962 Cagayan Valley, the Philippines 

Live and work in Brisbane, Australia 

The husband-and-wife team of Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan create works that use the processes of collecting and collaborating 

to express ideas of migration, family and memory. Often working with local communities, the Aquilizans bring together personal 

items to compose elaborate, formal installations reflecting individual experiences of dislocation and change. Recent works 

have used the form of balikbayan crates, which Filipino migrants use to transport belongings, as moulds for room-sized 

constructions made of clothing and other personal effects. For APT6, the Aquilizans will produce an enormous suspended 

sculpture titled In-Flight (Project Another Country) 2009. The work takes the shape of an aeroplane, constructed from hundreds 

of small hand-made planes. This aggregation of tiny sculptures, created by children and adults from found objects and 

materials, will be added to during the course of the exhibition. Having migrated from The Philippines to Australia, the 

Aquilizans’ work reflects personal experience, while conveying points of exchange and communication that extend beyond 

borders. 

Exhibitions (solo): Logan Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia, 2008; The Drawing Room, Manila, The Philippines, 2006. Exhibitions 

(group): Singapore Biennale, 2008; Adelaide Biennial, Australia, 2008; Biennale of Sydney, Australia, 2006; 50th Biennale of 

Venice, Italy, 2003.

CHEN CHIEH-JEN 

b.1960 Taoyuan, Taiwan 

Lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan 

Chen Chieh-jen has been a significant figure in the development of Taiwanese conceptual art since the early 1980s. A 

self-taught artist, he was a prominent and controversial figure during Taiwan’s martial law period, and his practice 

directly reflects on the historical events through which he lived. Using the conventions of documentary filmmaking, 

Chen’s films weave together real and historical footage, often conveying a sense of disjointedness by moving slowly 

between past and present, prompting the viewer to consider the distinction between the real and the illusory. The 

individual’s experience in communal settings (factories, prisons and places of industry), and the situation of those 

existing outside the mainstream, are consistent strands in his work, including On Going 2006, to be featured in APT6. 

Chen’s films are elegiac commentaries on human resilience and issues of accountability, critically addressing social 

and economic inequities in contemporary society. 

Exhibitions (solo): Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2008; Asia Society Museum, New York, 

USA, 2007. Exhibitions (group): 53rd Biennale of Venice, Italy, 2009; Istanbul Biennial, Turkey, 2007; Biennale of 

Sydney, Australia, 2006; 51st Biennale of Venice, Italy, 2005. 

CHEN QIULIN 

b.1975, Hubei, China 

Lives and works in Chengdu, China 

Chen Qiulin creates evocative video works that comment on the scale and pace of change in contemporary China. 

With a focus on daily life in rural and village communities, her work has recently been concerned with the people living 

along the Yangtze River – a vast population whose livelihoods have been affected by the Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric 

project. Thousands of communities have been displaced by this massive development, including Chen’s 

hometown, and this personal encounter led her to reflect on the disappearance of historical sites and the displacement 

of village life. For APT6, Chen will present Xinsheng Town No. 275-277 2009, a reconstructed traditional house that 

was demolished for urban development, as well as the video Garden 2007. In this work, Chen combines a theatrical 

aesthetic with a studied documentation of flower sellers, who negotiate their existence amid exploding urban 

developments in the Three Gorges region. Flowers have an iconic place in Chinese culture, symbolising the fragility of 

life and its potential for renewal. Within the grand narrative of China’s social and economic transformation, Chen’s 

work considers concepts of place, memory and individual experience. 

Exhibitions (solo): University Art Museum, Albany, New York, USA, 2007; Long March Space, Beijing, China, 2006. 

Exhibitions (group): Gwangju Biennale, Korea, 2008; ‘China Power Station’, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, 

Oslo, Norway, 2008; ‘The Wall’, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, USA/China Millennium Art Museum, 

Beijing, China, 2005. 

CHEO CHAI-HIANG 

b.1946 Singapore 

Lives and works in Singapore 

Cheo Chai-Hiang is one of Singapore’s pioneering contemporary artists. His instruction pieces from the early 1970s 

are generally regarded as the first conceptual art works in the country, and his practice since then has consistently 

sought to question the forms and processes of art-making. A fundamental interest in Cheo’s work is the relationship 

between language and meaning; text, both Chinese and English, has been a recurrent motif in his art over the past 

four decades. Cheo’s work for APT6, entitled Cash converter 2009, comprises a series of text-based sculptures in a 

range of materials, from stainless steel to neon. The installation will visually reference signage found on the streets of 

Singapore, and will draw upon Chinese-language slogans, poetry and wordplay. The work toys with slogans and 

phrases that connect with cultural, social and financial changes in Singapore today, using language’s facility to capture 

the shifting nature of meaning and information. 

Exhibitions (solo): Sculpture Square, Singapore, 2005; Casula Powerhouse, Sydney, Australia, 2000. Exhibitions 

(group): Singapore Biennale, 2008; ‘Telah Terbit’ (‘Out Now’), Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, 2006.

DAMP 

est.1995 Melbourne, Australia 

Dan Cass 

b.1970 Melbourne 

Rob Creedon 


Narelle Desmond 


Ry Haskings 


Sam George 


Sharon Goodwin 


Deb Kunda 


James Lynch 


Dan Moynihan 

b. 1974 Melbourne 

Lisa Radford 


Nat Thomas 

b.1967 Brisbane 

Kylie Wilkinson 


DAMP is a collective with 12 current members: Dan Cass, Rob Creedon, Narelle Desmond, Sam George, Sharon 

Goodwin, Ry Haskings, Deb Kunda, James Lynch, Dan Moynihan, Lisa Radford, Nat Thomas and Kylie Wilkinson. 

Membership has been fluid over the years, with an alumnus numbering over 70, though not all members identify 

themselves as artists. DAMP’s performances, actions and installations explore the potential of working collaboratively. 

Frequently irreverent and occasionally anarchic, DAMP’s projects are always imbued with a sense of fun. Many invite 

audience participation and this often involves either temporary inclusion within the collective or its diffusion into the 

audience, deliberately confusing the two. DAMP does not have a particular identity beyond being simply a group, and 

is consequently open to change and external influence. The collective’s work remains cohesive, however, and 

continues to manifest playful engagement with the complex relationships between contemporary art and its audience. 

Exhibitions (solo): Uplands Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, 2007; Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, Australia, 

2001; 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne, 1999. Exhibitions (group): ‘I Thought I Knew But I Was Wrong: New Video Art 

from Australia’, touring to Bangkok, Beijing, and Seoul, 2004; ‘2004: Australian Culture Now’, National Gallery of 

Victoria, Melbourne, 2004; ‘Charley’, PS1, New York, USA, 2002; ‘Octopus 2’, 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne, 

2001

SOLOMON ENOS 

b. 1979 Wai’anae, Hawai'i, United States 

Lives and works in Kalihi, Hawai'i, United States 

Solomon Enos is a self-taught artist, illustrator and cultural activist. He conjures imaginative tales that convey his 

interest in local history and issues of representation, with a focus on how historical readings are made. Polyfantastica 

2006, is a futuristic storytelling project recounting 40 000 years of Hawai’ian history, developed in collaboration with 

scholars from the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Beautifully illustrated and divided into four 10 000-year epochs, 

Polyfantastica calls forth associations of exploration and voyaging, grand battles and conquests, as well as diminishing 

resources and land disputes. Drawing on Hawai’ian and wider Polynesian mythology, Enos’s intricate storyboards 

feature fantastical characters battling and romancing against a dramatic backdrop of volcanic mountain ranges and 

urban landscapes. Some are distinctively Hawai’ian, sporting leg tattoos, rain capes and customary weapons, while 

others resemble sci-fi figures with fins for hands, bulbous anemone bodies and menacing teeth. Enos plays with nonlinear 

narrative forms to blur the distinction between past and present, fact and fiction, while questioning the 

subjectivity of how we see and interpret the world. 

MONIR SHAHROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN 

b.1924 Qazvin, Iran 

Lives and works in Tehran, Iran 

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian is a senior figure in contemporary Iranian art, with a distinguished career spanning 

over 50 years. Farmanfarmaian spent many years living in New York as an art student and later as a fashion illustrator 

at department store Bonwit Teller, where she worked alongside Andy Warhol. She returned to Iran in the 1960s and 

established herself as an artist, holding major exhibitions in Tehran, Paris, Venice and New York. After the Islamic 

Revolution of 1979, she took refuge in New York, returning to Tehran in 2000 where she continues to work today. Her 

distinctive aesthetic translates Persian pictorial language into modern forms by combining mirror mosaic and reverse 

glass painting techniques with contemporary abstract styles. Her shimmering installations draw upon Islamic geometric 

patterning, Sufi symbolism, symmetry and traditional craftsmanship. Farmanfarmaian is creating a major six-panel 

mirror mosaic work for APT6, based on the form of the hexagon, reflecting the six virtues of generosity, self-discipline, 

patience, determination, insight, and compassion. 

