Rising Voices: contemporary art finally gets a wider map
The V&A’s new exhibition, Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific, opens today at V&A South Kensington and runs until 10 January 2027. It brings together more than 70 works by over 40 artists from 25 countries, presented in partnership with QAGOMA in Brisbane. The show draws on three decades of QAGOMA’s Asia Pacific Triennial and foregrounds First Nations perspectives throughout.
Here is the fact that should be stamped across the gallery entrance: the Asia Pacific region is home to roughly 60 per cent of the world’s population. And yet, for decades, the dominant institutions of contemporary art have behaved as if the whole thing were a footnote. Rising Voices treats Asia-Pacific art as central, complex, and alive, rather than filing it under “world cultures” and putting it somewhere near the gift shop.
What is actually in the room
The works span sculpture, photography, painting, ceramics, weaving and body adornment, arranged across three thematic sections: Re-Visioning History, Enduring Knowledge, and Evolving Faith. Many of these works have never been shown in the UK before.
The first thing visitors encounter is Michael Parekowhai’s Kapa Haka (Whero) (2003): a life-sized fibreglass sculpture of a Maori security guard, arms folded. The pose echoes a haka dancer’s stance, but the uniform traps the figure in a Western stereotype. Inside, Christian Thompson’s Refuge (2015) fills the space with singing entirely in Bidjara, an endangered Aboriginal language. There is no translation. You are supposed to feel the weight of a language disappearing.
Adeela Suleman presents exquisitely painted meat cleavers decorated with Himalayan landscapes. The loveliness is completely at odds with the weight of the objects. Svay Ken’s images of bombs falling over ordinary Cambodian rural life, and Elisabet Kauage’s painting of Captain Cook’s ship with Pacific Islanders packed below deck, need no wall text.
The exhibition closes with Montien Boonma’s Lotus Sound (1992), a wall of terracotta bells, and Takahiro Iwasaki’s Reflection Model (Perfect Bliss) (2010-12), Kyoto’s Phoenix Pavilion caught in a lake’s reflection, hanging in the air like a held breath.
Why this matters
For contemporary artists, this lands at a significant moment. Across art, music, film and digital culture, there is a growing pushback against narrow systems of taste, authorship and cultural authority. Artists are increasingly asking: who gets seen? Who gets archived? Who gets treated as “universal” while everyone else is “regional”? Rising Voices sits directly inside that conversation, and it does not flinch.
The old Western hierarchy that ranked fine art above craft, concept above material, and centre above periphery looks increasingly brittle. Good. Let it crack.
The real news
The most compelling thing about this exhibition is that it does not just ask Britain to look at different art. It asks Britain to look differently. The frame is shifting. The margins are speaking back. The museum wall has developed a few useful fractures.
Honestly, about time.
Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific
V&A South Kensington, Porter Gallery | 16 May 2026 to 10 January 2027
vam.ac.uk
Written by Roxksie
Sources and further reading
V&A, Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific
https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/rising-voices-contemporary-art-from-asia-australia-and-the-pacific
V&A, About the exhibition Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/about-the-exhibition-rising-voices-contemporary-art-from-asia-australia-and-the-pacific
QAGOMA, Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific opens in London
https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/stories/rising-voices-contemporary-art-from-asia-australia-and-the-pacific-opens-in-london
QAGOMA, New exhibition at London’s V&A celebrates 30 years of QAGOMA’s Asia Pacific Triennial and artists from across the Asia Pacific
https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/media-release/new-exhibition-at-london-s-v-and-a-celebrates-30-years-of-qagoma-s-asia-pacific-triennial-and-artists-from-across-the-asia-pacific-2026-05-19/
QAGOMA, Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/exhibition/asia-pacific-triennial-of-contemporary-art/
The Guardian, “I couldn’t believe we weren’t falling over ourselves for it”: Asia-Pacific art finally conquers Britain
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/may/16/asia-pacific-art-britain
The Guardian, V&A Rising Voices review: can decades of stunning global art really be squished into three rooms?
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/may/13/va-rising-voices-review-va-south-kensington-london
Ocula, More Than 40 Asia Pacific Artists Are Taking Over London’s V&A
https://ocula.com/magazine/art-news/vanda-london-exhibition-asia-pacific/
The Wick, Viewing Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific
https://thewickculture.com/wick-list-rising-voices-va-south-kensington/
New Exhibitions, Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific
https://www.newexhibitions.com/e/68287
London Museum Tours, Rising Voices: Asia Pacific Art Exhibition at the V&A
https://www.londonmuseumtours.com/temporary-exhibitions/rising-voices
United Nations Population Fund, World Population Dashboard
https://www.unfpa.org/data/world-population-dashboard
United Nations ESCAP, Asia and the Pacific
https://www.unescap.org/about
Tate, Contemporary Art
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/contemporary-art
Tate, Installation Art
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/i/installation-art
Tate, First Nations and Indigenous Art
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/f/first-nations-and-indigenous-art
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