Published on the occasion of the exhibition Namesake, The sea brought you here brings together newly commissioned responses alongside found photographs, phone snapshots, sketches, texts and previous work by Quishile Charan and Salome Tanuvasa.
Elaborating on the concerns of both artists, Hanahiva Rose employs the metaphors of threads and waves to connect the practices of Charan and Tanuvasa in her essay A Pacific Diaspora: how might we trace the movement? while Temporary Vanua: Decolonisation and textile making, a revised text by Charan, contextualises her approach to textile-making. Shorter snippets of text by Tanuvasa also give insight to her working process. Finally, Transcribed records an informal conversation between two friends attempting to unpack the way the language of ‘decolonisation’ is currently being employed.
Text: Quishile Charan, Sophie Davis, Hanahiva Rose, Salome Tanuvasa, unattributed
Edited by Louise Rutledge and Sophie Davis
Design by Josephine Jelicich
Edition of 150
ISBN 978-0-473-39998-6
Risograph printing by Pivot print—
Binding: Adprint, Wellington
Paper: Colurplan, ECO100 and Silk Gloss
Soft cover, perfect bound, 260 x 295 mm
50pg
About the artists
Quishile Charan is an emerging artist of Indo-Fijian heritage living and working in Aotearoa New Zealand. Charan uses traditional modes of textile-making to reflect upon the landscape of indentured labour and its ongoing post-colonial affects on the Indo-Fijian community. Recent projects include: A Turn of a Wheel (group), Malcolm Smith Gallery, Auckland (2017); New Perspectives (group), Artspace, Auckland (2016); Samundar and Haldi, Objectspace, Auckland (2016). Charan holds an honours degree in Fine Arts from the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland.
Salome Tanuvasa is a Samoan-Tongan artist based in Auckland. She completed her Masters in Fine Arts at Elam in 2014, followed by a Diploma in Secondary Teaching. Salome was the Artspace/Tautai Education Intern in 2016 and now is the Education Manager at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts. Her art practice looks at the ideas of home and the multiple connections of a place that can inform the characteristics of a person.