Exhibitions (solo): Leighton House Museum, London, UK, 2008; The Third Line, Dubai, UAE, 2007; Victoria and Albert 

Museum, London, 2006. Exhibitions (group): ‘East-West Divan’, 53rd Biennale of Venice, 2009; ‘The Power of the 

Ornament’, Belvedere, Vienna, Austria, 2008; Biennale of Venice, 1964 and 1958. 

SUBODH GUPTA 

b.1964 Khagaul, Bihar, India 

Lives and works in Gurgaon, Haryana, India 

One of India’s most prominent contemporary artists, Subodh Gupta works in a wide range of mediums, including 

painting, installation, photography, video and performance. He is perhaps best known for his large sculptures 

constructed from dozens of stainless-steel and copper utensils, which translate the conceptual art format of the 

readymade into a rich exploration of everyday life in India and shifting notions of artistic and economic value. Born in 

the predominantly rural state of Bihar in central India — renowned as a traditional centre of Buddhist learning — Gupta 

now lives in the rapidly growing city of Gurgaon, a satellite of New Delhi. His works draw upon the everyday products 

and materials of Indian village life, such as milk buckets, cow dung and kitchen utensils, and often reference utility, 

travel and mobility — evident in his bronze cast sculptures of motorbikes, taxis and bundles of luggage. Gupta will 

present several major sculptures in APT6, including Line of Control 2008, an enormous mushroom cloud formed from 

brass utensils, shifting an image of destruction into one of explosive abundance. Through his seductive use of 

materials and interest in spectacle and excess, Gupta’s work reveals the contradictions and tensions that exist in India 

today as it fluctuates between tradition and modernity, rural and urban life, and poverty and wealth. 

Exhibitions (solo): Hauser & Wirth, London, UK, 2009; Arario Gallery, Beijing, China, 2008; Baltic, Gateshead, UK, 

2008. Exhibitions (group): ‘Altermodern’, Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London, 2009; ‘Indian Highway’, Serpentine 

Gallery, London, 2008; 51st Biennale of Venice, Italy, 2005.

GONKAR GYATSO 

b.1961, Lhasa, Tibet 

Lives and works in London, United Kingdom 

Gonkar Gyatso’s youth coincided with the period of the Cultural Revolution when much art and culture was destroyed, 

and traditional Tibetan art forms ― most of which were tied to religion ― were forbidden. While studying Chinese 

calligraphy in Beijing, Gyatso became aware of the distinctiveness of his heritage and after graduating, moved to 

Dharamsala, India, where he studied traditional Tibetan thangka (scroll painting), before moving to London. Gyatso 

founded the Sweet Tea House in 1985, which became the first Tibetan avant-garde artists’ association. Since his 

move to London, his works have aimed to map the shifts in identity and belonging caused by continual migration. His 

current practice combines traditional calligraphy and the iconography of Buddhist thangka painting with collages of 

colourful stickers, cut-out text and mass-media imagery, subverting typecast notions of Tibetan culture and considering 

the popularisation of Buddhism in the West. APT6 will feature collages as well as a new nine-metre work on paper, 

commissioned for the exhibition. 

Exhibitions (solo): ‘Tibetan Word: Art of Communication’, The Sweet Tea House, London, 2004. Exhibitions (group): 

53rd Biennale of Venice, Italy, 2009; ‘Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves’, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2007. 

www.gonkargyatso.com 

KYUNGAH HAM 

b.1966 Seoul, South Korea 

Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea 

Kyungah Ham works across installation, video, performance and traditional media. Her recent works include blue-andwhite 

porcelain sculptures of weaponry and Persian carpets traced in oil, critically exploring the dynamics of war. Her 

textile project, featured in APT6, was begun in 2008 as a means to communicate with North Koreans about such 

issues, which continue to influence the everyday lives of people on both sides of the border. To make the works, Ham 

collects images and articles on terrorism and violence from the print media and the internet, which are then edited and 

sent to female artisans in North Korea (via China) to be embroidered, using traditional techniques, into textiles. In 

doing so, Ham enacts a dialogue that extends across the barriers of ideology and physical distance that mark South 

Korean relations with its northern neighbour. Given the risk of censorship and confiscation, the images and 

embroideries are often transmitted in parts, to be reconfigured by the artist as the final work. Ham’s tapestry 

compositions reflect both historical and contemporary episodes of conflict, and construct a strange and compelling 

mixture of propaganda, social activism and personal memory. 

Exhibitions (solo): Ssamzie Space, Seoul, South Korea, 2008. Exhibitions (group): ‘Correspondence’, Artsonje Center, 

Seoul, 2008; Gwangju Biennale, South Korea, 2006; Yokohama Triennale, Japan, 2001. 

HO TZU NYEN 

b.1976 Singapore 

Lives and works in Singapore 

Ho Tzu Nyen’s practice ranges across filmmaking, painting, performance and writing, and investigates the forms, 

methods and languages of art; the relationship between the still, the painted and the moving image; and the 

construction of history. His films expose the apparatus of cinema by mixing varied genres from music video to 

documentary, creating highly artificial sets, or by making cameras, crew and lighting a key part of the action. For APT6, 

Ho will produce two new films. Zarathustra 2009 draws on the writing of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche – 

which explores the potential of humankind to overcome their environment – as well as the music Nietzsche inspired — 

‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ by Richard Strauss, famously used by Stanley Kubrick in his 1968 film 2001: A Space 

Odyssey. The Last Days of H the Happy Robot 2009, a modern fable created for the Kids’ APT about the nature of 

technology, features a cardboard robot named H who eventually becomes obsolete. Set in a future Singapore, the 

work will be presented within a specially created cardboard environment, inviting children into H’s world. 

Exhibitions (solo): The Substation, Singapore, 2003. Exhibitions (group): Singapore Biennale, 2006; 3rd Fukuoka 

Asian Art Triennale, Japan, 2005; 26th São Paulo Bienal, Brazil, 2004. Film festivals: Cannes International Film 

Festival, France, 2009; Hong Kong International Film Festival, China, 2006; Bangkok International Film Festival, 

Thailand, 2004.

EMRE HÜNER 

b.1977 Istanbul, Turkey 

Lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey, and Milan, Italy 

Emre Hüner works across various media, including drawing, video, animation and site-specific installation. Hüner 

crafts intricate and luminous drawings which are rendered with the colour and precision of miniature paintings. 

Interested in the intersection between systems of control and social structures, his imagery is drawn from a range of 

historical sources including scientific journals, medieval bestiaries, warfare, technology and medical practices. For 

APT6, Hüner presents Panoptikon 2005, an animated film which assembles his archive of densely layered illustrations. 

These images are grouped into narrative sequences which juxtapose the natural world with the machinations of a 

constructed, imagined universe. Images of phantasmagorical cityscapes, machines that continuously work with no 

functionality, and sites of decay are accompanied by a lush musical score. Our relationship to the environment is a 

consistent point of inquiry in his practice and propositions about human progress and intervention in the natural and 

constructed world are brought together in his finely crafted, multi-layered, hand-drawn animation. 

Exhibitions (solo): BAS, İstanbul, Turkey, 2007. Exhibitions (group): ‘The Generational: Younger than Jesus’, New 

Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, USA, 2009; Manifesta 7, Trentino, Italy, 2008. 

RAAFAT ISHAK 

b.1967 Cairo, Egypt 

Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia 

Raafat Ishak’s practice is informed by his studies in architecture, his Arabic cultural heritage, and a beautifully muted 

graphic style. He roams freely among art historical antecedents, across centuries, cultures and within his own 

community for inspiration and consolidation. Using a formal but understated aesthetic language, Ishak seamlessly 

mixes the personal with the political in a way that highlights the circularity and interdependency of these relationships. 

Underscored by a utopian, romantic tendency, his work is subtle, contemplative and alive to the nuances of crosscultural 

dialogue and transit. For APT6 Ishak will create a series of new paintings and a site-specific work for the 

Queensland Art Gallery’s Watermall. By mixing together and deconstructing a range of sources, including logos, 

symbols, flags, buildings and art historical motifs, the work aims to explore notions of national borders and identities, 

and how these relate to ideas of home and belonging. Above all else this work is about transit — across history, time 

and space. 

Exhibitions (solo): Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, 2009; Ocular Lab, Melbourne, 2007; Conical Gallery, 

Melbourne, 2003. Exhibitions (group): TarraWarra Biennial, Yarra Valley, Australia, 2006; Adelaide Biennial, Australia, 

2006; ‘2004: Australian Culture Now’, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2004. 

RUNA ISLAM 

b. 1970 Dhaka, Bangladesh 


Runa Islam’s lyrical films reference the history and vocabulary of cinema to explore a range of narratives concerned 

with the act of seeing and notions of truth and fiction. Working with Super-8 and 16mm film, Islam examines the 

mechanics of vision through the use of motion sensors and optical toys. Immensely beautiful and sensual, her films are 

often displayed in installations which reveal the production context of filmmaking as a means of looking beyond the 

frame, and highlight the inherently illusory and magical nature of the medium. Two films will be presented in APT6. The 

First Day of Spring 2005 uses long, languid tracking shots to convey, with immediacy and depth, an intimate group 

portrait of cycle rickshaw drivers in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, as they rest on their rickshaws. Equally 

beguiling is The Restless Subject 2008, which focuses upon a nineteenth-century thaumatrope, a pre-cinematic optical 

device which merges two images to create motion. This later work is installed in a sculptural space created in 

collaboration with Slovenian sculptor Tobias Putrih, further highlighting Islam’s interest in the relationship between, 

film, art and architecture. 

