Sana Balai is a Bougainville elder born to the Nakaripa clan of the Hakö peoples from Buka Island. She is an Assistant Curator at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and, in 2018, was co-curator (with Ruth McDougall) of ‘Women’s Wealth’, a major project for ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ that focused on the closely connected matrilineal societies of Bougainville and the Solomon Islands, and the art forms made by women.

Abigail Bernal is Associate Curator, Asian Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Priyankar Bahadur Chand is a researcher interested in the intersections of public health, history and anthropology. He is currently an MPH candidate at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He and Dipti Sherchan are co-founders of Kala Kulo, a collaborative and transdisciplinary organisation dedicated to exploring the eterogeneous epistemologies and aesthetics of Nepal.

Simon Elliott is Deputy Director, Collection and Exhibitions, at QAGOMA.

Wesley Enoch is the former Artistic Director at Sydney Festival. Wesley has written and directed iconic Indigenous productions, The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table (2007), Black Medea (2000) and The 7 Stages of Grieving (1995). He has directed productions of Black Cockatoo (2020), Black Diggers (2014), I am Eora (2012), The Man from Mukinupin (2009), Parramatta Girls (2007), Yibiyung (2008) and The Sapphires (2004).

Ruha Fifita is Curatorial Assistant, Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Brian Fuata works across the fields of improvisational visual and performance art. He has performed internationally and nationally, including in the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018); Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne (2017); Performa, New York (2015); Carriageworks, Sydney (2015); The Poetry Project, New York (2015); UnionDocs, New York (2015); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2015); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2014); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2013); and Artspace, Sydney (2011).

Ioana Gordon-Smith is a Sāmoan/Pākehā arts writer and curator living in Aotearoa, who demonstrates a commitment to Moana arts practices and their histories. She has held roles at Artspace Aotearoa, Objectspace, Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, and Pātaka Art + Museum. She was assistant curator for the presentation by Yuki Kihara for Aotearoa New Zealand at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, and co-curator of the international Indigenous triennial, ‘Naadohbii: To Draw Water’ in Canada in 2021. She is also the co-founder and co-editor (with Lana Lopesi) of Marinade: Aotearoa Journal of Moana Art. Gordon-Smith has contributed to publications produced by Thames & Hudson, Routledge, ARP Books and Te Papa Press.

Doug Hall AM was director of the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art from 1987 to 2007. He was Commissioner for the Australian exhibitions at the Venice Biennales in 2009 and 2011. Returning to Melbourne in 2010, he was later appointed Associate Professor and Honorary Fellow, Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne. He was an inaugural member of the Asia Art Council, Guggenheim Museum, New York, and has served as a board member of the Australian Japan Foundation and the Australia Thailand Institute.

Taloi Havini is an artist who works in ceramics, photography, print media, video and mixed-media installation. Her practice centres on the politics of location and the intergenerational transmission of indigenous knowledge systems. She engages with living cultural practitioners and material from collections and archives throughout Oceania. She is actively involved in cultural heritage projects and community development in Melanesia and Australia. Her work is held in public and private collections, including QAGOMA and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. She participated in ‘The 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’.

Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner is a poet, educator, activist and artist. In 2012, she represented the Republic of the Marshall Islands at the Poetry Parnassus Festival in London, with her first collection, Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter, published in 2017. Her work came to international acclaim when she dedicated a poem to her daughter at the United Nations Climate Summit in 2014. Since that time, she has further developed her spoken word practice into video poems, performance art and installation presented at the ‘Honolulu Biennale: Middle of Now Here’ (2017); ‘Oceania’, Royal Academy of the Arts, London (2018); and the 9th and 10th iterations of the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, Brisbane (2018, 2021).

Nathalie Johnston is a researcher, curator and gallery director, based in Yangon, Myanmar, from 2012–21. In 2016, she founded Myanm/art, which serves as an exhibition space, commercial gallery and library dedicated to promoting contemporary art. Her engagement with the local art scene began seven years earlier, during a research trip for her thesis in performance art. She has since been involved in numerous independent projects and initiatives, including the Myanmar Art Resource Centre and Archive (MARCA), TS1 Yangon, and the Pyinsa Rasa art collective. She currently resides in Washington DC.

Mami Kataoka is an art curator and writer. She is a significant figure in documenting and analysing contemporary Asian art since 2000, and considering the relevant social, historical and generational themes evident in contemporary Japanese art. In 2020, she was appointed Director of the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo — where she previously served as chief curator (2003–19) — staging exhibitions with artists including Lee Bul, Ai Weiwei, Aida Makoto, NS Harsha and Chiharu Shiota. Prior to joining the Mori, she was the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery’s chief curator. She has also served as co-artistic director of the Gwangju Biennale (2012) and artistic director of the Biennale of Sydney (2018).

Abdi Karya is an Indonesian director, performer, performance artist and cultural manager. He is co-curator of the Yolngu/Macassan Project in 'The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art'.

