VIRTUAL: 2020 Global Asia/Pacific Art Exchange Aotearoa: Ngā Tai o te Ao: Global Tides

Presented by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU in collaboration with the School of Art and Design at the Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau (AUT University) and Vā Moana Research Cluster. 

The 2020 Global Asia/Pacific Art Exchange (GAX) will focus on Aotearoa / New Zealand with two days of virtual gatherings on Tuesday, June 23 and Wednesday, June 24 from 4:45-7:15 p.m. EST / Wednesday, June 24 and Thursday, June 25 from 8:45-11:15 a.m. NZT. The 2020 session will continue ongoing inquiries but transformed into a virtual engagement.

In this talanoa exchange we invite artists, performers, and scholars to share the shores of Aotearoa and in turn bring stories of other coastlines to us. The intertidal zone is a place of resistance in colonial encounter, a contested place on these islands, yet it is also a place rich with biotic life and possibility. We ask how can we bring a sense of place to online exchange, that wells from our underground springs beneath AUT University Ngā Wai o Horotiu marae in central Tamaki Makaurau (Auckland); the place where we would physically gather if not for the far-reaching health crisis which we all hold in common. We look both to the oceanic past and to present and future climates of resistance that rise in a time of increasingly severe storms, cyclones, and drought.

Our exchange will take the online form of talanoa, a safe forum to explore problematic questions, or as Timote Vaiolete (2006) writes, an “encounter where people story their issues, their realities and aspirations.” Ngā Tai o te Ao: Global Tides is a talanoa on social and ecological encounters in Indigenous and Asian contemporary art, emanating from the shores of Aotearoa.

On the first day, the Vā Moana Research Cluster led by Albert Refiti and School of Art and Design at AUT University will host a talanoa with invited creatives including spoken word presentations by Rosanna Raymond (Pacific Sisters) and Anatonio Te Maioha, artist dialogues between Nova Paul and Natalie Robertson with curator Maree Mills; Xin Cheng and Kerry-Ann Lee with Anna Kazumi Stahl; Layne Waerea and Tuputau Lelaulu with writer-respondent Lana Lopesi; Jane Chang Mi with Cameron Ah Loo-Matamua and Sia Figiel; Arielle Walker and Emily Parr with Faith Wilson; and a movement interlude by Jack Gray of Atamira Dance Company. The event will be opened and closed with karakia led by Valance Smith, Assistant Pro Vice Chancellor, Māori Advancement (AUT).

On day two, we will discuss the New Zealand Pavilion at the upcoming 59th Venice Biennale in 2022 with artist Yuki Kihara and curator Nathalie King.

The exchange convenes scholars, curators, and artists to strengthen international networks in the expanding field of Asian/Pacific art and visual cultures.

Convened by Alexandra Chang, Janine Randerson, and Albert Refiti, with support from Natalie Robertson, Charlotte Huddleston (ST PAUL St Gallery), and Nova Paul. 

This is a virtual working session by invitation.

Image: a still, Janine Randerson, with Maree Sheehan, Interceptor, 16 mm film and underwater video, 2018.