Exhibitions (solo): Shugo Arts, Tokyo, Japan, 2008; Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland, 2008; Serpentine Gallery, London, 

UK, 2006. Exhibitions (group): ‘The Cinema Effect’, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, USA, 

2008; Manifesta 7, Trentino, Italy, 2008; ‘Brave New Worlds’, Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, USA, 2007.

AYAZ JOKHIO 

b.1978 Sindh, Pakistan 

Lives and works in Lahore, Pakistan 

Ayaz Jokhio’s meticulously produced paintings, drawings and installations use ironic humour and the relation between 

images and text as a means to question the definition of art and its role in the contemporary world. Beginning his 

career as a poet and cartoonist, Jokhio has also worked in film and documentary. His works often involve a form of 

conceptual play with art history and the conventions of painting, such as inverting the hierarchy between art works and 

their labels on the gallery wall, or making large paintings of the backs of snapshot photographs. For APT6, Jokhio is 

presenting a major architectural project, entitled Mihrab 2009, located in the Queensland Art Gallery’s iconic 

Watermall. This work takes the form of an octagonal building, with each wall containing a mihrab, or niche, which in a 

mosque points toward Mecca and indicates the direction for worshippers to face during prayer. Inspired by a verse by 

Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif of Bhittai, describing the omnipresence of God, the artist draws on the simplicity and beauty 

of Islamic design to create a space for contemplation. 

Exhibitions (solo): Grey Noise Gallery, Lahore, Pakistan, 2009 and 2008. Exhibitions (group): ‘Hanging Fire: 

Contemporary Art from Pakistan’, Asia Society, New York, USA, 2009; ‘Drawn From Line’, Green Cardamom, London, 

2008; National Art Gallery, Islamabad, Pakistan, 2007. 

TAKESHI KITANO 

b.1947 Tokyo, Japan 

Lives and works in Tokyo, Japan 

Director, actor, author, comedian, artist and cult television personality, Takeshi Kitano has forged an original and 

idiosyncratic film practice unique in contemporary cinema. Drawing on genre cinema and Japanese consumer culture, 

Kitano’s yakuza (Japanese mafia) films and self-reflexive comedies blend action cinema with a strong sense of the 

absurd in contemporary life. Kitano fuses nihilism with humour, violent excess with deadpan characterisation, and uses 

exaggerated choreographies of movement and dark comedy to punctuate otherwise silent and static sequences. 

Beginning his career as a comic presenter on Japanese TV, his legendary alter-ego, ‘Beat Takeshi’, is one of the most 

identifiable pop culture icons in Japan, and Kitano continues to appear on long-running cult television shows. 

APT6 will include a selection of the director’s cult favourites, including Takeshis' 2005, Zatôichi 2003, Brother 2000, 

Hana-bi (Fireworks) 1997, Sonachine (Sonatine) 1993, 3-4 x jugatsu (Boiling Point) 1990 and Sono otoko, kyobo ni 

tsuki (Violent Cop) 1989. 

ANG LEE 

b.1954 Pingtung, Taiwan 

Lives and works in Larchmont, New York, United States 

Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Ang Lee has constructed a remarkably diverse filmography, ranging from period 

dramas and literary adaptations, martial arts epics, and human dramas that witness shifts in contemporary Taiwanese 

experience. Whether working in a historical idiom or in a contemporary setting, Lee brings a deeply humanist 

sensibility to his films. The narratives he chooses are characterised by notions of marginalisation and transformation in 

characters exploring their gender, sexual and cultural identity, and their filial and social duties. 

APT6 will include a selection of the director’s award-winning films, including Se, jie (Lust, Caution) 2007, Brokeback 

Mountain 2005, Wo hu cang long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) 2000, The Ice Storm 1997, Yin shi nan nu (Eat 

Drink Man Woman) 1994 and Xi yan (The Wedding Banquet) 1993.

MANSUDAE ART STUDIO 

est.1959 Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 

Co-organised By Nicholas Bonner (China/UK) and Suhanya Raffel (Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific art, 

Queensland Art Gallery) 

The Mansudae Art Studio is an official artist studio (changjaksa) in Pyongyang, DPRK (North Korea), which employs 

over 1000 artists across the disciplines of painting, drawing, embroidery and mosaics. There is a rich cultural heritage 

associated with artistic production in DPRK, and ink painting in particular is a revered practice. Artistic themes vary 

and may be revolutionary, social, political and historical in content, or purely aesthetic, and are expressed in different 

media such as sculpture, poster art, ceramics and painting. Installed in streets, schools, cinemas and official buildings, 

they function as a form of public art. These works are created with virtuosic technical skill by groups of artists, 

reflecting the state’s collective ethos. This new body of work, created specifically for APT6, addresses the nature of 

work and collectivism, the process of collaboration and the fundamental role played by the studio in artistic practice in 

DPRK. This important project, developed in collaboration with Nicholas Bonner, will be the first presentation in 

Australia of contemporary art from DPRK. 

Nicholas Bonner is a British-born filmmaker and landscape architect based in Beijing. He first visited DPRK in 1992 

and soon after established Koryo Tours (with Josh Green), to organise trips to DPRK and promote cultural exchange. 

Bonner’s award-winning documentary films include The Game of Their Lives (2002), which traces the North Korean 

soccer team that qualified for the 1966 World Cup quarter-finals; A State of Mind (2004); which follows the daily lives of 

gymnasts training for the Mass Games in Pyongyang; and Crossing the Line (2008) which looks at American military 

defectors. www.mansudaeartstudio.com 

RUDI MANTOFANI 

b. 1973 Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia 

Lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia 

Rudi Mantofani is a sculptor and painter whose work takes ordinary objects and landscapes and transforms them into 

strange or absurd ‘visual parables’. With a meticulous technique and a high level of finish, Mantofani’s works are 

associative and thought-provoking meditations on human experience and behaviour. His electric guitar sculptures, 

featured in APT6, are inspired by the artist’s viewing of a benefit concert in New York. The gap between American 

philanthropic rhetoric and the harsh effects of its foreign policies in the Muslim world led the artist to create a series of 

distorted guitars, as a means to express such ethical contradictions. In 1993, Mantofani helped form the Jendela Art 

Group, a collective of five West Sumatran artists who studied together in Yogyakarta and continue to exhibit together 

today. The work of these artists is in contrast to the largely figurative and stridently political work of much Indonesian 

contemporary art that emerged during the 1990s. With a focus on the mundane and everyday, Mantofani and the 

Jendela artists avoid ideological positions, preferring a more ambivalent and metaphorical approach to art and politics. 

Exhibitions (solo): CP Artspace, Jakarta, Indonesia, 2006. Exhibitions (group): Jakarta Biennale, Indonesia, 2009; 

‘Jendela: A Play of the Ordinary’, NUS Museum, Singapore, 2009; CP Open Biennale, National Gallery, Jakarta, 

Indonesia, 2003.

MATASO PRINTERS 

Eddy Bule 

b.1981 Vanuatu 

Stanley Firiam 

b. unknown Vanuatu 

Hendricks 


Saires Kalo 

Vanuatu 1983–2009 

David Kolin 


Herveline Lité 


Apia Najos 


Sepa Seule 


Simeon Simix 


Live and work in Ohlen Village, Port Vila, Vanuatu 

The fresh, bold works by the Mataso Printers exude freedom in their choice of colour and subject matter. These young 

artists represent a new post-independence generation of ni-Vanuatu women and men. They originally came together in 

2004 for a series of workshops developed by the Australian artist Newell Harry. Most of them come from the island of 

Mataso, which is situated 50 kilometres off the capital island of Efate. Due to economic circumstances, Mataso 

islanders have relocated to the satellite village of Ohlen in Port Vila, and have grown up amid outside influences like 

television, advertising, bars, reggae and soul music. The prints reflect the changes that have occurred since 

independence in 1980, while also drawing on stylistic forms derived from ‘Kastom’ lore and cultural practices such as 

sand drawing. They form one of the most exciting bodies of contemporary work to emerge from Vanuatu. APT6 will 

include a large suite of screenprints and some paintings that are energised by customary practices, as well as directly 

engaging with a continually modernising Vanuatu. 

