ARTISTS

First presented at the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, Cultivating the Waves is the latest in Ishu Han’s ongoing video series exploring the relationship between the individual and society. Shot on Kawana Beach on Australia’s Sunshine Coast, the work depicts the artist striding out into the surf with a hoe on his shoulders and then repeatedly driving the hoe into the oncoming waves as he struggles to stay upright. The artist comments on the tension between the existential and the comical in his action: “I was tilling the waves that came rushing toward me with my farm tool . . . [but] the more I swung my hoe, the more it felt as though I was the one being tilled by the waves.” But he also sees a broader potential in that absurdist situation, stating that “the body facing the sea is a human being defying the forces of nature and an individual defying the politics created by society.”