In 2018 for ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9), New Zealand photographer Anne Noble created a multi-part project at the heart of which is Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder 2018 (illustrated), a functioning beehive or ‘living photograph’. Bees can be observed entering the Gallery, before disappearing inside the cabinet and going about their normal activities; they are also visible when the cabinet was opened daily for 20 minutes.
Watch: Anne Noble introduces ‘Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder’
Anne Noble’s Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder 2018, installed at ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9), GOMA
Watch: Anne Noble discusses the origins of ‘Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder’
Anne Noble’s Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder 2018, installed at ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9), GOMA
Anne Noble ‘Museum: For a time when the bee no longer exists’ Museum: For a time when the bee no longer exists comprises portraits of bees that recall dust-covered artefacts from another time, together with a 3-D printed insect, resembling the ghost from the portraits. In addition, the luscious Bruissement photograms from the ‘UMBRA’ series of 2015–17 are enlargements of images capturing the light around the wings of dead bees — bees that died from pesticide poisoning — as the artist held them in her hands.
Noble’s works serve as a catalyst for discussion regarding our complex relationship with the bee. An insect revered historically in myth, religion and literature, as well as in present-day science and industrial research, her project stimulates awareness of this species whose essential global existence is threatened by pests, chemicals and disease.
Anne Noble ‘Museum: For a time when the bee no longer exists‘
Toggle Caption
Anne Noble, Aotearoa New Zealand b.1954 / Installation view of Museum: For a time when the bee no longer exists , APT9, GOMA / © Anne Noble / Courtesy: The artist and Two Rooms, Auckland / View full image
Anne Noble ‘Dead Bee Portrait #2’ 2015-16
Toggle Caption
Anne Noble, Aotearoa New Zealand b. 1954 / Dead Bee Portrait #2 2015-16 / Pigment on paper / 115 x 91.5cm / Image courtesy: The artist and Two Rooms Gallery, Auckland / © The artist / View full image
Anne Noble ‘Dead Bee Portrait #14’ 2015-16
Toggle Caption
Anne Noble, Aotearoa New Zealand b. 1954 / Dead Bee Portrait #14 2015-16 / Pigment on paper / 115 x 91.5cm / Image courtesy: The artist and Two Rooms Gallery, Auckland / © The artist / View full image
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.
Anne Noble has been supported by Creative New Zealand.
Featured image: Anne Noble’s Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder 2018, installed at APT9, GOMA / Photographs, wooden cabinet, metal, glass, sound, scent, patterned perspex, colony of bees / 190 x 70 x 170cm / © Anne Noble / Courtesy: Anne Noble and Two Rooms, Auckland: Bartley + Company Art, Wellington and Jonathan Smart Gallery, Christchurch / Supported by: Bee One Third, JackStone, Brisbane and Creative New Zealand.
Stories highlights delivered to your inbox
Related Stories
After a three year wait, ‘The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9) is back and has taken over the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art with more than 400 artworks by over 80 individuals, collectives and groups that capture the energy of new art being created in Asia, the Pacific and Australia.
Spread over two buildings, there is plenty to see and experience. APT9 also celebrates film culture from across the region with three thought-provoking film programs, eight hands-on and multimedia activities created by artists especially for children and families, and an ongoing program of talks, performances and special events, including daily guided tours.
With so many works to see and things to do, we’ve highlighted five for you to discover.
1. Aditya Novali
The Wall: Asian Un(real) Estate Project
Aditya Novali’s The Wall: Asian (Un)Real Estate Project comments on the chronic housing shortage in Indonesia’s cities.
The work also draws attention to the ways in which housing is intimately connected to our physical and emotional welfare.
With a slice-through view of a high-rise apartment building, you are able to peek through different environments revealing internal living spaces and even the metal bars of a prison cell.
Novali’s work gives a glimpse of personal urban spaces, presented in miniature with a touch of subversive humour.
2. Shilpa Gupta
In Your Tongue, I Can Not Fit
Beneath 100 hanging microphones – a device that transmits the voices of politicians, dictators, activists and revolutionaries alike – lines of poetry are transcribed on sheets of paper, skewered by metal spikes.
The microphones of For, In Your Tongue, I Can Not Fit act like speakers, delivering verses from poets who have been imprisoned, and in some cases executed, for their words.
