Hu Yun is fascinated by personalities who have moved from one place to another, and by the ways in which migration has contributed to the shape of particular localities. Based in Melbourne for most of 2020 and 2021, Hu Yun was drawn to the study of mining, which has played a significant role in Australia’s engagements with China — from the migration of Cantonese labourers working in the goldfields of the nineteenth century to the current centrality of mineral resources to diplomatic and trade relations between the two countries.
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Hu Yun, China/Serbia b.1986 / It is not mine to give, nor yours to take (detail) 2021 / Mineral-based watercolour and inkjet print on Fabriano 300gsm paper / Two scrolls: 70 x 800cm (each, approx.) / Commissioned for ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10) / Courtesy & © Hu Yun / View full image
With a longstanding interest in tropical flora, Hu Yun came across cutting-edge research being undertaken at the Sustainable Minerals Institute at the University of Queensland (UQ). ‘Phyto-rehabilitation’ is a process in which plants are used to extract mineral trace elements from soil, particularly nutrient-hungry species known as ‘hyperaccumulators’ or ‘superplants’. Its primary application is in ‘cleaning’ toxic metals from mining sites that have been exhausted and often abandoned. Such superplants may be as rare as Neptunia amplexicaulis , a legume endemic only to the area around Richmond and Hughenden in Central Queensland, near fossilised coral deposits from Australia’s Cretaceous-era inland sea that give it an unusual appetite for selenium. They might also be as prevalent as the manganese-loving Macadamia integriflolia , native to south-east Queensland and commercially cultivated for its nut.
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Hu Yun, China/Serbia b.1986 / It is not mine to give, nor yours to take 2021 / Mineral-based watercolour and inkjet print on Fabriano 300gsm paper / Two scrolls: 70 x 800cm (each, approx.) / Commissioned for ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10) / Courtesy & © Hu Yun / View full image
Considering his own difficulties in understanding the dense Latin names of the superplants, Hu Yun was reminded of the linguistic and ethnic barriers faced by Chinese labourers on the Victorian goldfields. Reviewing registers of family names at Bendigo’s Golden Dragon Museum, he was struck by the historical irregularities in rendering Chinese names into English. Many variances could be explained by differences in dialect and approaches to transliteration, but others were more enigmatic, such as names with no clear Chinese origin, attempts at translation into English and apparent adoption of European names, perhaps taken from other miners in the field.
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Antony van der Ent X-ray fluorescence elemental maps of hyperaccumulator plants (detail) 2021 / Digital print on Fujifilm Crystal Pearl paper / 2 sheets: 50 x 400cm (each); installed sizeView full image
Commissioned for APT10, It is not mine to give, nor yours to take 2021 consists of a pair of eight-metre-long scrolls, shown back-to- back in the gallery space. One scroll features watercolour drawings of these superplants, using specially developed pigments based on the minerals they extract, among them zinc, nickel, cadmium, cobalt and, of course, selenium and manganese. The second scroll is composed of intensely colour-coded visualisations of the plants’ chemical distribution streams, produced by UQ ecophysiologist Dr Antony van der Ent from X-ray imagery using high energy electron beams at the Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne. To create the earthy textures of the scroll, Hu Yun sought out soil, stones, weeds and leaves from a nineteenth-century Chinese dig site in Castlemaine, Victoria. There, he treated the paper with the technique of nature printing — a method of making images through direct impressions of natural materials — by pressing them into the surface of the scroll, rolling and binding it, then finally boiling it in water heated on site.
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Hu Yun, China/Serbia b.1986 / It is not mine to give, nor yours to take 2021 / Mineral-based watercolour and inkjet print on Fabriano 300gsm paper / Two scrolls: 70 x 800cm (each, approx.) / Commissioned for ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10) / Courtesy & © Hu Yun / View full image
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Hu Yun, China/Serbia b.1986 / It is not mine to give, nor yours to take 2021 / Mineral-based watercolour and inkjet print on Fabriano 300gsm paper / Two scrolls: 70 x 800cm (each, approx.) / Commissioned for ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10) / Courtesy & © Hu Yun / View full image
Materially and thematically, Hu Yun brings the historical experience of Chinese workers whose names were recorded so inconsistently together with a technology that promises a possible future, inviting a range of ethical questions. ‘Just so much information and hidden stories’, he reflects. ‘Who are these names? Who were they really? It reminds me of those plants. Who are these plants? Do we really know them? Do we really care?’[1]
Reuben Keehan is Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, QAGOMAThe 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
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On display in ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art ’ at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane from 4 December 2021 to 26 April 2022
Supported by the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations
Endnotes ^ Hu Yun, email to the author, 13 June 2021.
