Latai Taumoepeau

Last updated

Latai Taumoepeau
Born1972
Known forPerformance Art
MovementContemporary

Latai Taumoepeau (born 1972) is an Australian contemporary artist. She is best known for her performance art, which explores the politics of race, colour and power in Australia. [1] She has shown her works in leading Sydney galleries and venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Carriageworks, Performance Space, the Sydney Opera House, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, and the Australian Museum. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Latai Taumoepeau was born in the Eora Nation, Sydney, Australia, where she currently lives and works. Taumoepeau is described as a punake, which is a Tongan term that refers to "performance artists, such as dancers, who use the body as their medium". [1] The term punake is used to describe "artists who compose poetry and songs and choreograph them for performance. The word comes from puna (to fly) and hake (on high)." [3]

Career

Taumoepeau draws inspiration for her artwork from her Tongan heritage and seeks to address issues surrounding race, class and the female body politic.

Taumoepeau presented at a symposium at Melbourne's Contemporary Pacific Arts Festival which "celebrate[s] the creative practices among the Pacific diaspora in Australia". [4]

Her artwork Dark Continent, 2018, was presented as a part of the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT9) at Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, in Brisbane. Dark Continent was also performed for the program duration of the 48HR Incident, a performance art and live action event which occurred over 48 hours from 29 to 31 May 2016. [5]

In 2018, her performance piece Repatriate was also exhibited alongside Museum of Water as a part of the 2018 Perth Festival at the Fremantle Arts Centre. Repatriate sought to draw attention to the impact of rising sea levels on Pacific Island nations, including her motherland of the Kingdom of Tonga. [6]

Taumoepeau was part of the Sydney Biennale in 2020, presenting her work The Last Resort, [7] a major installation on Cockatoo Island. [8]

In 2020 & 2021, Taumoepeau designed the programme for REFUGE [9] at Arts House, a programme of talks, live artworks and installations that prepares communities for the coming climate emergency, connecting contemporary politics, environmental scientists and indigenous knowledge holders to enable interconnected conversations for the survival of all beings.

Work

Awards and nominations

Related Research Articles

The Biennale of Sydney is an international festival of contemporary art, held every two years in Sydney, Australia. It is a large and well-attended contemporary visual arts event in the country. Alongside the Venice and São Paulo biennales and Documenta, it is one of the longest running exhibitions of its kind and was the first biennale to be established in the Asia-Pacific region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queensland Art Gallery</span> Art museum in Queensland, Australia

The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. It complements the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) building, situated only 150 metres (490 ft) away.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane</span> Art museum in Queensland, Australia

The Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) is an art museum located within the Queensland Cultural Centre in the South Bank precinct of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA.

Michael Te Rakato Parekōwhai is a New Zealand sculptor and a professor at the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts. He is of Ngāriki Rotoawe and Ngāti Whakarongo descent and his mother is Pākehā.

Donna Ong is a Singaporean artist. She is known for her installation works, which often feature environments created with assemblages, found objects, and sculpture. Her practice draws upon notions of botany, landscaping, and representations of nature in both European and Chinese art.

Yuki Kihara is an interdisciplinary artist of Japanese and Samoan descent. In 2008, her work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; it was the first time a New Zealander and the first time a Pacific Islander had a solo show at the institution. Titled Shigeyuki Kihara: Living Photographs, the exhibition opened from 7 October 2008 to 1 February 2009. Kihara's self-portrait photographs in the exhibitions included nudes in poses that portrayed colonial images of Polynesian people as sexual objects. Her exhibition was followed by an acquisition of Kihara's work for the museum's collection.

S. Chandrasekaran is a Singaporean contemporary artist known for his pioneering work in performance art in 1980s Singapore. He has held executive positions as Head of School at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and LASALLE College of Arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin White (artist)</span> New Zealand painter and printmaker

Dame Robin Adair White is a New Zealand painter and printmaker, recognised as a key figure in the regionalist movement of 20th-century New Zealand art.

Peter Robinson is a New Zealand artist of Māori descent. He is an associate professor at the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judy Watson</span> Australian artist

Judy Watson is an Australian Waanyi multi-media artist who works in print-making, painting, video and installation. Her work often examines Indigenous Australian histories, and she has received a number of high profile commissions for public spaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brett Graham</span> New Zealand sculptor

Brett Graham is a New Zealand sculptor who creates large scale artworks and installations that explore indigenous histories, politics and philosophies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kushana Bush</span> Artist (b. 1983)

Kushana Bush is a New Zealand artist based in Dunedin. She is best known for her paintings which typically blend historic and contemporary styles. Bush has won several awards for her works and has held international exhibitions.

Mikala Dwyer is an Australian artist born in 1959 in Sydney. She is a contemporary sculptor who was shortlisted with fellow artist Justene Williams to represent Australia at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

Wah Nu is a contemporary artist from Myanmar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charwei Tsai</span>

Charwei Tsai is a Taiwanese multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan.

Lorraine Connelly-Northey is an Australian Aboriginal artist, a descendant of the Waradgerie (Wiradjuri) people. She also has Irish, English and Scottish heritage.

Alick Tipoti, whose traditional name is Zugub, is a Torres Strait Islander artist, linguist, and activist of the Kala Lagaw Ya people, from Badu Island, in the Zenadh Kes. His work includes painting, installations, printmaking, sculpture and mask-making, and is focused on preserving the culture and languages of his people.

Kulimoe'anga Stone Maka, is an interdisciplinary artist of Tongan heritage who lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 2011, he was awarded the Emerging Pasifika Artist Award from Creative New Zealand. Maka's work has been exhibited in museums and art galleries in New Zealand, Hawai'i Australia and Tonga. In 2020 he was selected to represent New Zealand at the 22nd Biennale in Sydney.

Jasmine Togo-Brisby is a South Sea Islander artist known for her sculpture installations and portrait photographs. She currently resides in Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington and is one of few artists that centres Pacific slave labour as the focus of her practice.

Judith Wright in Meanjin (Brisbane) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans installation, video, sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking and assemblage.

References

  1. 1 2 McDougall, Ruth (2018). APT9 : The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. South Brisbane, Queensland: Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, South Brisbane. p. 167. ISBN   9781921503924.
  2. Vetuna, Pauline (2012). So fukin native. Melbourne, Australia: Blak Dot Gallery. ISBN   978-0-646-58833-9.
  3. "Latai Taumoepeau". Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art . Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  4. Bent, Siobhan (8 March 2020). "Kingdom of Tonga". Art Asia Pacific Almanac. 10: 189. ProQuest   2223954545.
  5. de Almeida, Pedro (8 March 2020). "Australia". Art Asia Pacific Almanac. 11: 98 via Informit.
  6. "Latai Taumoepeau". Fremantle Arts Centre. 2018. Archived from the original on 20 March 2022. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  7. "Latai Taumoepeau". Biennale of Sydney (Photo). November 2021. Archived from the original on 17 February 2023. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  8. "Cockatoo Island - UNESCO World Heritage Site | Cockatoo Island".
  9. "Refuge - Art Meets Emergency". Arts House. Archived from the original on 1 November 2022. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  10. "2015 FBi SMAC Awards Announced". Australian Arts Review. 13 January 2016. Archived from the original on 22 October 2021. Retrieved 8 March 2020.