Asia Pacific
Arts Awards 2025

Belvoir St Theatre, in Surry Hills, Sydney, is a renowned theatre company housed in a historic building saved in 1984. Known for bold storytelling and diverse voices, Belvoir stages new plays, Indigenous works, and reimagined classics. Under Artistic Director Eamon Flack, it continues creating landmark productions and inspiring new generations.

Kurinji tells global stories that are epic, intimate and communal. Their productions are multi-sensory and immerse their audiences in other worlds. Their process is collaborative, and their work is made through respectful collaboration with real people, in real places. Their home is western Sydney, Australia; the land of the Wangal clan of the Dharug Nation.

Photo: Counting and Cracking by Pia Johnson

Daniel Boyd draws on his heritage as a Kudjla/Gangalu man from North Queensland and North Pentecost Island in Vanuatu to interrogate legacies of colonisation. Traversing an archaeology of lost and suppressed histories, Boyd reinterprets artistic and archival material across art, science, history and geography in order to challenge Eurocentric perspectives and romanticised notions that dominate the historical canon. His work acknowledges the multitude of collective, cultural and personal memories at the core of historical imagery, and seeks to create a context for a diaspora of meaning to exist.

Image: Daniel Boyd. Courtesy of the artist and STATION, Melbourne. Photo: Joshua Morris

Latai Taumoepeau (b.1972, Gadigal Ngura/Sydney) makes live art as an expanded Indigenous practice of service that merges cultural, political, rhetorical and formal concerns. Based on the Tongan doctrines of fonua (land/place/body) and tauhi fonua (care for land/place/body); faiva (body – centred actioning); vā (space) as informed by her birthplace on the unceded lands of the Gadigal people, her work is in service of climate justice and its dire implications on race, class, woman and the Pacific body politic.

Working across performance, choreography, film, sound, print and poetic materials, her collaborative immersive installations are composed through instructional scores and logic systems.

Through her work she aims to illuminate unseen communities to the frangipani-less foreground; alongside her eventual return to the Kingdom of Tonga where she will continue what to her is the ultimate faiva: sea voyaging and celestial navigation before becoming an ancestor.

Photo: Rhett Wyman

Liminal is an anti-racist literary project, edited by Leah Jing McIntosh and Cher Tan in Naarm. Founded in 2016, Liminal began publishing long-form interviews with Asian Australian artists. Over the past eight years, Liminal has expanded to publish award-winning art, writing, and literary criticism by First Nations writers and writers of colour. With a focus on supporting artistic practice, Liminal has also created opportunities for minoritised and marginalised artists through national literary awards, editorial mentorships, writing residencies, and an international writers’ workshop.

The Liminal project also includes the critically acclaimed collections Collisions: Fictions of the Future (2020, Pantera Press) and Against Disappearance: Essays on Memory (2022, Pantera Press). In 2024, Liminal brought the nation’s most talented artists, writers, and thinkers together for the inaugural Liminal Festival, in partnership with The Wheeler Centre.

Image: Against Disappearance, edited by Leah Jing McIntosh and Adolfo Aranjuez

Kuya James (James Mangohig) is an ARIA award-winning producer and ARIA-nominated artist based in Darwin, NT. The eldest son of a Filipino father and Dutch mother, he is deeply connected to his community through music, dance, and theatre. Starting as a bass player, he later became a sought-after producer. He founded CLUB AWI at the Darwin Festival in 2016 and co-created the acclaimed show In Between Two. As a musical director, he’s led major projects like Country to Couture and the NATSIAAs. His work in theatre and songwriting has earned him multiple awards including the NT’s 2023 Outstanding Creative.

Photo: Michelle Grace Hunder

Okkoota ಒಕ್ಕೂಟ (alliance, gathering, assembly) curated by Vishal Kumaraswamy brings together a stunning ensemble of 13 local and international artists to flip Arts House on its head. Featuring film, performance, sound, installations and text, Okkoota ಒಕ್ಕೂಟ draws from the anti-caste movement and contends with the ever-present remnants of colony, the violence of assimilation and seeking belonging in the face of overwhelming threats of erasure.