Reuben Keehan is Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Regina Lepping is a writer, filmmaker, photographer, media consultant, youth advocate and activist from the Solomon Islands. Lepping together with her twin sister, Georgianna, launched Native Lens Film Festival, the first-ever Solomon Islands film festival, in 2019. She also organised — under the auspices of the United Nations Development Programme — the Youth Peacebuilding Innovation Forums in 2017 and 2018.

Ruth McDougall is Curator, Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Tarun Nagesh is Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Maia Nuku is the Evelyn AJ Hall and John A Friede Associate Curator for Oceanic Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and is of English and Māori (Ngai Tai) descent. Her doctoral research focused on eighteenth-century collections of Polynesian art and she has completed two post-doctoral fellowships at Cambridge University (2008–14), as part of an international research team exploring Oceanic collections in major European institutions. Her curatorial approach is driven by an ambition to distil core ideas pertinent to the arts of Oceania, drawing out the distinct themes and cosmological connections that can assist visitors in fully appreciating these unique and compelling arts. She is currently working on a major reinstallation of the Oceania galleries at The Met, which is due to open at the end of 2024.

Rosanna Raymond (Sistar S’pacific) has achieved international renown for her performances, installations, body adornment and spoken word. She has developed works and acti.VĀ.tions for October Gallery, London (2009); Museum of Art and Archaeology, Cambridge, UK; Museum of Anthropology (MOA), Vancouver (2014); Cambelltown Arts Centre, Sydney (2014); ‘The 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’, Brisbane (2015); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2016); ‘Pacific Sisters: Fashion Activists’, Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa and Auckland Art Gallery Toi Tamati (2018–19); ‘Honolulu Biennial’, Hawaii (2019); and ‘Hawaii Triennial: Hawaii Contemporary’, Honolulu (2022).

TK Sabapathy is an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore where he teaches courses in histories of art. He has researched and published on art and artists in Southeast Asia, focusing on histories of the modern period. In 2018, the Singapore Art Museum compiled a collection of his writings, spanning more than 40 years, publishing it as Writing the Modern: Selected Texts on Art & Art History in Singapore, Malaysia and Southeast Asia, 1973–2015.

Chris Saines CNZM is Director, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Dipti Sherchan's research explores the relationship between artists, cultural institutions and the nation-state in Nepal. She and Priyankar Bahadur Chand are co-founders of Kala Kulo, a collaborative and transdisciplinary organisation dedicated to exploring the heterogeneous epistemologies and aesthetics of Nepal.

Dr Zara Stanhope is Director of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery / Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth, New Zealand. She was formerly Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, who led the curatorial development of the Gallery’s flagship exhibition, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT). At QAGOMA, she was also the lead curator of ‘Unfinished Business: The Art of Gordon Bennett’ (2020). She has held senior positions in institutions in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand with the aim of fostering engagement with art and ideas about the global south, and has commissioned and contributed to numerous publications.

Latai Taumoepeau is a Punake, body-centered performance artist. Her faivā (temporal practice) is from her homelands, the Kingdom of Tonga, and her birthplace, the Eora nation (Sydney). Much of her work is in climate change advocacy for Pacific island nations. Her works have been presented in gallery and performance contexts including Carriageworks, Sydney Festival, QAGOMA's APT series, Tanz im August (Berlin), Dance Massive, Sydney Biennale, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney Opera House, Blacktown Arts Centre, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, The Australian Museum and Brisbane Powerhouse. In 2019, Latai was awarded the Prague Quadrennial of Space and Design Excellence in Performance Design Award.

Salote Tawale employs photography, video, drawing, sculpture, installation and live actions to re-form and perform her identity and experience of immigrant and settler colonial heritages. In 2020, Tawale won the Mosman Art Prize. In 2017, she was awarded the inaugural Arts NSW Visual Artists Fellowship to record oral histories and inspect archives in the Fiji Islands, where she was born; travel to major art events in Europe, including the Venice Biennale and Documenta; and forge connections with the Institute of International Visual Arts and Stuart Hall Library in the United Kingdom. She was also the recipient of a six-month Australia Council residency hosted by ACME studios in London.

Dr Uranchimeg (Orna) Tsultemin is a scholar of Mongolian art and culture whose research focuses on Buddhist art and architecture and contemporary Asian art. Uranchimeg received her PhD from UC Berkeley, where she served as co-chair of the Mongolia Initiative at the Institute of East Asian Studies. She has also taught at the National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar; Yonsei University, Seoul; and the University of Iceland, Reykjavík. Uranchimeg’s research includes ancient Mongolian stone monuments, a thirteenth-century Chinggis Khan portrait at the National Palace Museum in Taipei City, a mobile monastery in Urga, Mongolian art of the 1960s, and contemporary Asian artists’ relationships to their art traditions. Her most recent monograph is A Monastery on the Move: Art and Politics in Later Buddhist Mongolia.

Marcus Yee is an art worker from Singapore and based in Hong Kong. A satellite within the collaborative project, soft/WALL/studs, Marcus has been involved with projects supported by the National Gallery Singapore (2020–21), Eyebeam, New York (2020) and Cemeti Institute of Art and Society, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2018). As a writer, Marcus has contributed pieces in Arts Equator, ArtAsiaPacific, Global Performance Studies Journal and art-agenda, among others.