THE MEKONG 

Artists: Bùi Công Khánh, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Sopheap Pich, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Svay Ken, Tun Win Aung & 

Wah Nu, Vandy Rattana 

Co-organised by Rich Streitmatter-Tran (Vietnam) and Russell Storer (Curator, Contemporary Asian art, Queensland 

Art Gallery) 

The Mekong River is one of the longest rivers in Asia, running from its source in China, through the countries of Laos, 

Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Difficult to navigate, the Mekong has historically formed 

connections, as well as a border, between the peoples who live along its course. In recent years, with the growth of 

trade and investment, the development of roads and other communication networks and increased migration and 

exchanges of people, information and ideas, the region has become more integrated than ever before. The Mekong 

platform within APT6 presents a vivid, multi-layered view of a complex and rapidly transforming region, a place that is 

becoming increasingly prominent culturally, politically and economically. Key themes include changing societies and 

cultures, including tensions between tradition and modernity, and between Buddhist teachings and Western values. 

The shifting dynamics of nationhood and how this impacts on individuals and society is another concern for artists. The 

presentation will feature a range of media, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography and video. 

Rich Streitmatter-Tran is an artist based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, who works in performance, photography, video 

and installation, often in collaboration with others. He has written widely on the art of South East Asia, and in 2005–06 

he conducted the research project ‘Mediating the Mekong’ with the support of a Martell Contemporary Asian Art 

Research Grant and the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong. www.diacritic.org

THE MEKONG ARTISTS 

BÙI CÔNG KHÁNH 

b.1972 Da Nang, Vietnam 

Lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 

Bùi Công Khánh’s paintings, performances, sculptures and ceramics address history and contemporary 

society in Vietnam, particularly the increasing impact of global capital. His paintings and drawings are often 

figurative and deeply personal, drawing on Buddhist and Taoist philosophy. Bùi’s most recent series of works 

incorporate drawing into the traditional form of Vietnamese blue-and-white porcelain vases. In Vietnam, as in 

China, blue and white wares were primarily produced as a trading commodity, and absorbed numerous 

influences from China, Cambodia and India. Bùi’s vases address what he calls ‘the character of the present’, 

the sounds and sights of daily life. They include motorbike riders, street signage, advertising and romantic 

interludes. By working with the traditional form of the ceramic vase, Bùi aims to place the culture of modern life 

into the flow of history. For APT6, he will display a group of seven vases, one for each day of the week, 

creating a kind of diary for ‘life that seems never to be interrupted’. 

Exhibitions (group): ‘Time Ligaments’, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong, China, 2009; ‘Who Do You 

Think We Are?’, Bui Gallery, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2009; ‘Reflow’, Java Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2006; 

Nippon International Performance Art Festival, Japan, 2004. 

JUN NGUYEN-HATSUSHIBA 

b.1968 Tokyo, Japan 

Lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 

Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba works with video, installation and performance, using allegorical imagery to explore 

the impacts of war, mass migration and social change that have taken place in Vietnam and across the world 

over the past few decades. Renowned for his video works filmed underwater, in which rickshaw drivers, 

dragon performers and painters create poetic memorials to past events, Nguyen-Hatsushiba has also created 

large fields of water bottles and globes that consider globalisation, human displacement and the role of the 

mass media. His 2007 video work The Ground, the Root and the Air, filmed along the Mekong River at Luang 

Prabang in Laos, uses the river as a motif for the rapid pace of social change, as Buddhist beliefs and 

traditional ways of life compete with consumer culture and economic progress. 

Exhibitions (solo): Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2008; The Asia Society, New York, USA, 2008; 

Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland, 2007. Exhibitions (group): Gwangju Biennale, Korea, 2006; 51st Biennale 

of Venice, Italy, 2005; Biennale of Sydney, Australia, 2002. 

SOPHEAP PICH 

b. 1969 Battambang, Cambodia 

Lives and works in Phnom Penh, Cambodia 

The sculptures of Sopheap Pich hover between abstraction and representation, suggesting land forms, bodily 

organs or functional objects, while creating an expressive formal language of their own. Working with rattan 

and bamboo, ubiquitous materials in Cambodia, Pich aims to create sculptures that speak to his contemporary 

surroundings, landscape and history, while leaving space for free interpretation. They flow, spiral, swell and 

contract, creating poetic yet tightly realised forms that connect to both traditional craft and avant-garde 

sculpture, reflecting Pich’s upbringing and current experience in Cambodia as well as his years living and 

studying in the United States. More recently, the artist has begun to work with materials that add extra layers 

of reference to his rattan works — glass vials as used in traditional medicine, for example, as well as burlap, a 

material used by farmers. For APT6, Pich will present a new group of sculptures inspired by childhood 

memories of a family journey across Cambodia, at the end of the Khmer Rouge era. As he says, ‘It is good if 

sculptures make people aware that there are shapes in their environment. It encourages them to use their 

memory’. 

Exhibitions (solo): Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York, USA, 2009; Gallery H, Bangkok, Thailand, 2007; Sala Art 

Space, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2007. Exhibitions (group): ‘Forever Until Now’, 10 Chancery Lane, Hong 

Kong, China, 2009; ‘Strategies from Within’, Ke Center, Shanghai, China, 2008.

THE MEKONG ARTISTS (CONTINUED) 

MANIT SRIWANICHPOOM 

b.1961 Bangkok, Thailand 

Lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand 

Manit Sriwanichpoom’s photographs are renowned for their witty and provocative commentary on Thai life and 

culture. APT6 will present Waiting for the King 2006, a photographic series that continues Sriwanichpoom’s 

critical investigation of Thai society. The images were taken in Bangkok during the celebrations held to mark 

60 years of King Bhumibol’s rule in 2006. Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) has been King of Thailand since 

1946, the longest-serving head of state in the world and the country’s longest-reigning monarch. He is a highly 

revered figure in Thailand, and has a profound impact on its political scene and the life of the people. Two 

ongoing strands of Sriwanichpoom’s work have been street photography and portraiture, which often come 

together as he focuses on individuals within urban environments. Waiting for the King is an example of the 

artist’s social approach to portraiture, and a powerful allegory for Thailand’s contemporary political condition. 

Exhibitions (solo): Place M, Tokyo, Japan, 2008; Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia, 

2008. Exhibitions (group): ‘Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves’, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2007; Gwangju 

Biennale, Korea, 2006; Thai Pavilion, 50th Biennale of Venice, Italy, 2003. www.rama9art.org/manit_s 

SVAY KEN 

1933–2008 Takeo Province/Phnom Penh, Cambodia 

Svay Ken, considered a senior figure in Cambodian contemporary art, painted scenes of everyday life within 

the turbulent history of modern Cambodia. Born into a rice-farming family in the south of the country in 1933, 

he received little formal education, and was sent to a monastery as a child where he studied the Khmer 

alphabet along with Buddhist teachings. He moved to Phnom Penh in 1955, where he worked as a waiter at 

the Hotel Le Royal until the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975 and forced him and his family out of the city and 

into agrarian labour. He was reunited with his family in 1979 and returned to Phnom Penh, resuming work at 

the hotel. In 1993, just prior to retirement, he took up painting to support his family, initially selling his work to 

hotel guests. He subsequently set up his own gallery next to his home and studio in Phnom Penh, where he 

painted every day until his death in 2008. Self-taught, Svay Ken’s paintings have a naïve, direct style that 

provide a unique and detailed document of Cambodian society and its transformations over the past 60 years. 

APT6 will present a group of six paintings from the artist’s last major series, ‘Sharing Knowledge’ 2008, which 

feature Khmer texts and related imagery as a means to pass on moral and spiritual advice to the next 

generation. 

Exhibitions (solo): Bophana Audiovisual Resource Centre, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2008; Reyum Institute of 

Art and Culture, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2001. Exhibitions (group): ‘Forever Until Now: Contemporary Art 

from Cambodia’, 10 Chancery Lane, Hong Kong, 2009; 1st Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial, Japan, 1999. 

TUN WIN AUNG 

b.1975 Yalutt, Myanmar (Burma) 

WAH NU 

b.1977 Yangon, Myanmar (Burma) 

Live and work in Yangon, Myanmar (Burma) 

Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu are an artist couple who maintain an active studio in Yangon, Myanmar. Both work 

in a range of media, including painting, installation, performance and video. Tun Win Aung’s multimedia 

installations are often produced specifically for outdoor sites, responding to local histories and environments, 

while Wah Nu’s paintings and video works use colour and symbolism to create dreamlike, wistful impressions 

of her surroundings. Both artists create elaborate exhibition models to imagine the installation of their works, 

which often remain unrealised due to the lack of exhibition opportunities and the space to make links between 

art and society in Myanmar. For APT6, Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu will present a series of photographs of their 

exhibition models, blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, and creating a utopian space for artistic 

expression. 

Wah Nu: Exhibitions (solo): Art U-Room, Tokyo, Japan, 2008, 2005; Lokanat Galleries, Yangon, Myanmar, 

2004. Exhibitions (group): 3rd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Japan, 2005; 11th Asian Art Biennale, Dhaka, 

Bangladesh, 2004.

