The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London has opened "Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific," a major exhibition produced in partnership with the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) in Brisbane. Featuring over 70 works never before exhibited in the UK, the show draws from QAGOMA's Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT), which began in 1993. Highlights include Michael Parekōwhai's sculpture of a Māori bouncer, Montien Boonma's terracotta bell installation, and Takahiro Iwasaki's intricate wooden model. The exhibition is the first APT survey to be held outside Australia and Chile, arriving after years of planning by V&A exhibitions director Daniel Slater.
This exhibition matters because it marks a significant shift in the UK's engagement with contemporary art from the Asia-Pacific region, which Slater describes as long overdue. It follows recent shows like Tate Modern's Emily Kam Kngwarray and the National Gallery of Victoria's touring Indigenous art exhibition, signaling a growing institutional recognition of art from these regions. By bringing works from 25 countries to a major London museum, "Rising Voices" challenges Eurocentric art narratives and introduces UK audiences to influential artists who have been celebrated in Asia and Australia for decades but largely overlooked in Britain.