The V&A's new exhibition, Rising Voices, attempts to encapsulate three decades of contemporary art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific in just three rooms. While the show features stunning works by Indigenous and First Nations artists, its cramped presentation and gloomy design undermine the art's impact.
A Vast Region, a Tiny Space
Every three years, the Queensland Art Gallery organizes the Asia Pacific Triennial, a massive survey of art from across the region. The V&A's Rising Voices tries to distill this vast project into a small exhibition. The result is a fascinating but frustrating glimpse into a world of diverse cultures and histories.
The opening room is packed with bark cloth paintings from Papua New Guinea, Indigenous Australian abstracts, shark sculptures from the Torres Strait, and Tahitian textiles. Each piece carries deep cultural significance: the geometric patterns of Lila Warrimou and Pennyrose Sosa's bark cloth represent clan affiliations and tattoos, while Aline Amaru's quilt tells the story of her husband's dynastic lineage.
Art as Resistance
Many works address colonialism and political oppression. Elisabet Kauage depicts Melanesian figures aboard Captain Cook's ship. Sri Lankan artist Pala Pothupitiye paints over colonial maps to expose British injustices. Brenda V Fajardo portrays Filipino women under Spanish rule. Other artists worked under tyranny: Svay Ken painted during the Khmer Rouge regime, Heri Dono created cubist works under Suharto's dictatorship, and Maryam Ayeen and Abbas Shahsavar show a couple using drugs to cope with life in contemporary Iran.
The exhibition concludes with spiritual works from Mongolia and Japan. Throughout, art serves as escape, rejection, and resistance against oppression.
Design Flaws
The exhibition's design is problematic. The dull, grey lighting drains the vibrant colors of the artworks, and a single mournful piano ballad loops loudly, discouraging visitors from lingering. More critically, three rooms are insufficient to represent such a vast region. Each segment—Pakistani miniatures, Indigenous Australian photography, Papua New Guinean textiles—could fill an entire exhibition. Without a cohesive narrative, the show feels like a disjointed sampler.
Rising Voices deserves a larger, more celebratory space to truly honor the incredible diversity of art from this part of the world.
At V&A South Kensington, London, from 16 May to 10 January.