THE MEKONG ARTISTS (CONTINUED) 

VANDY RATTANA 

b.1980 Phnom Penh, Cambodia 

Lives and works in Phnom Penh, Cambodia 

Vandy Rattana is a self-taught photographer who has shown in numerous exhibitions and has worked as a 

photojournalist for the Phnom Penh Post. He has experimented in a range of photographic styles, from 

experimental abstraction to a documentary format that offsets the clichéd images of Cambodia as the land of 

monks, temples and beggars. Vandy is active in the development of contemporary art and photography in 

Cambodia and is one of the founders of Sa Sa Gallery in Phnom Penh, the country’s first artist-run space. His 

choice of subject matter reflects his daily experience, and his photographs are known for their strong 

composition, compelling narrative, and subtle commentary on Cambodian life and culture. From street scenes 

to urban developments, Angkor tourists to intimate domestic settings, Vandy’s photographs trace the flows of 

everyday life in a country that is undergoing profound transformation. APT6 will feature his series ‘Fire of the 

Year’, which documents one of Phnom Penh’s frequent fires, here in the district of Dteuk Tlah (‘clear water’), a 

community of stilted houses built over a lake full of plastic waste. 

Exhibitions (group): ‘Forever Until Now: Contemporary Art from Cambodia’, 10 Chancery Lane, Hong Kong, 

2009; ‘Strategies from Within’, Ke Center, Shanghai, China, 2008; ‘Another Asia’, 13th Noorderlicht 

International Photofestival, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, 2006. 

TRACEY MOFFATT 

b.1960 Brisbane, Australia 

Lives and works in New York, United States, and Sunshine Coast, Australia 

One of Australia’s most prominent contemporary artists, Tracey Moffatt works in photography, video and film. She 

graduated from the Queensland College of Art’s Film and Video course in 1982 and, since her first solo exhibition in 

1989, has maintained a high profile as one of the key Australian artists working across issues of identity and gender, 

especially in relation to Aboriginal Australia. Witty, sensual and subversive, her major photographic suites consist of 

complex images of characters and locales that allow her to consider desire, provinciality, race, and the longing for 

escape from social constraint. Moffatt employs every kind of artifice — using models, actors, make up, costume, and 

painted and digitised backgrounds — to create a heightened sense of tension and mystery; yet characteristically her 

works do not permit a simple resolution to their intriguing narratives. Moffatt's visual repertoire is rich, sourced 

principally from popular cultural forms such as film, photography, television and mass-produced publications. With 

considerable panache, she mines these sources to prod collective memories, creating ‘stories’ that appear to be 

already known. Moffatt’s often light-hearted tone does not, however, blind observers to the seriousness of purpose that 

is the key to her playful, intelligent and immensely enjoyable work. For APT6 Tracey Moffatt is showing two new works. 

Plantation, a suite of 12 photographic diptychs printed in colour on handmade paper, pictures mysterious events set in 

gorgeous tropical locales, with evident tensions that could resonate across many cultures. Other, a funny, dramatic 

and sexy six-minute montage compilation DVD, riffs on the ways ‘the native’ has been portrayed in cinema. 

Exhibitions: (solo): Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Australia, 2008; Location One, New York, USA, 2008; Montreal 

Museum of Fine Arts, Canada, 2005; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2003-04. Exhibitions: (group): Biennale 

of Sydney, 2008; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, 2008; Liverpool Biennial, UK, 2008; Sharjah Biennial, UAE, 

2005.

FARHAD MOSHIRI 

Shiraz, Iran 

Lives and works in Tehran, Iran 

Farhad Moshiri is one of Iran’s most internationally visible artists, due in part to his deft, humorous and visually 

seductive examinations of popular culture and the modern world. Using a highly refined pop aesthetic, Moshiri 

conjures candy-hued visions of commodity-driven contemporary society, displacing common representations of Iran as 

a place of austerity and violence. Moshiri’s paintings are richly decorative and increasingly textured, incorporating 

Swarovski crystals, beads, sequins, pearls, and embroidery into their surfaces. For his recent ‘Candy Store’ series, 

featured in APT6, Moshiri has used cake-decorating tools to create elaborate, stippled patterns over painted scenes. 

Ambivalence, parody and play are part and parcel of Moshiri’s visual language, which, while drawing heavily on the 

vernacular imagery of modern Iran, is also steeped in the visual traditions of Persian culture. 

Exhibitions (solo): The Third Line, Dubai, UAE, 2009, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium, 2008; Daneyal 

Mahmood Gallery, New York City, USA, 2007. Exhibitions (group): Singapore Biennale, 2008; Sharjah Biennial, UAE, 

2003; ‘Iranian Pool’, Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö, Sweden, 2003. 

KOHEI NAWA 

b.1975 Osaka, Japan 

Lives and works in Kyoto, Japan 

As a sculptor, Kohei Nawa is concerned with forms and surfaces and how they interact to become objects. His 

sculptures often exploit the tactile nature of surfaces, as in his ‘Pixcell’ series (2002- ), in which he covers the surfaces 

of objects with glass beads of various sizes. The outer layer suggests a molecular structure, and also references the 

pixel of the computer screen. Fascinated by how we navigate objects in the virtual world via the internet, Nawa enters 

keywords into web search engines and creates sculptures based on the images that are returned, with his objects — 

such as taxidermied animals — sourced from online auction sites. Nawa’s skin of glass beads magnifies the object in 

some areas and distorts it in others, shifting our perception and questioning how we encounter things in our daily 

environment. His ‘Pixcell’ sculptures, such as PixCell – Elk#2 2009 shown in APT6, encapsulate Nawa’s longstanding 

interest in how we come to understand what we see. 

Exhibitions (solo): Galerie Vera Munro, Hamburg, Germany, 2009; Miro Foundation, Barcelona, Spain, 2008; Peking 

Fine Arts, Beijing, China, 2008; Ierimonti Gallery, Milan, Italy, 2007; SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo, Japan, 2006. 

Exhibitions (group): ‘Parallel Worlds’ Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan, 2008; ‘Great New Wave: 

Contemporary Art from Japan’, Art Gallery of Hamilton, British Columbia, 2008; ‘Roppongi Crossing’, Mori Art 

Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2007; Biennial of Valencia, Spain, 2005. www.kohei-nawa.net 

SHINJI OHMAKI 

b.1971 Gifu, Japan 

Lives and works in Tokyo, Japan 

Shinji Ohmaki’s installations create absorbing and labyrinthine environments through a skilful deployment of repetition 

and scale, and the use of everyday materials such as flour, correction fluid, and thread. Often working with the 

architecture of the gallery, Ohmaki transforms spaces so that boundaries between the interior and exterior become 

blurred. Liminal Air – Descend 2006 combines masses of knotted thread, artificial light and architectural form to 

produce dramatic, immersive encounters. Inspired by the beauty of natural forms, Ohmaki’s works invite a sense of 

wonder and weightlessness, conveying the notion of infinity. The formal aesthetic structures of Japanese architecture 

and Zen gardens are also important points of departure for Ohmaki, as is their function as spaces for meditation and 

contemplation. Inspired by these architectures, Ohmaki transforms a discrete gallery space in the Gallery of Modern 

Art into a ‘liminal’ zone, offering a profoundly physical experience in which audiences can consider perceptions of 

eternity and the sublime. 

Exhibitions (solo): 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan, 2007; Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo, 

Japan, 2005. Exhibitions (group): Yokohama Triennale, Japan, 2008; ‘Global Players’, Ludwig Forum Aachen, 

Germany, 2006. www.shinjiohmaki.net

THE ONE YEAR DRAWING PROJECT 

Muhanned Cader 

b.1966 Colombo, Sri Lanka 

Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan 

b.1969 Jaffna, Sri Lanka 

Chandraguptha Thenuwara 

b.1960 Galle, Sri Lanka 

Jagath Weerasinghe 

b.1954 Moratuwa, Sri Lanka 

The One Year Drawing Project May 2005–October 2007 is a drawing exchange involving four of Sri Lanka's most 

acclaimed contemporary artists. Organised by curator Sharmini Pereira and originally published as an artists’ book, the 

project began in May 2005, when each artist simultaneously created four unique drawings in their respective studios 

around Sri Lanka. These drawings were exchanged by post, finding their way between Jaffna in the north and the 

suburbs of Colombo in the south-west. Upon receipt of the drawings, four more were duly generated in response to the 

first set of drawings, in common with the ‘exquisite corpse’ (cadavre exquis) method used by the Surrealists. This chain 

of events marked the beginning of an extraordinary paper trail whereby ideas and drawings were assembled and 

circulated over a period of 29 months. The One Year Drawing Project May 2005–October 2007 is an important visual 

archive that considers the commitment and challenges of collaborative practice, and forms one of the most innovative 

contemporary art projects to come from Sri Lanka. 

