A new exhibition, 'Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia, and the Pacific,' opens this weekend at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. It features over 70 works by more than 40 artists from 25 Asia Pacific countries, including sculpture, painting, photography, ceramics, and textiles, many never before exhibited outside the region. The show is presented in partnership with the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) in Brisbane and co-curated by Daniel Slater, the V&A's director of exhibitions.
This exhibition matters because it addresses the underrepresentation of Asia Pacific artists in the global art world, despite the region being home to 60 percent of the world's population and possessing immense cultural and linguistic diversity. By bringing together such a broad geographic and artistic range in London, 'Rising Voices' creates a new, emotionally varied experience that challenges assumptions about global contemporary art being purely political, instead celebrating playfulness, intimacy, and the diversity of artistic voices.