Okkoota ಒಕ್ಕೂಟ is part of Arts House’s Equity—Builder where an artist-curator from a marginalised community is handed over the keys, spaces and resources for a curatorial project across two years in an effort to renew the relationship between the institution and independents.

Photo: Co-Artistic Director Nithya Nagarajan and Curator Vishal Kumaraswamy standing under ‘Star dust’ by Kirtika Kain. Photo: Jacinta Keefe

Bábbarra Women’s Centre, in collaboration with Tharangini Studio, presents a collection of woodblock textiles supported by the Australian Government’s Centre for Australia-India Relations.

Karri-djarrk-durrkmirri (we work together) in Kuninjku, symbolises the union of culture. Sixteen First Nations women artists from West Arnhem Land, custodians of sacred Djang (creation stories), collaborated with Tharangini Studio in Bangalore to replicate their designs in woodblock form.

The Porgai Artisan Association in Tamil Nadu embroidered three textiles, blending Lambadi traditions with Arnhem Land’s stories.

This exhibition honours the cultural heritage of the Indo-Pacific Region, celebrating ancestral stories through rich textile traditions.

Photo: Ziian Carey

Footscray Community Arts is an arts precinct with a 50-year legacy of community-led arts and creative practice. While grounded in Melbourne’s west, they recognise their place and have an ongoing commitment to support the cultural exchange between First Nations arts communities, particularly across the Asia-Pacific.

Footscray Community Arts partnered with Japan’s Saison Foundation to develop and deliver a residency exchange program for First Nations artists. This program supported Wakka Wakka, Ngugi, and Birrpai dancer and storyteller Ngioka Bunda-Heath to undertake an artist residency in Tokyo and engage in cultural exchange with the Ainu community in Hokkaido. Additionally, Footscray Community Arts hosted Ainu artist Mayunkiki. The artist exchange was preceded by a process of cultural reciprocity and knowledge exchange between Footscray Community Arts’ Elder in Residence Uncle Larry Walsh (Taungurung) and Ainu elder Masahiro Nomoto. This ensured cultural understanding and safety for the artist residencies.

Photo: Ngioka Bunda-Heath and Mayunkiki, supplied by artist

Lumbung in Western Sydney was hosted by Arab Theatre Studio (ATS) and Pari, in collaboration with Gudskul. ATS is a small independent artist-led Arab arts and cultural organisation on Dharug Country. Based in Parramatta on Dharug Country, Pari is an artist-run space where people and communities come together to talk, think, learn and do. Gudskul is an educational knowledge-sharing platform formed in 2018 by three Jakarta-based collectives: ruangrupa, Serrum, and Grafis Huru Hara.

Photo: Collective Games hangout led by Gudskul for Such a GUD TEMPErature at Phive Parramatta, part of Lumbung in Western Sydney. Credit: OpnSrc

Connecting Asia-Pacific Literary Cultures: Grounds for Encounter and Exchange explores an ethical, reciprocal model for peer-to-peer cultural exchange between writers and writing, spanning the Asia-Pacific.

Led by RMIT University’s non/fictionLab, in collaboration with writers, translators, and partner organisations from across the region, it has staged Indigenous-led, festival-based, and fully digital collaborative residency programs.

The model, developed since 2014 as WrICE (Writers Immersion and Cultural Exchange), has brought together over 90 writers from 13 countries and First Nations. It has produced a fluid transnational network that has led to creative partnerships, publications, public events, and career development.

The project is funded by the Australian Research Council.

Photo: Tapun Ma Tatef residency in Kupang, West Timor. Image supplied by artist

Blacktown Arts is an award-winning leader in the development and presentation of contemporary art that reflects Blacktown and Western Sydney.

Dharug and First Nations Elders, artists, and communities are at the heart of everything they do. Blacktown Arts explores innovative, culturally diverse work informed by long-standing relationships with artists, audiences, and communities of Blacktown and Western Sydney.

Blacktown Arts commissions, produces, and presents curated creative experiences across First Nations programs, cutting-edge exhibitions and installations, live music and performances, place-based signature events, public programs and engagement, digital and screen projects, and more.

