The 5th Auckland Triennial

Bijoy Jain is an architect and founder of Studio Mumbai, a contemporary and award-winning architectural practice drawing on the traditional skills and expertise of India’s craftspeople. Creating a studio where skilled stonemasons, wood workers and other traditional trades do not simply execute his projects but are regarded as advisors and collaborators, Jain has enabled a rediscovery of traditional knowledge and the sustainable use of local resources.

Drawing upon the Indian landscape and regarding it as a resource, Studio Mumbai have created buildings as diverse as private residences, public spaces, research centres and rural retreats formed by local climatic conditions, materials and technologies.

Rigo 23 is an artist interested in the different forms of community-based practice. In the 1990s he painted a number of large-scale Pop Art-inspired murals which highlight world politics and the plight of political prisoners including the "Black Panther Party" and the "Angola Three". Some of Rigo 23’s most memorable murals appear on the sides of buildings, including the large black and white mural One Tree, 1995. In this mural Rigo 23 painted the words ‘one tree’ in a giant traffic arrow which points to a lone tree in a crowded industrial setting – a reminder to the people who pass it of what is lost in urbanisation.

http://www.artistsrespond.org/artists/rigo23/

Zhou Tao’s work reflects on the activities and elements of everyday life. His subtle and humorous videos record interactions between people, things, and situations – touching on questions about the multiple trajectories of reality. In the performance piece Time, 2010 in New York Zhou attached a ball of string to his body as means of recording his movements throughout the day. For Zhou, the decision to use video was not a deliberate choice of artistic language or medium; instead, the operation of the camera is a way of being that blends itself with everyday life.

http://listart.mit.edu/node/509

Bruno Serralongue’s images show the lesser events on the margins of major events and provide alternatives to the linear narrative of news reports of photo essays. Employing a photojournalistic technique Bruno Serralongue has captured important long-lasting geo-political conflicts in countries including Kosova, Sudan and Tibet as well as concerts, summits, forums, and demonstrations. His recent bodies of work reveal the effects of globalisation on those in developing countries.

http://www.brunoserralongue.com/

Yangjiang Group was founded in 2002 by Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan and Sun Qinglin in Yangjiang, China. The direction of their work is driven by Chinese classical philosophy, the traditions of Chinese calligraphy, and notions of social transformation. In the 2009 Lyon Biennale Yangjiang Group created The Pine Garden – As Fierce As a Tiger, a work which brought art, football and chance together in a traditional Chinese garden setting.

Cinthia Marcelle’s video and photography deals with interventions in urban spaces or landscapes and frequently incorporates carefully choreographed, repetitive actions and elements of chaos. These works contain a sense of irony, where the absurd is presented with the appearance of certainty. Paradox is one of the concepts most linked to the performance method used by the artist, along with photography and video.

Marcelle’s videos are often shot from one camera angle and depict actions that appear to be happenstances but which become aesthetic occurrences. Her actions create situations that challenge our notions of conventional behaviour by introducing humorous coincidences and connections.