PACIFIC REGGAE 

Artists: Anstine Energy (Solomon Islands), Chief Ragga (Hawai’i, United States), Paula Fuga (Hawai’i, United States), 

JVDK (New Caledonia), O-Shen (Papua New Guinea/Hawai’i, United States), Sunshiners (Vanuatu / France), Tiki 

Taane (New Zealand), 26 Roots (Vanuatu), XX Squad (Vanuatu), Zennith (Australia) 

Co-organised by Brent Clough (New Zealand/Australia) and Maud Page (Curator, Contemporary Pacific Art, 

Queensland Art Gallery) 

‘Pacific Reggae’ responds to the vital connections that musicians from Prot Vila to Auckland and Honolulu to Honiara 

make with reggae culture. Much Pacific reggae maintains key structural similarities to Jamaican roots music including 

‘one drop’ drumbeats, steady bass-lines and chopping guitar, while the introduction of log drums, bone flutes, ukulele 

and electronic beats contribute to reggae’s unique sound across the Pacific. The parallel developments of homerecording 

studios and a proliferating music-video industry in the region have enabled a reggae scene to flourish and 

assert its own distinctive style. 

The project has been developed in consultation with Brent Clough, who has a longstanding involvement with the 

reggae scene in Australia and the Pacific. ‘Pacific Reggae’ will present a series of reggae performances and video 

clips, live and recorded, demonstrating this rich musical form. On the opening weekend, the performance program will 

feature reggae musicians from across the Pacific, and local reggae will be featured throughout the public programs for 

the duration of APT6. ‘Pacific Reggae’ is a vibrant form of contemporary expression that taps into the international 

circuit while celebrating unique local flavours. 

Brent Clough was born in New Zealand and worked in community radio before moving to Sydney in 1984. He joined 

ABC Radio National in 1988, and has produced and presented the arts and music programs Arts National, In The Mix, 

Radio-Eye, Other Worlds, The Daily Planet, Poetica, 360, and The Night Air. From 1996 to 2007 he was a co-ordinator 

for the Pacific Wave festival of contemporary Pacific arts in Sydney. He was co-founder of Nasty Tek, Australia’s first 

dancehall reggae sound system and currently works with Soulmaker, Australia’s longest running reggae ‘sound’, 

created by Jamaican, JJ Roberts. Brent has written extensively about reggae and contemporary music in Australia and 

the Pacific region, including essays for the Jamaican collections, Bob Marley: The Man and his Music (Arawak, 1995) 

and Global Reggae Culture (University of the West Indies, forthcoming).

RITHY PANH 

b.1964 Phnom Penh, Cambodia 

Lives and works in Paris, France, and Phnom Penh, Cambodia 

The films of Rithy Panh centre on life in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia and the struggle to reconcile the country’s 

traumatic history with contemporary urban and rural experiences. Panh and his family experienced the mass 

evacuation of Phnom Penh in 1975, witnessing family members die from exhaustion and starvation in a remote 

Cambodian labour camp before fleeing to a refugee camp in Thailand. Working across documentary and dramatic 

features, Panh’s filmmaking practice explores individual and collective stories that give an emotional and material 

texture to the history and experiences of the Cambodian people. Panh migrated to France in his early twenties and 

studied filmmaking at the prestigious Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (Institute for the Advanced 

Cinematographic Studies) in Paris. He returned to Cambodia in 1990 and established the Bophana: Audio Visual 

Resource Centre in Phnom Penh, which aims to preserve and develop Cambodia’s film, photographic and audio 

heritage. 

APT6 will include a selection of the director’s documentary and narrative features, including Un barrage contre le 

Pacifique (The Sea Wall) 2008, Le papier ne peut pas envelopper la braise (Paper Cannot Wrap Ember) 2007, Les 

Artistes du Théâtre Brûlé (The Burnt Theatre) 2005, S-21, la machine de mort Khmère rouge (S-21: The Khmer Rouge 

Killing Machine) 2003, Un soir après la guerre (One Evening after the War) 1998 and Neak Sre (Rice People) 1994. 

REUBEN PATERSON 

b.1973 Tuhoe, New Zealand 

Lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand 

Reuben Paterson’s work extends the customary Maori use of design, pattern, weaving and layering by using seductive 

new materials. Shimmer discs, diamantés and glitter dust inspire a sense of wonder while also introducing an element 

of texture to an otherwise two-dimensional tradition. Drawing on sources such as Maori culture and floral fabrics from 

the 1960s and 1970s, his judicious use of colour, patterning and composition recalls American modernism and Op art. 

Paterson’s originality lies in the eclectic combination of influences and styles that animate his paintings and parody 

notions of the Pacific as an exotic paradise. His use of contrasting patterns provides an optical pulse while sparking 

both nostalgic and celebratory responses. Paterson will make his most ambitious work to date for APT6, creating a 

visually spectacular set of canvases that shimmer with striking, intricate patterns. Using the formal structure of a 

kaleidoscope, Paterson’s work conveys an interrelated narrative. Its dark centre represents the beginning of the world 

in Maori cosmology, and as it moves outward, explosive patterns reference designs in his deceased father’s tie, 1980s 

New Zealand abstraction, and the colours in his grandmother’s favourite dress. 

Exhibitions (solo): Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand, 2007; City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, 2006; 

Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, 2006. Exhibitions (group): ‘Of Deities and Mortals’, Christchurch City Art 

Gallery, New Zealand, 2008; Prague Biennale, Czech Republic, 2005. 

CAMPBELL PATTERSON 

b.1983 Portsmith, United Kingdom 


Preferring to work alone and with real situations, Campbell Patterson creates video performances that combine wry 

humour with an element of suppressed eroticism that is both alluring and disarming. Much of his work is characterised 

by an interest in documenting the mental and physical limitations of the body, manifesting in playful, sometimes 

painful, and often mischievous results. Patterson experiments with tempo in his works; unencumbered by strict 

narrative, his videos are often diaristic and accrete over time. He makes both direct and indirect reference to the 

history of performance art, including artists such as Dennis Oppenheim, Yoko Ono, Bruce Nauman and Vito Acconci, 

many of whom use the body (often in extremis) as the subject of their work. Patterson’s energy, verve, immediacy and 

impact mark a fresh new direction in performance-based video art of the region. For APT6, Patterson will be 

represented by a series of video works produced over the past five years, showing the scope of this exciting young 

artist’s practice. They range from his meticulous documenting of gulping soda water, to his endurance performance of 

holding his mother in his arms for as long as possible. 

Exhibitions (solo): Michael Lett, Auckland, New Zealand, 2008; City Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, 2007. 

Exhibitions (group): ‘Various Artists’, New Zealand Film Archive, Auckland, 2008.

WIT PIMKANCHANAPONG 

b.1976 Bangkok, Thailand 

Lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand 

Trained in architecture, Wit Pimkanchanapong applies his interest in space and design to a diverse practice that 

includes animation, video, installation, and commercial graphics and display. With an ongoing interest in mapping, 

distortion and repetition, his works often take the form of spatial objects or landscapes — urban, sonic, constructed or 

imagined. As an artist, he is inspired by the possibilities of working with everyday materials such as paper, wire and 

clips, to create powerful and often interactive environments. Pimkanchanapong’s recent works have drawn audiences 

into the creative process, enhancing accessibility and generating an active understanding of contemporary art and its 

role in public space. Pimkanchanapong’s many collaborations, including the Fat Music Festival, Bangkok, and SOI 

Project, an ongoing ‘laboratory’ bringing together artists and practitioners from a range of disciplines, have broadened 

his artistic reach and encouraged a level of experimentation. For APT6, Pimkanchanapong will create a site-specific 

installation that responds to and transforms the dramatic interior spaces of the Gallery of Modern Art. 

http://web.mac.com/witpim/wit2009 

Exhibitions (solo): National Museum, Bangkok, Thailand, 2003. Exhibitions (group): Singapore Biennale, 2008; Sharjah 

Biennale, UAE, 2007; ‘Animated Painting’, San Diego Museum of Art, USA, 2007; Yokohama Triennale, Japan, 2005. 

QIU ANXIONG 

b.1972 Chengdu, China 

Lives and works in Shanghai, China 

Qiu Anxiong works with film, animation and drawing, often combining these disciplines to create multimedia 

installations. Qiu has developed a distinctive and inimitable visual style that draws upon traditional Chinese scroll 

painting, landscape and ink-and-brush painting techniques. The passages of time, both real and imagined, and the 

prevailing conditions of the modern world, are recurrent themes in his practice. The New Book of Mountains and Seas 

2006-09 is a two-part video work that constructs a modern version of the ‘Shan Hai Jing’ (‘Classic of Mountains and 

Seas’), an ancient Chinese tale about evolution. Qiu has crafted a multi-channel animation from 6000 drawings that 

portray the contemporary world in a state of frenetic transition and metamorphosis. Using allegorical imagery to 

explore the impact of environmental degradation and social change, Qiu Anxiong offers an exquisitely crafted 

contemplation on the past, the present, and the relationships between the two. 