Photo: We Are Studios. Photo by Liza Moscatelli

Casula Powerhouse, located in Liverpool, NSW, is Western Sydney’s largest multi-arts cultural facility. In 2024, it celebrated the diverse stories of South-West Sydney through exhibitions, workshops, and films featuring artists from the Moana region. Highlights included the world premiere of Mood Ring by Sereima Adimate, an interactive exhibition by Tāmaki Makaurau artist Tyrone Te Waa exploring Māori cultural experiences, and Adriana Māhanga Lear’s reimagining of Tongan concepts of sound, death, and place. The Tagata Moana workshop series, curated by Leo Tanoi, further connected audiences to the rich art and culture of Moana Oceania.

Photo: Chantel Bann

PacifiqueX is an MVPFAFF++ (term coined by pioneer Phylesha Acton Brown) community organisation based in Naarm, Melbourne, established in September 2019 by Tony K Fretton. Marqy Kitione, the current Director of PacifiqueX, has led the group since February 2020. They have been fortunate to gain support from other organisations over the years, including Thorne Harbour Health, Transgender Victoria and 3CR. Special mentions to Tony K Fretton, Miss Katalyna, Mama Latoya Hoeg, Sonja Hammer and all our beautiful rainbow community for their ongoing support.

Photo: Gracie, Fiafia Art

Refugee Art Project is a not-for-profit community art organisation which supports the wellbeing, creative expression and agency of people of a refugee background. The community began with facilitated art workshops in Sydney’s Villawood Detention Centre, before expanding to community studios in Western Sydney. Since 2011, the group has initiated powerful creative collaborations which have amplified marginalised voices through local and international exhibitions, online forums and print publications. In all activities, the group strives to create spaces for individual and collective liberation, including the ongoing struggle against imperialism, racism, patriarchy, ableism and other forms of discrimination.

Photo: Four Refugee Art Project members at the Other Worlds zine fair holding their zines. Credit: Safdar Ahmed

un Projects publishes writing that emerges from art making, providing an independent platform for critical discussions about local, experimental, critical and emerging artistic practices. un Projects publishes essays, artists’ work and reviews. Founded in Melbourne in 2004, un’s flagship publication is un Magazine – a contemporary art magazine published bi-annually in print and online and distributed nationally. un Magazine is guest edited by a rotating cast of local early-career artists and writers. un Extended is un’s digital publication, which publishes reviews produced by an emerging editor-in-residence. In addition, un Projects runs a variety of panels, artist talks, writing workshops and events across the year.

Image credit: un Magazine archive

Abdul Abdullah is a multi-disciplinary artist based between Australia and Bangkok. His practice is concerned with the experience of the ‘other’ and is particularly interested in the disjuncture between perception/projection of identity and the reality of lived experience. He is represented by Ames Yavuz Gallery and has been exhibiting across Australia for nineteen years. He is included in the collections of all the major Australian state public-institutions and has been presenting through Asia, Europe and the United States since 2014. Abdul is passionate about working with young people, and advocates for arts education, intercultural exchange and human rights.

Photo supplied by artist

Dr. Léuli Eshrāghi belongs to Sāmoan clans Seumanutafa and Tautau, and lives and works in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Their research-creation practice prioritises Indigenous art, design, sensual and spoken languages, and ceremonial-political practices. Eshrāghi curated Tarrawarra Biennial: ua usiusi fa’ava’asavili (2023) at Tarrawarra Museum of Art, and co-curated How we remember tomorrow (2024), Mare Amoris | Sea of Love (2023-24), and Oceanic Thinking: Season Two (2022), at UQ Art Museum. Eshrāghi serves as a Curator of Indigenous Practices at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, mentor for Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership, and Indigenous Arts Committee member for the Conseil des arts de Montréal.

Photo: Rhett Hammerton

Born in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Taloi Havini (Nakas/Hakö tribe) is based in Brisbane, Australia. Knowledge–production, inheritance, mapping, and representation in relation to her homeland in Bougainville are core themes across her work. Major commissions and exhibitions include Ocean Space, Venice; Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Sharjah Biennial 13; 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, Brisbane. Taloi Havini is winner of the Artes Mundi 10 prize in 2024; she is collected by Sharjah Art Foundation, Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), National Gallery of Victoria, and the Queensland Art Gallery (QAGOMA).