Shilpa Gupta features recited words in multiple languages from different periods of history, such as the eighth century Persian poet Abū Nuwās, known for his frivolous and witty poetry about urban life and homosexual love; the sixteenth-century Italian polymath Giordano Bruno, burned at the stake in 1600 for astronomical theories considered at odds with Roman Catholic doctrine; American beat poet Allen Ginsberg, accused of obscenity for his 1954–55 poem Howl; and the young Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, imprisoned since 2015 for a poem in Arabic posted on YouTube, which was mistranslated as identifying with a terrorist organisation.
The chorus unveils instances of censorship and suppression throughout history, shining a light on those who have made sacrifices for their freedom of speech, and giving a voice to those who were not meant to be heard.
3. Peter Robinson
This place displaced
Peter Robinson’s recent practice explores forms made with everyday materials – aluminium, wire, paper, nails, felt and magnets – attract new meanings when placed in different situations.
Playfully engaging with the visual and physical language of materials, Robinson leaves possibilities for meaning and communication open in order to engage his audience in imaginative play.
Exploring the physical and visual qualities of materials, Robinson is also concerned with the interactions between objects and the spaces they inhabit
This place displaced is a subtle installation that resonates with histories of minimal and conceptual art – there are some twenty discrete installations scattered throughout the Gallery of Modern Art and Queensland Art Gallery for you to find.
4. Anne Noble
Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder
Anne Noble has created a multi-part project at the heart of which Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder is a functioning beehive or ‘living photograph’.
In her engagement with the bee, Noble has become a proficient beekeeper, and on this project worked with a range of media, from moving image and microscopic photography, to installation, sound and community engagement.
Bees can be observed entering GOMA, before disappearing inside the cabinet and going about their normal activities; they are also visible when the cabinet is opened daily for 20 minutes at 11.45am, 12.45pm, 2.45pm and 3.45pm.
Noble’s works form a visual ode to an insect symbolic of our world’s wellbeing – their complex ecosystem is at severe risk of collapse as a direct result of human intervention in the environment.
5. Jonathan Jones
untitled (giran)
Made of almost 2000 sculptures, Jonathan Jones’s untitled (giran) is reminiscent of a map of intersecting wind currents, evoking birds in flight, and knowledge, change and new ideas circling above our heads.
The work draws on the Wiradjuri concept of giran which describes the winds, change, as well as feelings of fear and apprehension.
Traditional tools are at the heart of the artwork. Bound to each tool with handmade string is a small bundle of feathers (tiny ‘wings’) – found treasures – carefully gathered and sent to Jones by people from across the country.
The circling murmuration of flying ‘birds’ is composed of six tool types – bagaay – an emu eggshell spoon, bindu-gaany – a freshwater mussel scraper, waybarra – a weaving start, bingal – a bone awl, dhala-ny – a wooden spear point, and galigal – a stone knife. Each tool has limitless potential.
8 free kids activities at APT9
If you’re keen to enjoy a range of fun family-friendly activities to keep the kids occupied, then head to APT9. APT9 Kids is the perfect way for kids of any age to embrace their creative side. Make your visit to QAGOMA a family day out — eight activities will excite your imagination and unleash your creativity.
Delve deeper into APT9 with Enkhbold Togmidshiirev
Enkhbold Togmidshiirev staged an improvised roving performance in the outdoor spaces surrounding GOMA for the opening weekend of APT9, as part of his ongoing Ger Project. Since 2008, Enkhbold has created a number of personalised structures derived from the form of the traditional Mongolian ger or yurt, in order to forge a connection with his surroundings. Setting up a ger creates a temporary home that Enkhbold equates to a spiritual space.
Read more...
The Asia Pacific, a region of incredible beauty and diversity, is grappling with the looming challenges of climate change and environmental degradation in the face of economic and political inertia. It is often artists who fire our imagination on these issues, urging us to consider our relationship with the natural world, the ethics of our behaviour and the kind of society we want to leave for the future.
Imagining our relationship with nature
‘Climate change is the moral and political issue of our time,’ writes Max Harris in his book The New Zealand Project, and the importance of this topic is central to the young author’s vision for the future of his country. The media offer up daily reports on the catastrophic events that will result from our damaged ecosystem, such as rising sea levels, ocean and river acidification, desertification, extreme weather events and species extinction. As I write this, an article in The Economist confirms that the world is in a ‘war’ with climate change and losing — partly due to our demands for energy, and partly due to economic and political inertia — and our national government backs further away from the Paris Accord.