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The fibrous souls 2018–21 currently in the Queensland Art Gallery Watermall is constructed with 70 giant shikas — embroidered, reticulated bags typically made of jute strings that are tied to a beam in the ceiling of houses and used to hold pots and food containers — Shikas are found in almost every house in rural Bangladesh and are traditionally made at home by families. Their designs, knotting and decoration varies between regions.
Kamruzzaman Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts expansive installation focuses on a part of Bengal’s complex and pervasive colonial history through personal stories of movement and displacement, the artwork articulates how a small part of the community came to settle in the surrounding villages.
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Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Bangladesh b.1974 / Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, Bangladesh, est. 2001; Collaborating artists: Johura Begum, Monowara Begum, Majeda Begum, Fatema Begum (1), Shabnur Begum, Chayna Begum, Fatema Begum (2), Samiron Begum, Shirina Begum, Rekha, Nasima Begum, Shushila Rani, Protima Rani, Akalu Barman / The fibrous souls 2018–21 / Jute, cotton, thread, clay, brass / 70 pots: 40–100cm each (diam.) (approx.) with 70 shikas of various dimensions / Originally commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation / Purchased 2021 with funds from Metamorphic Foundation through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane / © The artists
Stories that inspired the artwork are drawn from families that had followed the railway tracks from what is now Bangladesh into India, after the British East India Company established the Eastern Bengal Railway. Operating under British Indian rule from 1892 to 1942, the railway served the profiteering trade interests of British India, fuelled by locally produced commodities such as jute, indigo and opium. The domination of these cash crops led to food scarcity, debt and land loss, forcing people — such as the ancestors of the Thakurgaon jute makers — to turn away from farming their own lands.
Families gradually left their homes to follow opportunities along the railway to Assam; however, during the 1947 Partition of India, they found themselves separated from their homes by a new national border, only to be forced back over from India into what had become East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). They settled along the Brahmaputra River in the regions by the new border dividing Bengal. As this vast river continually eroded, their plight turned from political to ecological migration, slowly moving westwards until they settled in Thakurgaon.
Over more than 20 years, Kamruzzaman Shadhin has developed new possibilities for contemporary art in Bangladesh, centred around the communities of his home village of Balia in the far north-western state of Thakurgaon. In 2001, he established Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts to work with local indigenous Santhal communities. The foundation seeks to be a catalyst for social inclusivity through collaborative approaches.
Shadhin is also one of Bangladesh’s foremost contemporary artists, known for his installations and performances that address environmental and social issues, particularly those facing regional Bangladesh and its communities. Together with Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, he produces ambitious contemporary art projects, driven by the principles of community development and exploring shared culture and histories.
Working with 13 women hailing from jute-making families to construct the shikas, along with a handful of other local craftspeople to create the pots and connecting jute ropes, Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts have constructed a giant hanging system of shikas, laid out as the map of the historic Eastern Bengal Railway that began this story.
The women created their own designs on the shikas, so each is unique and features various wrapping and knotting techniques and additional decoration. The shikas hold brass, jute and clay storage pots, which are suspended over water for APT10. The hanging pots each symbolise the stations of towns and cities on the railway map — from Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Chittagong (now Chattogram) in the south, to Darjeeling and Guwahati in the north — signifying the defining role this piece of colonial infrastructure has played in shaping their lives. In Shadhin’s words, the installation is
an attempt to interweave these historical and cultural strands that seem apparently and innocently disconnected, and connect these to the present-day peasant conditions in Assam and Bengal.
The project draws together members of communities to explore their own stories and cultural practices — and is a product of the unique practice Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts have developed. Imbued with local and social values, it is a practice that advocates and finds in regional communities new pathways for contemporary art that are not reliant on art centres or global arts discourse, revealing new possibilities for art production to audiences far from where they emerge.
