Women’s Wealth is a collaboration between QAGOMA and three Buka women: co-curator Sana Balai and artists Taloi and Marilyn Havini. Inspiration for the project originated in these women’s shared dream. Sana Balai, Independent Curator, Community Elder, and co-curator of the Women’s Wealth exhibition at ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9) gives a background to the art project that engages with the ongoing importance and richness of women’s creativity. Sana Balai discusses the importance of Women’s Wealth Subscribe to QAGOMA YouTube to go behind-the-scenes Where are the women makers? Observing art exhibitions over the past two decades, artists from Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands have been highly represented; however, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville and its neighbours in the Solomon Islands — Choiseul and Shortland — have had little or no representation at all. There is also a tendency for Melanesian art to be thought of as ‘art made by men’. Where are the women makers from the islands of the Solomon Sea? Women’s Wealth is one answer, and was born out of conversations involving Ruth McDougall, QAGOMA’s Curator of Pacific Art, artist Taloi Havini and me over the last five years. After 20 years working in the museum sector in Australia, I felt this project offered us an opportunity to draw attention to this largely overlooked region of the Asia Pacific. In effect, the Women’s Wealth project was a blank canvas. Once the pride of the Pacific with its serene ocean views and picturesque landscapes, Bougainville has been almost completely destroyed by the Bougainville crisis. This recent history has significantly impacted the people in many ways, and they hold unspoken and painful secrets as a result. In this context, galleries and art centres are non-existent. Singing, dancing, carving, weaving and painting are practised, but ‘art’ is a Western word or concept that people are not familiar with; instead, ‘craft’ is the word widely used when referring to aesthetic expression. Stay Connected: Subscribe to QAGOMA Blog Research for Women’s Wealth started on Buka Island in April 2017. We were welcomed by the Hakö Women’s Collective and the Yumi Yet Bamboo Band from Lontis village. With guidance from teacher Marilyn Havini, we visited markets, met with artists and visited communities. We talked about the project, its focus on women, and its presentation in APT9. Our research then took us to the main island of Bougainville. We were visiting communities severely affected by the crisis, and we didn’t know what we would find. McDougall worked with the women, showed them images of artworks, and sat with them weaving, drawing and encouraging them to teach her Tok Pisin. I sat with the men, discussed cultural protocols and the importance of keeping our culture alive through art. McDougall and I emphasised the importance of protecting their cultural knowledge. A similar trip to Taro Island on Choiseul in the Solomon Islands involved meeting artists both at the markets and through McDougall’s contacts from previous visits to Honiara. As part of this trip, nine artists from Bougainville, four from the Solomon Islands and four artists from Australia were selected to participate in a special workshop in Chabai. The Nazareth Rehabilitation Centre in Chabai plays an important role in Bougainville society, as it protects women and children affected by violence. The first day of the workshop was challenging: women didn’t know one another and language and self-confidence were proving barriers to participation. On the second day, everyone was excited, and by the fifth day, everyone asked: ‘Are we going back next week?’. Women shared materials, taught each other techniques and talked about their art and culture. As one artist shared with me: We are not looking forward to next week because what we have worked out together is that here we are not wives, we are not mothers or grandmothers, we are just women doing what we love to do. The Bougainville Women’s Wealth project began as a blank canvas, a canvas that is now filled with stories, both traditional and contemporary. It is proof of a living culture with a wealth of knowledge. The women of Bougainville are the holders of cultural knowledge; it is their wealth — this is their story. Sana Balai, Co-curator Women’s Wealth SUBSCRIBE to QAGOMA YouTube to go behind-the-scenes The importance of women’s voices Ruth McDougall, Curator of Pacific Art at QAGOMA highlights the inspiration for a project to develop understanding of the Bougainville and Solomon Islands region, and to provide Bougainville women with opportunities to engage in new creative conversations. Women’s Wealth is a project highlighting the importance of women’s voices in the predominantly matrilineal societies of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville and the nearby provinces of the Solomon Islands. At the heart of the project is a belief in the capacity of art to both engage diverse audiences in new understandings, and contribute to sustainable and socially cohesive communities. Focusing on vibrant cultural practices, such as weaving, pottery and body adornment, Women’s Wealth celebrates the ways in which indigenous women create forms of great aesthetic and cultural significance, assert continuing connections to people and place, and transfer knowledge and maintain livelihoods, as well as affirm a sense of collective agency and authority. Related: Women’s Wealth Interactive Tour As part of this project, Bougainville women were reconnected with artists from the nearby Solomon Islands, with whom they share strong linguistic and cultural ties, but who are divided by political boundaries. A small, predominantly Indigenous, group of artists from Australia working in similar media were also invited to participate in the project. To launch Women’s Wealth, a group of 19 women from across these three regions came together for a ten-day workshop in September 2017. As a result of this workshop, the artists produced a range of different artworks for APT9. Many artists asked members of their community to authorise the creation of specific cultural forms and to assist in finishing works...