Exhibitions (solo): Gallery 4A, Sydney, Australia, 2009; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan, 2007. Exhibitions 

(group): 3rd Guangzhou Triennial, China, 2008; Biennale of Sydney, Australia, 2008; ‘China Power Station’, Battersea 

Power Station and Serpentine Gallery, London, UK, 2006. www.qiuanxiong.com 

KIBONG RHEE 

b.1957 Seoul, South Korea 

Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea 

In the installations of Kibong Rhee, audiences encounter dreamlike scenarios in which everyday objects and images 

are made extraordinary through the illusion of movement and transformation. Using water and light to manipulate form 

and matter, Rhee plays on our expectations of the possible and impossible, offering metaphysical speculations that 

provide his work with a contemplative quality. In one of his recent works, books magically swim within translucent 

water tanks, a mesmerising act inspired by the artist accidentally dropping a book into the water of his bathtub while 

reading. In his installation at APT6, There is no place – shallow cuts 2008, Rhee employs light and vapour to conjure a 

sublime impression of morning fog as it shrouds and obscures the silhouette of a vast willow tree. A powerfully 

physical work, it also suggest traditional landscape painting, forming a connection between experience and 

representation. 

Exhibitions (solo): Kukje Gallery, Seoul, South Korea, 2008. Exhibitions (group): ‘Drawn in the Clouds’, Kiasma 

Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland, 2008; Singapore Biennale, 2008; ‘Thermocline of Art: New Asian 

Waves’, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2007.

HIRAKI SAWA 

b.1977 Ishikawa, Japan 


Hiraki Sawa’s video animations are subtle reflections on ideas of time and motion, travel and mobility, displacement 

and dislocation. Having lived between London and Japan for many years, cultural mobility has formed a key reference 

for his work. An ongoing strand of Sawa’s work has been the nature of fantasy, and his narrative sequences are often 

about journeying into real, subconscious or imagined worlds. Sawa has recently expanded his practice to include 

elaborate multi-screen installations, such as Hako 2007, which features six screens depicting coastal areas in Japan 

and the United Kingdom. This focus on the natural world acts as a vehicle for his interest in transformation while 

moving beyond the contained interiors of earlier works, and enables multiple narratives and perspectives. For APT6, 

Sawa will produce a new multi-channel video work responding to aspects of the Australian landscape. 

Exhibitions (solo): Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK, 2007; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, 2006. 

Exhibitions (group): Media City Seoul Biennale, Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea, 2006; Yokohama Triennale, 

Japan, 2005; Biennial of Valencia, Spain, 2005. 

SHIRANA SHAHBAZI 

b.1974 Tehran, Iran 

Lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland 

Trained in photography and design in Germany and Switzerland, Shirana Shahbazi has extended her grounding in 

photography to produce work that is architectural in scale. Described as an artist who challenges expectations, 

Shahbazi works across disciplines (photography, billboard painting, mural painting and weaving) and genre 

(portraiture, still life and landscape) while drawing on the great cultural traditions of her native Iran as well as those of 

Europe. She is best known for her large-scale wall-based tableaux, which combine paintings, photographs and murals 

and use the skills of Iranian billboard painters. These vast collages contemplate the rich iconographies and histories 

that inform her choice of imagery. A key source is vanitas painting — a genre of still life produced in Europe during the 

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which often included skulls and timepieces to remind viewers of the transience 

and brevity of life. Shahbazi juxtaposes such imagery with other still-life traditions, such as the flowers and birds of 

illuminated manuscripts, which reflect the centuries-old exchange of images and ideas between Persia, Mughal India, 

Europe and China. For APT6, Shirana Shahbazi will present a major suite of works in the Long Gallery of the Gallery 

of Modern Art. 

Exhibitions (solo): Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK, 2007; Swiss Institute, New York, USA, 2007; Centre d’Art 

Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland, 2005. Exhibitions (group): Sharjah Biennial, UAE, 2005; 50th Biennale of Venice, 

Italy, 2003. 

SHOOSHIE SULAIMAN 

b.1973 Muar, Johor, Malaysia 

Lives and works in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 

Susyilawati (Shooshie) Sulaiman’s installations, drawings, books and collages combine an interest in language, history 

and memory with a desire for personal communication and expression. Her works constitute a kind of archive, infusing 

the social and artistic histories of Malaysia with her own responses and experiences. Sulaiman’s work in the 

‘documenta 12’ exhibition in Germany in 2007, for example, comprised two small books that included notes, images 

and collaged elements, which were ‘performed’ by the artist as one-on-one readings and discussions with gallery 

visitors. Her recent body of work, to be presented at APT6, will feature an evocative wooden room filled with a series of 

photographic collages. Created from discarded family portraits that the artist collected in Kuala Lumpur and Melaka 

(Malacca), the collages include texts, drawings and flower petals, investing the artist’s own imaginary set of 

relationships and narratives into the photographs. 

Exhibitions (group): ‘The Independence Project’, Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia / Gertrude Contemporary 

Art Spaces, Melbourne, Australia, 2007–08; ‘documenta 12’, Kassel, Germany, 2007; ‘Wahana’, National Art Gallery, 

Kuala Lumpur, 2003.

THUKRAL AND TAGRA 

Jiten Thukral 

b.1976 Jalandhar, Punjab, India 

Sumir Tagra 

b.1979 New Delhi, India 

Live and work in Gurgaon, Haryana, India 

Thukral and Tagra have been working collaboratively since 2000. Their multimedia practice reflects the dynamism and 

ambition of India’s rapidly growing economy, while commenting upon consumer culture and social aspirations. 

Encompassing painting, sculpture, installation and video, as well as fashion and product design, interior design and 

graphics, the work of these versatile artists is characterised by exuberant colour, elaborate imagery and wicked 

humour, blurring the boundaries between advertising, branding, retail and art. For APT6, Thukral and Tagra will create 

an installation that brings together their varied work in art and design. The work is conceived around the dreams of 

young people in India, in particular the Punjabi people of the country’s north, dreams that involve emigrating to other 

countries, often at great cost to themselves and their families. Thukral and Tagra’s work will explore the tension 

between aspiration and reality through a highly constructed domestic space, featuring paintings, sculpture, video and 

consumer objects. 

Exhibitions (solo): Nature Morte, Berlin, Germany, 2009; Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney, Australia, 2008; Bose Pacia, 

New York, USA, 2007; Nature Morte, New Delhi, India, 2007. Exhibitions (group): ‘Chalo! India’, Mori Art Museum, 

Tokyo, Japan, 2008. www.thukralandtagra.com 

CHARWEI TSAI 

b.1980 Taipei, Taiwan 

Lives and works in Paris, France; New York, United States; and Taipei, Taiwan 

Charwei Tsai’s practice draws on an interest in calligraphy and her study of Buddhism, in particular the ideas of 

transience and impermanence that are at the heart of Buddhist philosophy. For APT6 Charwei Tsai will present her 

‘Mushroom mantra’ working with the monks from the Chung Tian Temple in Brisbane. This work will use the 

prajnaparamita or Heart Sutra, a central Buddhist text that describes the concept of emptiness, and the transient 

relationship between the individual and the universe. Tsai also applies her texts to lotus leaves, tofu and other organic 

matter, covering the objects with calligraphy to create richly textured surfaces. Over time the object changes form and 

gradually decomposes, reiterating the ideas of impermanence and change which are pivotal to her work. Tsai’s choice 

of materials reflects the location in which her work is made; the materials create direct and intimate connections with 

the viewer, and the writing of the texts upon them is incorporated into the works as a form of performance. 

Exhibitions (solo): Osage Gallery, Hong Kong, China, 2009; Gallery Sora, Tokyo, Japan, 2008. Exhibitions (group): 

‘Traces du Sacrê’, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 2008; Singapore Biennale, 2006. www.charwei.com

VANUATU SCULPTORS 

Chief Michel Marakon 

b.c.1950 Ambrym Island, Newea Village, Vanuatu 

Chief Louis Wunbae 

b.1951 Ambrym Island, Newea Village, Vanuatu 

Chief Joachin Kilfan 

b.c.1953 Ambrym Island, Halhal Village, Vanuatu 

Bongnaim Frederick 

b.c.1957 Ambrym Island, Newea Village, Vanuatu 

Mansak's Family 

Ambrym Island, Ranpupupre Village, Vanuatu 

Freddy Bule 

b.c.1947 Ambrym Island, Fanla Village, Vanuatu 

Michel Rangie 

b.c.1950 Ambrym Island, Olal Village, Vanuatu 

Live and work in North Ambrym, Vanuatu 

The Queensland Art Gallery has recently acquired a magnificent collection of Temar sculptures, Mague rite figures and 

slit drums from Ambrym Island, Vanuatu. Geographically isolated, the north of the island is considered an area where 

kastom (customary government, law and religion) has been strongly retained. These sculptures are representative of 

one of the most important forms of art making in Vanuatu and are made from breadfruit, ferns and local fibres. The 

mague sculptures play a central role within the contemporary articulation of kastom in North Ambrym. Ambrymese 

society is structured around chiefs who rise through a series of grades. Each rise in rank is marked by a ceremony and 

the creation of a sculpture, and each work is unique, based on the chief’s social position at the time. The slit drums are 

used in the ceremonies, and the temar sculptures are created as memorials to ancestor spirits and represent the 

strength, dynamism and vital nature of Ambrymese culture. Powerful, bold and expressive of a rich artistic tradition, 

this collection of sculptures reflects and represents the taboos guiding the ni-Vanuatu kastom of North Ambrym. 