According to Harris, however, artists are firing our imagination in an effort to counter climate change listlessness. Art plays an important role, not only in raising consciousness of carbon and climate challenges, but also in urging us to actively rethink our relationship with the environment. Art has power: some authors contend that it is more likely to stimulate public debate regarding anthropogenic climate change — and involve a broader constituency of people in such a debate — than the restating of scientific facts or appeals to ‘common sense’.
A number of APT9 artists convey their attitude towards the natural world in works that intelligently and productively encourage us to place a greater value on the ecosystem of which we are a part.
Stay Connected: Subscribe to QAGOMA Blog
‘If we die, we’re taking you with us,’ says a bee in Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner’s poem ‘The Butterfly Thief’. Originally from the Marshall Islands but now based in Oregon in the United States, Jetñil-Kijiner is a climate change activist, poet and performance artist whose voice demands to be listened to. Her poems have been published and recognised internationally, including at the opening of the United Nations Climate Summit in 2014, where her presentation focused on saving humanity by taking responsibility for the effects of climate change.
For APT9, Jetñil-Kijiner instigated the Jaki-ed Project by Marshall Island weavers, which encourages youth and Pacific communities to maintain their local weaving traditions. However, she is better known for her poetry and spoken-word performances that call for ways to halt climate change and the devasting impact it is having on the Marshall Islands and other island nations. Like Harris, she recognises the catastrophic effect that damaged ecosystems are having on all humanity and the need for collective global action. In particular, she advocates for Pacific cultures to not merely survive but to thrive through shared values and collaborative action.
Anne Noble is another artist exploring the critical role of bees in a functioning ecosystem. The wellbeing of the honey bee is a measure of environmental health, but these insects are due to lose half their habitat under current climate predictions, leading scientists to warn of an ‘ecological Armageddon’. Bees are essential to botanical life as pollinators of plants, but their existence as a species is threatened by chemicals introduced in the genetic engineering of agriculture.
Noble’s project in APT9 celebrates the world of this insect but symbolises the real threat of its demise. Her video work Reverie 2016 and her installation ‘Museum: For a time when the bee no longer exists’ offer viewers an opportunity to experience the dreamlike atmosphere of a hive in summer. Noble aims to stimulate dialogue about the significance of the bee to our lives and to build awareness of our inherent relationship with and responsibility to the bee as part of a shared existence. To these ends, APT9 includes a living beehive within Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder 2018, from where bees go about their communal roles, collecting pollen outdoors to bring into the gallery.
To view the bee colony at GOMA, the Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder is opened at 11.45am, 12.45pm, 2.45pm and 3.45pm daily for 20 minutes
To understand the factors influencing the honey bee’s decline, Noble became a beekeeper and has subsequently worked with communities, schools, scientists and professional and amateur apiarists to engage people of all ages with the lives of bees. She has also drawn on the work of nineteenth-and early twentieth century biologists and writers such as Goethe or Rudolf Steiner, whose study of nature fuses science with a poetic and philosophical register. Noble says that she is ‘working to create a series of frames through which to engage audiences with new narratives and meanings more appropriate to the current and future challenges facing the world’s ecosystem and our role in its rapid transformation’. Her work abounds with wonder, joy, emotion and curiosity, enticing her audience to learn more about the bee and the insect world.
Among other APT9 artists whose work is inspired by the natural world, several share the common theme of humanity as an integral part of the Earth’s ecosystem, including Singapore’s Donna Ong and Robert Zhao Renhui, Malaysian collective Pangrok Sulap, and Martha Atienza and Nona Garcia, who both work in the Philippines.
The collaborative installation by Ong and Zhao, My forest is not your garden 2015–18, offers the wonder of a museum diorama in the Queensland Art Gallery Watermall. Ong’s evocative arrangements of artificial flora and tropical exotica blend with Zhao’s archival-style display of a collection of authentic and fabricated objects that purportedly relate to Singapore’s natural history. Ong takes a critical perspective on how representations of the tropics in science, botany, art, illustration and gardens have influenced human relations with nature. Zhao performs his speculative scientific...
