Selected works featured in the 23rd Biennale of Sydney will now travel to the collaborating institutions to create a series of unique exhibitions focusing on the local context and resonating with a global conversation. Paiwan artist Aluaiy Kaumaka's textile sculpture "Semasipu - Remembering Our Intimacies" will be on display at the Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE Gallery) from February 4 to March 18.
The "Casiquiare" touring exhibition titled "A river that flows both ways: Selected works from the 23rd Biennale of Sydney: rīvus" is an extension of the 23rd Biennale of Sydney. Among works by 89 participants featured in the Biennale, 19 selected works will be displayed at venues including ACE Gallery, Cairns Art Gallery, Institute of Modern Art (IMA), and Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA). At ACE Gallery, this group presentation will feature works by Aluaiy Kaumakan, Yuko Mohri (Japan), Imhathai Suwatthanasilp (Thailand), and Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi (Tonga), alongside the river voice of the Murrundi / Murray River. MOC said that through this exhibition, it is hoped that the work by Aluaiy Kaumaka can reach out to more Australians.
ACE Gallery Project Curator Patrice Sharkey said the reason why Aluaiy Kaumaka's work was selected to be exhibited on the Adelaide Plains of the Kaurna people is that her work delivers a powerful message on the issues of dislocation and exile among First Nations people.
After the outbreak of the pandemic, the MOC continued to support the Cultural Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in Sydney and the Biennale of Sydney in creating a large-scale installation art with Aluaiy Kaumaka, who is the first Taiwanese indigenous artist to be invited since the establishment of the Biennale of Sydney.
Inspired by the Paridrayan community which was hit by a typhoon in 2009 and the inhabitants were forced to relocate, "Semasipu - Remembering Our Intimacies," reflects on the relationship between people and rivers and resonates with the theme of the 23rd Sydney Biennale "River" (rīvus).