This excerpt is drawn from Asia Pacific Art Papers: 'APT and the connectivity of humanity' (QAGOMA, 2021)

Singapore’s eminent art historian, curator and critic Kanaga Sabapathy has spent four decades researching and writing on modern art of the region. Here Sabapathy recounts with Simon Elliott, Deputy Director, Collection and Exhibitions, QAGOMA, his early influential involvement in the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT).

Simon Elliott (SE): Take your mind back to the early 1990s when the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) reached out to you with this idea of an Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art happening in Brisbane. That must have been a surprise? Tell me what went through your mind at the time.

Kanaga Sabapathy (KS): Surprise is absolutely spot-on. Not because this was coming out of Australia, but because it was coming out of Brisbane, Queensland! Rightly or wrongly, from where I was in Singapore, our view of Queensland was somewhat tainted by redneck conservatism. To be asked to consider to be part of what turned out to be an extremely large, extensive team of people cultivating interest in the complicated mix of regions that make up Asia and, of course, the Pacific (which remains relatively unknown to us in this part of South-East Asia) was mind-blowing, quite literally. And to plonk contemporary and modern art and artists in this mix was unimaginable at the time. . . . [READ MORE]