Although created using customary practices, these works also demonstrate the dynamic nature of Ambrymese culture 

as it responds to contemporary issues and influences. An eagerness to communicate the importance of Ambrymese 

culture, and thus maintain it, has resulted in outsiders being given access to these rare works. 

ROHAN WEALLEANS 

b.1977 Invercargill, New Zealand 


Rohan Wealleans’s practice is a unique fusion of painting and sculpture. Wealleans makes intricate and tactile objects 

from a broad array of materials, including paint, polystyrene, rope, fishing buoys, fibreglass and ceramic beads. 

Bulbous forms are then crafted using a laborious process that involves coating the sculptures with up to 300 layers of 

house paint. Once completed, these dense surfaces are excised with a knife to reveal a richly coloured underbelly, as 

well as making a performative link to the artist’s fascination with B-grade horror and slasher films. The under-colours 

resemble millefiori glass or a lunar landscape, and are a literal evocation of the artist’s interest in exposing that which 

is hidden. In recent works, Wealleans has created a fictional Pacific island with its own set of customs and deities. A 

self-portrait of the artist as a monster who is the ‘slave of the cannibal God’ both parodies concepts of identity and 

reveals his roguish approach to considerations of his own cultural history. APT6 will present painting and sculpture by 

Wealleans, as well as his Venus flytrap-like ‘horrorgami’ works, in which trashy horror-film posters spurt paper shards 

among viscous, visceral layers of paint. 

Exhibitions (solo): Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Australia, 2008; Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, 

2006; Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand, 2006. Exhibitions (group): TarraWarra Biennial, TarraWarra Museum 

of Art, Victoria, Australia, 2008; ‘Just Painting’, Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand, 2006; 26th São Paulo Bienal, 

Brazil, 2004.

BALE JIONE 

b.1952 Moce, Fiji 

Lives and works in Suva, Fiji 

LEBA TOKI 

b.1951 Moce, Fiji 

Lives and works in Lautoka, Fiji 

ROBIN WHITE 

b.1946 Te Puke, Aotearoa, New Zealand 

Lives and works in Masterton, New Zealand 

Robin White is a significant New Zealand artist who has developed a comprehensive practice since the 1970s. White’s 

recent collaborative work with Leba Toki and Bale Jione is inspired by her experience of living for many years in 

Kiribati, in the central Pacific. Both Toki and Jione are from Moce in the Lau group of islands of Fiji, which is renowned 

for its masi (barkcloth) work. Barkcloth is a material created throughout the Pacific, incorporating unique cultural 

aspects of each region. The patterning of masi lends itself to the introduction of images and symbols that represent the 

diversity of contemporary Fijian society, including a strong history of migrant experience. Toki and her family live near 

the largest sugar mill in Fiji, and this sweet commodity is the starting point for their collaborative work. Responding to 

interracial Fijian weddings, White, Toki and Jione have created a series of new barkcloths for APT6. These works 

reference the artists’ Baha’i faith, the history of indentured Indian labour in Fiji, the sugar industry itself and the 

tensions and opportunities that arise from the diversity that constitutes contemporary Fiji today. 

Robin White: Exhibitions (solo): Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2005; 

Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand, 2003. Exhibitions (group): ‘Painters as Printmakers’, Christchurch Art Gallery Te 

Puna o Waiwhetu, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2007; ‘Winged Wonders’, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, New 

Zealand, 2005; ‘Islands in the Sun’, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia, 2001. 

YANG SHAOBIN 

b. 1963 Tangshan, Hebei Province, China 

Lives and works in Beijing, China 

Yang Shaobin’s paintings are known for their refined composition, rich narrative and incisive commentary on the 

changing social landscape of China. The personal experience of growing up in a coal-mining town in rural China has 

informed his recent series of paintings and sculptures, entitled X—Blind Spot. Since 2004, he has been visiting the 

coal-mining districts in Hebei Province, Shanxi Province and Inner Mongolia, and has documented the situation of 

coal-mining communities. Coal, cheap and readily available, is the fuel of choice in China, and provides most of its 

energy. In observing the day-to-day experiences of China’s open-cut coal miners, Yang Shaobin examines the working 

conditions and social effects that are related to the production of coal in China, and considers the tensions between 

the individual and the collective in China’s changing economy. 

Exhibitions (solo): Long March Space, Beijing, China, 2008; Alexander Ochs Gallery, Berlin, 2007. Exhibitions (group): 

‘The Real Thing’, Tate Liverpool, UK, 2007; 48th Biennale of Venice, Italy, 1999.

YAO JUI-CHUNG 

b.1969, Taipei, Taiwan 

Lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan 

Yao Jui-chung’s practice explores the complex construction of Taiwanese culture, including its entanglement with Cold 

War ideology during the martial law period of 1948–87, the country’s successful embracing of capitalism and the 

concurrent effects of multinationalism. APT6 will feature a major group of Yao’s evocative black-and-white 

photographs of destroyed, abandoned and weathered buildings, sculptures of religious idols, and military structures 

from Taiwanese islands. These works form part of an ongoing project that considers the idea of an ‘aesthetics of ruin’ 

that marks the rise and fall of power over time and, as the artist puts it, probes ‘the absurdity of the historical destiny of 

humanity’. 

Exhibitions (solo): Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan, 2006. Exhibitions (group): ‘Spectacle: To Each His Own’, 

Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan, 2009; Yokohama Triennale, Japan, 2005; Taiwanese Pavilion, 47th 

Biennale of Venice, Italy, 1997. www.yaojuichung.com 

YNG 

Yoshitomo Nara 

b.1959 Hirosaki, Japan 

Lives and works in Toshigi, Japan 

graf media gm 

est.1993 Osaka, Japan 

Yoshitomo Nara, one of Japan’s best known contemporary artists, regularly collaborates, under the acronym YNG, 

with Osaka-based architectural firm graf to construct playful and whimsical interactive environments, extending Nara’s 

fascination with the experience of childhood. The spaces YNG create range from intimate nooks and hideaway huts to 

miniature villages, built in response to the environment, materials and architecture of the sites where the works are 

made. As with many of YNG’s works, the installation commissioned for APT6 will use reclaimed timbers and found 

materials to form the structure, while the interior spaces will be filled with Nara’s iconic drawings and objects. An 

encounter with YNG’s world inspires a sense of wonder and discovery and explores how we respond to our 

surroundings. 

Yoshitomo Nara is internationally renowned for his ‘super-flat’ drawings, paintings and sculptures of mischievous 

children and animals. Strongly influenced by punk music, anime, manga and Marvel comics, Nara’s work is also 

inspired by his own childhood memories and experiences. His iconic, cartoon-like characters channel experiences of 

anxiety and fear, undercutting idealised notions of childhood innocence. While considered a cult figure in his native 

Japan, his works transcend national and cultural boundaries and are widely integrated into Western popular culture. 

Graf is a creative design group established in Osaka in 1993 by Shigeki Hattori, Hiroto Aranishi, Kenji Tokyura, Hideki 

Toyoshima, Takashi Matsui and Yuji Nozawa. Their interdisciplinary studio practice ranges across architecture, 

interiors, fashion and furniture design, and investigates the crossovers between art and craft, and design and 

architecture. Their arts and cultural branch, graf media gm, run a gallery space, a music label and a publishing house. 

Collaboration is intrinsic to all facets of their work, and since 2003 they have been working with Yoshitomo Nara to 

create a range of site-specific installations in gallery settings. 

Exhibitions (YNG, solo): BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, 2008; Museum of Contemporary Art, 

Den Haag, The Netherlands, 2007; Contemporary Art Centre, Malaga, Spain, 2007; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New 

York, USA, 2005. Exhibitions (YNG, group): ‘KITA!!: Japanese Artists Meet Indonesia’, Cemeti Art House, Yogyakarta, 

Indonesia, 2008; Yokohama Triennale, Japan, 2005.

JI WENYU & ZHU WEIBING 

Ji Wenyu 

b.1959 Shanghai, China 

Zhu Weibing 

b.1971 Heilongjiang, China 

Live and work in Shanghai, China 

Zhu Weibing and Ji Wenyu have been making textile-based sculptures together since 2003. Their delicately balanced 

works owe much to Zhu’s training as a fashion designer and art professor, while Ji worked previously as a painter, 

incorporating a critical take on Western Pop art in particular. In their soft sculptures, the artists comment on 

consumerism and social aspirations in post-Cultural Revolution China. With People holding flowers 2007, the artists 

have selected a subject that contains potent symbolism for Chinese culture, recalling Chairman Mao’s dictum which 

preceded the bloody purges of his Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1957. Using the flowers’ symbolism, the artists 

contrast the de-individualising effects of mass consumption with the subservience of the individual to the state under 

communism. With this work, Zhu Weibing and Ji Wenyu take up the significant legacies of Cynical Realism and 

Political Pop, applying their perceptions to an era of collective consumerism. 

Exhibitions (solo): ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai, China, 2008, 2007 and 2006. Exhibitions (group): ‘Red Hot: Asian 

Art Today’, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA, 2007. 

ENDS

MEDIA KIT - Queensland Art Gallery - Queensland Government

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