Art Speaking for Humanity: The Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art - Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia

If this is the case, it is because the contemporary art of this region has much to teach us about how artists can interact with their communities and about the role contemporary art can play in social transformation by engaging with such issues as social justice and environmental degradation. These exhibitions have taught us to review colonial viewpoints and to understand that cultural interaction, adaptation, and change have taken place in the region for centuries, so that Western "influence" may come to be seen as insignificant in the future. They have also taught us about the continuing relevance of religion, spirituality, and tradition, especially for indigenous peoples for whom their past is their future, and about cultural survival, including within nations. For example, as the Australian Torres Strait Islander Tom Mosby has noted, Torres Strait indigenous culture survives in defiance of the theory of evolution, where the weak are supposed to be overwhelmed by the strong. Nowhere is this better exempli fied than in Pacific art, where indigenous artists from a population base of under six million have, through sheer creative energy, won respect among artists from a population base of three and a half billion throughout Asia. The art in these exhibitions cannot be summed up in a few hundred words, but the Asia-Pacific Triennial exhibitions are above all a testament to the power of art to challenge and to contribute to the enrichment of the human spirit.

Caroline Turner was Deputy Director and Curatorial Co-ordinator for all three Asia-Pacific Triennials at the Queensland Art Gallery. She was recently appointed Deputy Director of the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University. where she will direct cultural research projects.

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