Paschal Daantos Berry is a curator, writer, performance maker, and dramaturg whose practice is focused on interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, collaborative, and socially engaged processes. He is a creator of award-winning performance works, an artist mentor, and has contributed works for The Australian Choreographic Centre, Canberra Youth Theatre, QL2, Performance Space, Urban Theatre Project, Radio National, Belvoir Street Theatre, and Blacktown Arts amongst others. In 2022, he was in the curatorium of Rivus, the 23rd Biennale of Sydney, as well as the curator of programs for Brook Andrew’s internationally acclaimed NIRIN, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney. He has led the programs and education teams of Blacktown Arts, the Biennale of Sydney, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Roselle Pineda is a curator, dramaturge, educator, scholar, and artist-activist, with a PhD in Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong, focusing on ethics in community-engaged arts with Indigenous communities. She founded the community-based art organisation, Aurora Artist Residency Program and Space, and the global network of performance curators, Performance Curators Initiatives. Roselle is the Associate Dean for Research, Creative Work, Extension, and Publication at the College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines, where she also teaches in the Art Studies Department. Her recent work, Crossing Rivers, fosters cultural exchange between the Dumagat of the Philippines and the Murrawarri of Australia.

Photo: Crossing Rivers. Credit: Jen Gamboa

Angela Tiatia is a Sāmoan/Australian artist based in Sydney. For the past 20 years, she has explored global power structures and their impact on Pasifika communities.

In 2022, Tiatia received the Ian Potter Moving Image Commission, Australia’s most prestigious award for contemporary moving image art. The resulting work, The Dark Current (2023), debuted at ACMI and was shown at Tate Modern and the Venice Biennale in 2024.

Tiatia’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in both private and public collections. She is a Sidney Myer Creative Fellow and is represented by Sullivan + Strumpf.

Photo by Kieren Cooney

4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (4A) is an independent not-for-profit organisation based in Sydney, Australia. 4A fosters excellence and innovation in contemporary culture through the commissioning, presentation, documentation and research of contemporary art. Their program is presented throughout Australia and Asia, where they ensure that contemporary art plays a central role in understanding and developing the dynamic relationship between Australia and the wider Asian region.

Image Credit: Elsewhere in India, Kai Wasikowski

BLEED (Biennial Live Event in the Everyday Digital) interrogates the relationship between the digital and the live.

Developing new contemporary art practices that are both enabled by and critical of the digital public sphere, BLEED’s unique model allows artists and audiences to create and experience cutting-edge art, culture and ideas. Across diverse mediums, time zones and borders, BLEED probes the extent to which digital technology can deepen our understanding of one another.

In 2024 BLEED was presented by a national consortium of partners: Arts House (VIC), Campbelltown Arts Centre (NSW), and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (WA). Six digital and live contemporary artwork commissions were premiered by seven lead artists across this continent and beyond.

Image Credit: Design by The Company You Keep (TCYK)

The Indian Ocean Craft Triennial 2024, Codes in Parallel, presented ambitious works by over 30 artists from Indian Ocean Region countries in its International exhibition, in collaboration with Major Exhibition Partners.

A further 200+ craft artists exhibited in the accompanying festival program at over 40 galleries and art-spaces in metro and regional Western Australia.

‘Futuring Craft’ was IOTA’s international conference, expanding the dialogue around the issues and opportunities that craft presents now and in the future.

Photo: Jude van der Merwe and Carola Akindele-Obe, IOTA Co-curators and Co-founders. Photo: Ezra Alcantra

The National Gallery is Australia’s national visual arts institution. The national collection comprises over 155,000 works of art, including the world’s largest collection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. Following a tour to Western Australia, Singapore and New Zealand, Ever Present: First Peoples Art of Australia is now on display at the Gallery. The survey of historical and contemporary works of art by First Nations artists from across Australia is presented in partnership with Wesfarmers Arts. Although Ever Present is a celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, it does not shy away from Australia’s complex histories.