Munem Wasif’s intimate and mysterious encounters in photography and film are created through an unyielding attention to atmosphere, texture, rhythm and movement to capture enigmatic locations and intricate narratives. Kheyal 2015–18 paces through the environment and identities of Old Dhaka, whether real or imagined. Shot over two years, but in development for 17, the work embodies an uncertain, but alluring, return to a place from Wasif’s past: The question is why I went to Old Dhaka again to work. I thought about it a lot. I think there were many unresolved things. I was unable to speak about so many complex emotions. Immaterial things. Stillness in time. Memories of my childhood. It took me almost a decade to realise that architecture, history, sense of community, colloquial language, all these things in Old Dhaka were just creating an atmosphere. I was actually interested in a particular state of mind. A sense of magic realism. Certain characters. Obsessions. Memories. Which Old Dhaka allows to exist. Munem Wasif discusses his work SUBSCRIBE to QAGOMA YouTube to be the first to go behind-the-scenes at Gallery events and exhibitions Old Dhaka is the historic city, now only a small quarter of the Bangladeshi capital, which is one of the largest and most densely populated cities in the world. The old city survived Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim rulers before reaching its zenith under Mughal rule in the seventeenth century, later becoming a seat of colonial power and subsequently a site of violence during the Independence War of 1971. Living amongst the grandeur of neglected Mughal architecture are dynamic social groups and spontaneous neighbourhoods that have evolved into an organic urban web, creating a dramatic hierarchy of spaces around courtyards, narrow lanes and bustling bazaars. Kheyal is imbued with unique sensibilities of music, literature and architecture, together with the connection between land and water that pervades the city. Set in and around the neighbourhoods of Bangla Bazar and Farashganj, it takes us through hidden corridors and empty architecture, crossing shadows in alleyways and confronting the suddenly changing street cultures and ethnic quarters of the city. The camera moves between the inner and outer spaces of the neighbourhoods, slowly tracking between private rooms and outdoor areas with glimpses of busy streets. Related video: Artist Stories Within the cramped, communal arteries are spaces of retreat and respite, where Wasif reveals withdrawn characters in ways that conjure the surreal and magic nature of life that survives in the claustrophobic confines of the old city. He shows the characters ‘lost in certain mental states and found in other magical situations’, where they are ‘tethered to a singular rhythm of their own making’. Osman Ali revels in playing music though he longs to return to his village, the elderly Dadi stares motionless through a window, and the young Nitu eats pomegranate and skips on rooftops, while we follow Ranju through dark and strange dreamlike encounters. Wasif describes his method, where some of the characters are real and others found, as related to Bengali bicchinno poddomala (disjointed verses), and so the film travels seamlessly between fiction and documentary, eluding a singular narrative. Stay Connected: Subscribe to QAGOMA Blog Kheyal navigates between the conscious and subconscious, revealing the artist’s own nostalgia and desire to transcend his circumstances to find an intensely different rhythm of life. Movement and sound are nuanced and intimate — an old typewriter’s keys are struck, instruments are played, food is cooked, and wildlife rummages on the city’s edge — recalling the hovering sounds and layering of repeated vocals in the form of Hindustani classical music known as ‘Kheyal’. Within the ambit of its many narratives, both real and imagined, Munem Wasif’s Kheyal envelops the viewer in the atmosphere and sensory experiences of Old Dhaka. It is a window on a certain time and place, and embodies a discovery of magic realism. Tarun Nagesh is Curator, Asian Art, QAGOMA Subscribe to QAGOMA YouTube to be the first to go behind-the-scenes / Watch or Read more about Asia Pacific artists View the work of Munem Wasif and more on Level 3 at the Gallery of Modern Art until 16 June 2019 during ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ APT9: Extended. Buy the APT9 publication Read more in The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art available online or in-store. The publication represents an important and lasting document of the current artistic landscape of Australia, Asia and the Pacific. APT9 has been assisted by our Founding Supporter Queensland Government and Principal Partner the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. Feature image detail: Munem Wasif Kheyal (still) 2015-18 #MunemWasif #APT9 #QAGOMA