Tarun Nagesh is Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, QAGOMA
This is an edited extract from the QAGOMA publication The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art available in-store and online from the QAGOMA Store.
A Diasporic Mythology 2021 is a kinetic and sound installation commissioned for ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10) and developed from Bagus Pandega’s interest in the historical narratives and circulation of instruments.
The artist became fascinated with a particular koto instrument, named a Taishogoto, dating to the Taisho period (1912–26), that he stumbled across in Japan. This particular historical version of the stringed instrument (also known as the Nagoya harp) was developed by a musician in Nagoya and varied greatly in design from the classical koto by incorporating automation, through typewriter-like keys, influenced by Western music structures. Its popularity was fleeting, although it had a considerable influence on instruments outside of Japan at the time, and the instrument is seldom used today.
Pandega has also been scouring Indonesia for instruments that directly resemble the Taishogoto but are considered native to their locations and are commonly used in ritual ceremonies. The installation A Diasporic Mythology brings together different examples of these Indonesian instruments — including a Mandaliong, Balinese Penting, Kecapi Sijobang and Lombok Penting — in an arrangement together with a single Japanese Taishogoto.
Tea plants are connected to sensors that follow musical notations on a paper roll derived from interviews Pandega conducted with musicians. These then trigger solenoid drivers with a rotating motor attached to each key of the instruments, allowing the score to be played. The tea plants become the centre of the installation and signify a further exploration of historical cultural influence between the two countries: the first tea plants were brought to Indonesia from Japan by the Dutch in the seventeenth century in an attempt to replicate the success of British tea cultivating in India, as part of a trade that would lead to the colonisation of Indonesia. On a tea branch in the centre of the installation a series of LED screens shows close-up footage of performers in Indonesia, which returns the performers to the sounds of the instruments and the local contexts and ritualised space they are associated with locally.
A Diasporic Mythology becomes a layering of sound, visuals and mechanics, carefully pieced together by Pandega through a sprawling system of custom-made devices. Yet through all the tangle of connecting apparatus, the artist draws out the fascinating history of these objects and the people, stories and ceremonies that have gradually evolved around them.
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Bagus Pandega, Indonesia b.1985 / A Diasporic Mythology 2021 / String instruments: Taishogoto, Mandaliong, Balinese Penting, Kecapi Sijobang, Lombok Penting; tea plants (Camellia sinensis), LED screens, motors, solenoids, Midi Sprout, custom electronic and mechanic system, glass jar, vinyl paper, custom 3D-printed parts, zincplated steel, teak wood, copper, acrylic and instrument stand / Commissioned for ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10) / Courtesy and ©: Bagus Pandega and ROH Projects, Jakarta
Watch | Koto performance alongside Bagus Pandega’s APT10 artwork
Bagus Pandega
Bagus Pandega’s sculptures and installations are a cacophonous web of mechanical, sound, light and automated kinetic constructions. The artist builds objects and devices into modular systems that operate as live and active multi-sensory sculptures, and his works reveal a passion for applied technologies and developing narratives around social contexts. A graduate of the Institut Teknologi Bandung, Pandega is a prominent member of a generation of artists in Bandung who have become known for incorporating technologies and experimental practices in their works, in contrast to other Indonesian art centres that are commonly associated with paradigms of representational, political and collective practices.
Pandega offers new ways to navigate objects and their intended utility, creating layered sound and visual experiences activated by custom-made electronics. A sense of simplicity underlies the complex set-ups, however, with wiring and older, pre-digital technologies left deliberately exposed. Each work gives considered focus to particular devices — lights, screens, amplifiers, instruments — as Pandega refines the ways they operate around a nexus of systems. Cheap and everyday technologies, such as amassed motorcycle lights, beacons, megaphones, small rotating motors, circuit boards and basic LED matrix screens are combined with industrial and machine materials, toys, instruments and cymbal stands from drumkits. Recent works have also introduced natural materials, carefully selected not only to contribute to the narrative that underlies the works but also for their biological energy and mechanical triggering potential. Plants and flowers are incorporated in installations, connected through MIDI sprouts — which convert biodata from plants into music — to trigger instruments and mechanics.
Tarun Nagesh is Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, QAGOMA
This is an edited extract from the QAGOMA publication The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art available in-store and online from the QAGOMA Store.
