All a Part – 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10)
In March and April 2022, Asialink Arts led a collaboration with the Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Griffith Asia Institute and WestSpace Arts to convene a series of three professional development forums on Zoom titled All a Part. All a Part included 20 speakers from across 15 countries, and coincided with the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial (APT10) exhibition at QAGOMA in Brisbane that took place from December 2021 to April 2022. The three sessions focused on the contested natures and narratives of visibility and invisibility, communities and futures.
All a Part attracted audiences in excess of 200 for each session from across Australia and the Asia-Pacific. Twenty bursaries for emerging artists and writers to attend and reflect on the sessions were made available and supported through the networks of WestSpace based in Naarm/Melbourne. In addition, Griffith Asia Institute and Asialink Arts commissioned new writing and critiques of each session from four writers and published these independently.
Lee Paje, The Stories that Weren’t Told, 2019, Collection: QAGOMA, Purchased 2021 with funds from Terry and Mary Peabody and Mary-Jeanne Hutchinson through the QAGOMA Foundation, © Lee Paje
About the Series
APT10 marked a considerable milestone in QAGOMA’s history as it approached 30 years of working with artists, commissioning new works and developing collaborative projects that celebrated the geographic, linguistic and cultural diversity of the Asia-Pacific.
All a Part was a free series of virtual forums that created a sense of community, connection and discussion on key themes of the tenth iteration.
All a Part provided a critical juncture for the coming together of the voices that have helped shaped the exhibition and to invite the broader Australian and international arts communities into the conversation.
Over three consecutive weeks artists, interlocutors, collaborators and curators from the APT10 discussed key conceptual frames that have emerged in APT10 and offered insights into the changing conditions and practices of artists in Australia and the Asia-Pacific.
Three interconnected themes centred on the contested natures and narratives of visibility and invisibility, communities and futures, were explored through presentations, panel discussions and screenings with time and space provided for discussion and networking. Admission was free.
Twenty bursaries were made available through open call to emerging Australian based artists and arts workers, to encourage attendance and participation, with the aim of developing connections, seeding future collaborations and investing in international engagement.
Reflections on All a Part
All a Part commenced on Wednesday, March 23 and continued March 30 and April 6, 2022 from 2pm-4pm AEST/3pm-5pm AEDT.
Following the All a Part: APT10 Professional Engagement series of forums, Asialink Arts commissioned emerging writer Caitlin Hughes to reflect upon and summarise the key themes of each forum. This series of writings released iteratively and finally as downloadable document, re-captures and frames the discussions between artists, curators and interlocutors. We hope this will propel conversations for the development of the next Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art and stimulate discussion on these important issues that are always evolving.
For more information on presenters, panellists and moderators, and to read the reflections on each workshop, please visit the links below. The reflections on the forums are also available as a PDF here.
All a Part: APT10 Professional Engagement Forums
Workshop 1: Visibility / Invisibility
Whose stories and what kinds of stories are made visible through the arts? Why are these narratives amplified, and what is missing or obscured in the process? How can we better understand the structures of invisibility as they manifest in the arts sector – especially through the curatorial, market and art-historical forces – and find new ways to address them?
RECORDED: Wednesday March 23, 2022. 2PM–4PM AEST / 3PM–5PM AEDT.
Read the first reflection on visibilities/invisibilities here.
Workshop 2: Communities
The second All a Part workshop examined networks of community. Associations between community and the arts goes to the heart of what is important for many aspects of the contemporary arts ecology: culture, family, identity and belonging.
RECORDED: Wednesday March 30, 2022. 2PM–4PM AEST / 3PM–5PM AEDT.
Read the second reflection on Communities here.
Workshop 3: Futures
The final workshop in the All a Part series examined the idea of futures. This theme linked closely to the main focus of APT10, which was centred on the ‘future of art and the world we inhabit together’.1 Through emphasis on speculative, plural and imaginative connotations of futures, there was a chance to reflect on the way that themes of the future are entangled with art practice today, what the past can tell us about the future, and what the future of art means in the context of global threats such as climate change.
RECORDED: Wednesday April 6, 2022. 2PM–4PM AEST.
Read the third reflection on Futures here.
All a Part was made possible by the collaborative curatorial and conceptual development of partners at QAGOMA and its team behind The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Asialink Arts and the Griffith Asia Institute.
Asialink is grateful for the assistance provided by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
