Since 1993, the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art has showcased recent art from Asia and the Pacific, including Australia, bringing worldwide attention to the region's contemporary and traditional practices. For this year's show, the Queensland Art Gallery and its new Gallery of Modern Art — designed by the Australian firm Architectus — are currently housing the work of 37 individual artists, filmmakers, and performers, as well as two collaborative projects.

With GoMA accommodating the Australian Cinémathèque, there is a new emphasis on Asian-Pacific filmmakers. In works by Chinese video-artist Yang Fudong, individuals negotiate alienating cityscapes. Though these characters are isolated in monotonous office buildings or in city gardens, glimpses of Shanghai's architectural feats hint at a sense of place. Meanwhile, Jackie Chan fills monitors and projection screens with an installation of his films, but we only catch glimpses of the Hong Kong action star — and his fusion of Peking Opera and kung fu — as he flies through the scene.

The polymorphic comic characters of Indonesian artist Eko Nugroho climb the gallery walls in a large mural and appear again in his smaller embroidered works. Other artists using the fabric medium include more than 19 women in the Pacific Textiles Project. Working from across the South Pacific, their labor-intensive, hand-stitched quilts and woven pandanus mats depicting royalty and Christian worship are imbued with vibrant colors and adaptive tradition.

Artists such as Masami Teraoka and Nusra Latif Qureshi engage traditional techniques with contemporary imagery. Teraoka draws on Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints to frame traditional geisha figures situated amidst condom wrappers and lubricant tubes. Pakistani-Australian Qureshi employs her formal training in miniature painting to present silhouettes with a contemporary aesthetic that suggest contexts for her female protagonists.

Two contrasting landscape painters, Yoo Seung-Ho and the Madarrpa leader Djambawa Marawili, are highlights of the exhibition. Yoo creates landscapes from thousands of minute Korean characters, while Marawili's bark paintings consist of intricate crosshatching. Other juxtapositions in the Triennial work on a more discordant level. The presentation of New Zealander Gordon Walters' paintings next to Michael Parekowhai's sculptures highlights the issues surrounding postcolonial and cross-cultural art practices; Maori motifs appropriated by Walters are later recaptured in Parekowhai's work. The discursive tension also reminds the viewer that the placement of a regional art festival in an Australian institution remains contentious.

-EB