Outdoor Gallery

Brett Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Tainui, Aotearoa New Zealand b. 1967) creates large-scale sculptures and installations connected to his Māori culture. Many of Graham’s artworks feature traditional Māori patterns, which are often inspired by nature.

This artwork displayed in the Outdoor Gallery features 6 patterns featured in Graham’s Asia Pacific Triennial Kids project, Wakuwaku (2024), which invites children to make rubbings from carved designs.

Look around your natural environment, what patterns can you see?

Dana Awartani (Saudi Arabia / Palestine b.1987) uses geometric shapes and patterns to create drawings, installations and videos. Awartani is particularly inspired by sacred geometry, which she describes as ‘a universal language of aesthetics that connects all faiths and cultures’.

Awartani’s Asia Pacific Triennial Kids project, Unity Within Multiplicity (2024), references Zellij tile designs, a Moroccan tiling technique celebrated for its sophisticated geometric compositions. This artwork displayed in the Outdoor Gallery features imagery drawn from the exhibition design of Awartani’s project space.

Look around your environment, what patterns can you see?

Harold ‘Egn’ Eswar (Malaysia b.1980) draws inspiration from street art to explore personal stories and memories through drawing. He often works in collaboration with other people to create artworks, including maps which link places of personal significance to members of his community.

For his Asia Pacific Triennial Kids project, Monster of Wants (2024), Egn has chosen to explore our endless desire for more. This artwork displayed in the Outdoor Gallery features imagery created by local children who have each drawn a monster with characteristics representing the things they want.

What would your monster look like?

Harold ‘Egn’ Eswar (Malaysia b.1980) draws inspiration from street art to explore personal stories and memories through drawing. He often works in collaboration with other people to create artworks, including maps which link places of personal significance to members of his community.

For his Asia Pacific Triennial Kids project, Monster of Wants (2024), Egn has chosen to explore our endless desire for more. This artwork displayed in the Outdoor Gallery features imagery created by local children who have each drawn a monster with characteristics representing the things they want.

What would your monster look like?

Yim Maline (Cambodia b.1982) creates fabric soft sculptures that explore her connection with nature and the environment. Yim is also the co-founder of the Blue Art Center in Siem Reap, Cambodia, where she teaches visual art to children.

For her Asia Pacific Triennial Kids project, A Dream for the Future (2024), Yim has collaborated with students at the Blue Art Center to create a series of drawings exploring how they imagine the future of Cambodia.

Imagining the future of Brisbane, what would you draw?

Brett Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Tainui, Aotearoa New Zealand b. 1967) creates large-scale sculptures and installations connected to his Māori culture. Many of Graham’s artworks feature traditional Māori patterns, which are often inspired by nature.

This artwork displayed in the Outdoor Gallery features imagery from Graham’s Asia Pacific Triennial Kids project, Wakuwaku (2024), which invites children to make rubbings of patterns drawn from his work. The project includes two template shapes – a fantail (a songbird native to Aotearoa) and a fighter plane.

Look around your natural environment, what patterns can you see?

When Etson Caminha (Timor-Leste b.1984) was a child, making music using found objects was a great source of happiness and fun. Today, he creates sound-based artworks using natural elements (such as hay, bamboo and rocks), traditional Timorese instruments and electronic equipment.

For his Asia Pacific Triennial Kids project, My Kitchen Sounds (2024), Caminha recorded a series of videos of himself singing, playing bass guitar and making sounds using objects from his kitchen. This artwork displayed in the Outdoor Gallery features imagery of Caminha with the different instruments featured in the project.

What objects could you make music from in your kitchen at home?

Create your own musical composition with Etson Caminha

Rithika Merchant (India b.1986) creates bold paintings and collages using a combination of watercolour and cut paper elements, drawing on 17th–century botanical prints and folk art.

Merchant is interested in the idea of ‘terraformation’, or ‘earth-shaping’–the process of making a planet, moon or other celestial body fit for human life. This artwork displayed in the Outdoor Gallery features imagery from Merchant’s Asia Pacific Triennial Kids project, If the Seeds Chose Where to Grow (2024), which imagines a new world inhabited by unusual hybrid ‘beings’ and plant forms.

What hybrid creatures would live in your imagined world?

Harold ‘Egn’ Eswar (Malaysia b.1980) draws inspiration from street art to explore personal stories and memories through drawing. He often works in collaboration with other people to create artworks, including maps which link places of personal significance to members of his community.

For his Asia Pacific Triennial Kids project, Monster of Wants (2024), Egn has chosen to explore our endless desire for more. This artwork displayed in the Outdoor Gallery features imagery created by local children who have each drawn a monster with characteristics representing the things they want.

What would your monster look like? 

Okui Lala (Malaysia b.1991) creates video works exploring language, verbal communication and what is lost or changed when words are translated from one language into another.

For Asia Pacific Triennial Kids, Lala invited bilingual and multilingual students from Brisbane’s West End State School to participate in a music video. This artwork displayed in the Outdoor Gallery features images of some of the children performing their song, The Sounds of Brisbane (2024). The lyrics for this song were created from a student workshop exploring sounds and words connected to the students’ experience of Brisbane.

What sounds and words would you use for a song about Brisbane?

Watch the Sounds of Brisbane video on YouTube

Rithika Merchant (India b.1986) creates bold paintings and collages using a combination of watercolour and cut paper elements, drawing on 17th-century botanical prints and folk art.

Merchant is interested in the idea of ‘terraformation’, or ‘earth-shaping’–the process of making a planet, moon or other celestial body fit for human life. This artwork displayed in the Outdoor Gallery features imagery from Merchant’s Asia Pacific Triennial Kids project, If the Seeds Chose Where to Grow (2024), which imagines a new world inhabited by unusual hybrid ‘beings’ and plant forms.

What hybrid creatures would live in your imagined world?

Rithika Merchant (India b.1986) creates bold paintings and collages using a combination of watercolour and cut paper elements, drawing on 17th-century botanical prints and folk art.

Merchant is interested in the idea of ‘terraformation’, or ‘earth-shaping’–the process of making a planet, moon or other celestial body fit for human life. This artwork displayed in the Outdoor Gallery features imagery from Merchant’s Asia Pacific Triennial Kids project, If the Seeds Chose Where to Grow (2024), which imagines a new world inhabited by unusual hybrid ‘beings’ and plant forms.

What hybrid creatures would live in your imagined world?