Sāmoan Hxstories, Screens and Intimacies
Chantal Fraser, Yuki Kihara, Jason Edward Lewis, Dan Taulapapa McMullin, Angela Tiatia, Lani Tupu, Lisa Taouma
A Space Main Gallery
September 22 – October 31, 2020
Curated by: Léuli Eshrāghi
Sāmoan Hxstories: Screens and Intimacies is presented by A Space Gallery and imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival with support from Nia Tero.
A world-first survey exhibition of interdisciplinary Sāmoan video art and short film classics will be presented as part of imagineNATIVE from September 22 through October 31, 2020, by Toronto critical art institution A Space Gallery.
Curated by Montreal and Alice Springs-based Sāmoan postdoctoral researcher and artist Léuli Eshrāghi, Sāmoan Hxstories, Screens and Intimacies | Hxstoires, écrans et intimités samoans features rarely seen works from 1995-2013 centred on faʻafafine (akin to Two-Spirit) transfeminine experience and navigating cultural belonging despite colonial displacement and trauma.
Cultural knowledges and conceptions of the future where bodies are sovereign and sexualities are unashamed will be displayed next to works speaking from diasporic positions across Turtle Island and the Great Ocean.
A Space Gallery will host an online panel discussion to reach distanced audiences, while imagineNATIVE will host its first-ever online Art Crawl on October 22, 2020. A digital viewing of the works will also be available during the festival.
Biographies
Chantal Fraser is an interdisciplinary artist interested in the connotations that occur in the subversive presentation of adornment, silhouette, and object.
Yuki Kihara is an interdisciplinary artist whose work addresses societal issues from an Indigenous perspective and will represent Aotearoa New Zealand Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022.
Professor of Computation Arts at Concordia University, Jason Edward Lewis is a digital media poet, artist, and software designer committed to working on new expressions on conceptual, critical, creative and technical levels.
Dan Taulapapa McMullin is an artist and poet from Eastern Sāmoa, who, amongst recent publications and films, is working on a novel and collages reflecting on the queer history of Polynesia.
Angela Tiatia explores contemporary culture, drawing attention to its relationship to representation, gender, neo-colonialism and the commodification of the body and place, often through the lenses of history and popular culture.
After time in teachers’ college, as a singer, and as dancer for music show Ready to Roll, Lani Tupu moved into acting, directing and teaching, including at NIDA and Toi Whakaari.
Lisa Taouma, screenwriter, director, producer, and curator who hails from the Sāmoan villages of Tulaele, Faleasiu and Poutasi has dedicated her career to increased complex sociocultural representation on screen.
Dr. Léuli Eshrāghi is a Sāmoan, Persian and Cantonese artist, curator and researcher whose practice spans performance, moving image, writing and installation. Their work centres on Indigenous presences and multilinguality.