Image: Judy Watson, Waanyi people, stake, 2010, The Wesfarmers Collection of Australian Art, Boorloo/Perth, © Judy Watson/Copyright Agency, 2022

In collaboration with First Nations musicians and artists from Australia and the broader Oceania region, Wantok Musik celebrate and share unique music and films while honouring the diversity, creativity, cultural richness, and resilience of Oceania. Through Wantok’s work, they aim to transform lives and communities. By harnessing the power of music and art, Wantok empowers artists to share vital stories with the world. Their efforts promote traditional languages and cultures, build sustainable careers, create employment opportunities, foster cultural diplomacy, and unite communities in pride and cultural appreciation.

Photo: Akolitas, by Zinnia Scarlett

Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan (b. 1962, 1965, Philippines) are known for their uniquely cooperative practice, in which they address themes of displacement, change, and memory by way of community engagement. Collaboration has always been an integral part of the Aquilizans’ practice, not just as partners in marriage and art making, but as a tool to give voice to underrepresented populations. Many of their projects include workshops with groups directly affected by the subject matter explored in the work. The award-winning artists have received critical acclaim for their large-scale site-specific installations, which are often constructed using materials both abstract and referential, such as cardboard boxes, packing tape, and personal belongings — items that reflect the challenges and hopes characteristic of the migratory experience.

Photo: Portrait of Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan.
Photography by David Kelly for the Brisbane Art and Design Festival (BAD).
Courtesy of Ames Yavuz, the artists, and Museum of Brisbane.

Leo Tanoi is a Sydney-based Niu* Pasifika Creative of Samoan descent who has worked for 30 years as a producer, curator, media presenter, writer, performer, DJ, and community development specialist for major arts, culture, education, welfare, health, and sporting organisations.

His projects include Back Home, Sydney Festival; Strictly Samoan, Penrith Regional Gallery; Body Pacifica, Casula Powerhouse; Edge of Elsewhere, Campbelltown Arts Centre; Siamani Samoa, Carriageworks; Treasure Islands, ACE; Lifting the Tapu, MCA.

*Niu. Polynesian word for baby coconut, preferred early state of development, used for drinking.

Photo supplied by artist

Yumi Umiumare is an acclaimed Japanese-born Butoh dancer, choreographer, and creator of Butoh Cabaret, celebrated for her bold and distinctive style cultivated over 30 years. Her visceral works seamlessly blend humor, cultural identity, and spirituality, redefining classical approaches to theatre-making.

As the artistic director of Melbourne’s ButohOUT! since 2017, she explores themes of Dance, Tea, and Spirit, captivating audiences globally. A recipient of the Australia Council Fellowship (2015), Green Room Geoffrey Milne Memorial Award (2017), and Melbourne Fringe Living Legend Award (2024), Yumi continues to inspire through her commitment to ritual, healing, and intercultural art practices.

Image: INVOCATIONたまおこし, Yumi Umiumare. Photo by Vikk Shayen

Grace Vanilau is a Naarm-based Samoan mama, cultural producer, and interdisciplinary artist. With over 30 years of experience, she has been a driving force in producing and advocating for innovative platforms for Moana Pasifika creatives and diaspora, fostering intercultural dialogue and collaboration.

Her extensive body of work has seen her perform and exhibit across numerous local and international platforms, including La Femmes Funk Festival (Kanaky), Festival du Cannes (France), QAGOMA, Museums Victoria, and the Mirror exhibition at the State Library of Victoria, where she is currently undertaking a creative fellowship.

Photo: Museums Victoria

Alexis Wright, a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria, is one of Australia’s most acclaimed writers. She is the author of prize-winning fiction and non-fiction and is published widely overseas.

Wright has won numerous literary awards, including the Miles Franklin Literary Award for Carpentaria and Praiseworthy, as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Queensland Literary Award for Praiseworthy, which was also shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award.

She is the first author to win the Stella Prize twice for Tracker and Praiseworthy. Her novel Praiseworthy is the only book to have received both the Stella and the Miles Franklin awards in the same year.

Photo: Toly Sawenko