Across QAG and GOMA, ‘The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ will reflect the region’s social and cultural diversity, drawing on a wealth of cultural expression and including artists not previously exhibited in Australia. Asia Pacific Triennial artists consider knowledge in its many forms, following thematic threads such as care for natural and urban environments, intergenerational experiences of migration and labour, and nuanced approaches to storytelling, materials and technique. First Nations, minority and diaspora cultures are crucial to the Asia Pacific Triennial, and the exhibition highlights the collective, performative and community-driven artmaking that thrives in the region. A collection of Education Resources to support your visit to the exhibition will be available online soon.

D Harding’s approach to material and process honours the artist's Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal Country around the Carnarvon Ranges (Kooramindanjie) in Central Queensland. The ongoing research and connection to Carnarvon Gorge has informed many of Harding's works, which respond to ancient artistic and cultural practices while examining colonial and settlement histories through the lens of family experience. For 'The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art', Harding presents Woori red 2024, an installation of woollen felt blankets, saturated with a mixture of gum acacia and earth pigments collected in a shared process with family members from two generations on a journey across Country. Embedded into the fabric by Harding with ‘Woori’ or Woorabinda red, from Ghungalu territory, the blankets embody Country and its stories. Reflecting on the significance of natural pigments as a marker and identifier of Country, Harding has said that they and their cousins can identify a specific location ‘just by pure pigment, an ochre’ and expand on their connections to and ancestral stories associated with that site and colour. The variegated hues, rigid texture and irregular shape of the blankets evoke hides or pelts of animal skin. Hand-felted by Harding in homage to ancestral possum-skin cloaks, the blankets hold a powerful presence, speaking to multiple layers of complicated histories and identities. Edited extract from the publication The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, 2024 Art that leaves a mark Asia Pacific Triennial 30 November 2024 – 27 April 2025 Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Brisbane, Australia Free entry

The expansive mural Tul-an sang aton kamal-aman (Bones of our elders) 2024 commissioned for the Gallery of Modern Art's Pavilion Walk wall during ‘The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ honours the history and indigenous culture of Panay Island in the Philippines through a tribute to local figures, community traditions, ancient cultivation practices and spiritual beliefs. Watch | Installation time-lapse Amid the bustling marketplaces and public spaces on Panay Island, street-side murals by Kikik Kollektive can be found, their large-scale murals as a means to preserve the past. The name Kikik Kollektive signifies the artists’ connection to Iloilo province. The Hiligaynon language is spoken in rural areas of Iloilo, and ‘kikik’ comes from the Hiligaynon word for cicada. Naming the collective after the insect’s loud chatter is symbolic of the way in which the artists stimulate dialogue and exchange in the community The mural’s central figure is Teresa Magbanua — veteran of the Philippine Revolution (1896–98), Philippine–American War (1899–1902) and Japanese occupation of the Philippines (1942–45) — who symbolises colonial resistance. Magbanua is portrayed steadfast in protecting the mangunguma (farmers) behind her, who tend to the bounty of the land, as well as the Aeta, its original inhabitants. The concept of bayanihan (communal unity) and indigenous spiritual beliefs are foregrounded through the activities of the people and the presence of a babaylan (shaman) carrying out rituals near a lunok tree, said to house supernatural beings. Weaving through and around these symbols is the Bakunawa, the Visayan serpent deity whose movements determined the ancient Panayanon calendar. Serpents are revered creatures in Philippine folklore and are considered a physical manifestation of anito (ancestors) in the broader Visayan region, including in Iloilo. The coiled figure of the Bakunawa symbolically connects the people, the land and the spirit world. With their immense, collectively painted mural, Kikik Kollektive present a cacophony of narratives, symbols and characters, forming a bold visual representation of Iloilo that emphasises the stories that have created and shaped its land, people and history. Edited extract from the publication The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, 2024 Art that gives you a voice Asia Pacific Triennial 30 November 2024 – 27 April 2025 Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Brisbane, Australia Free entry

Rithika Merchant’s distinctive paintings — on display in the Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery, the interactive project within the Children's Art Centre at the Gallery of Modern Art, or around the city streets of Brisbane — imagine otherworldly futures in which new worlds, creatures and relationships have evolved after Earth becomes uninhabitable. ‘Beings’ inhabit these future contexts as central characters, surrounded by botanical and anthropomorphic symbols, and Merchant speculates on how their values, beliefs, technologies and relationships to their new worlds might develop to shape new planets to be more habitable. Temporal Structures 2023 In The Pollinator (illustrated), a being grasps the stems of a pollen-rich plant, alluding to engineered pollination as a means of vegetative propagation and engineered cosmogony. Regolith (illustrated) is based on the idea of ant colonies and their ability to self-organise and communicate through their own ecosystem. Vimana (illustrated) shows a wondrous flying chariot based on ideas in the ancient Hindu Vedas and Jain Agamas texts. Inspired by how humpback whales sustain themselves with stored food over long migrations, Silo (illustrated) depicts a character encased in a whale-like shape filled with supplies. In offering a very different vision of what a distant future might look like, Merchant alludes to the grim reality of our current environmental state, questioning the conventions and relationships that have come to threaten it. The Pollinator 2023 Regolith 2023 Vimana 2023 Silo 2023 Children's Art Centre During Asia Pacific Triennial Kids, Rithika Merchant invites children to envision a new world in If the Seeds Chose Where to Grow 2024 (illustrated), the project builds on the idea of terraforming, also known as ‘Earth-shaping’, which is the theoretical process of changing the atmosphere and topology of a planet or celestial body to sustain human life. Merchant’s large-scale projection of a mountainous environment with a constellation-filled sky invites you to help shape a new world. By selecting small blocks printed with different motifs of plants, beings and celestial elements that can be placed onto a glass tabletop to transform this imagined landscape and its immediate environment. As the sky slowly transitions from dawn to dusk to a starry sky, the plants grow and the figures come to life. Merchant hopes that her project for children ‘plants a seed and helps them see that the future could hold many different possibilities and that they themselves could possibly have a hand in shaping it’. If the Seeds Chose Where to Grow 2024 Brisbane City Council's Outdoor Gallery Rithika Merchant's If the Seeds Chose Where to Grow Outdoor Gallery presented in collaboration with QAGOMA’s Children’s Art Centre transforms Brisbane's city streets and parks into imaginative spaces with vitrines, banners, and evening projections. Edited extract from the publication The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, 2024 Art that feels like home Asia Pacific Triennial 30 November 2024 – 27 April 2025 Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Brisbane, Australia Free entry