Full Session- Views from the Continent: Art and the US Pacific Diaspora

Views from the Continent: Art and the US Pacific Diaspora
Friday, February 12, 2010, 2:30P.M.-5:00P.M.
Acapulco, Gold Level, West Tower
Hyatt Regency
151 East Wacker Drive
Chicago, IL 60601
(402) 592-6464 / (888) 421-1442

Session Abstract: Taking visual art produced in the U.S. Pacific diaspora as its point of focus, this panel invites a wide-ranging dialogue on how contemporary artists use their work to articulate complexly constituted relationships to Oceanic heritages – and how in turn that work has been presented and interpreted through various critical, curatorial, and scholarly projects. What questions emerge about the possibilities and limitations of existing discourses, artistic strategies, and modes of display in conveying and contextualizing the ideas, histories, conditions, and subjectivities that catalyze this art?

This panel seeks to draw attention to visual art produced by Pacific Islander peoples living in the continental United States precisely because that subject has received comparatively little scholarly and critical consideration, seen in the light of a robust discourse (as well as a number of high-profile exhibitions) on contemporary art and cultural production in Oceania that have emerged since the 1970s.

Employing the central notion of “diaspora” as a framework for this session reflects an understanding of culture as continuously evolving in relation to new geographies and shifting conditions. It suggests a fluidity of identifications and transnational linkages between places of ancestral origin and various points of circulation and settlement elsewhere in the world. At the same time it is meant to acknowledge the particularities of place and how Oceanic artists' presence in the United States bears on their sensibilities and negotiations of history, ancestry, family, tradition, and changing cultural practices.
Chair: Dr. Margo Machida           
Affiliation: University of Connecticut   
Co-Chair: Jewel Castro
Affiliation:  Independent Artist, Gig Harbor, WA   

Speaker Order:
Dr. Margo Machida and Jewel Castro will give introductory remarks followed by the Session Panel in the following order:

Speaker No. 1: Dr. Teri Sowell
Affiliation: University of California, San Diego and Oceanside Museum of Art
Paper title: Pacific Islander Art in the Continental US
Abstract: This paper will focus on artists of Pacific Islander heritage living and working in the Continental United States. The emphasis, however, will not be on individual artists, but rather on the community they have helped to develop which now defines and fosters their unique identity. Since globalization has led toward homogenization, there are key advantages to possessing uniqueness. By promoting Pacific Islander heritage, these artists are able to position themselves not only in the contemporary art world, but also in the “ethnic art” market. More importantly, by manipulating key cultural symbols and concepts and placing them into contemporary artistic media, these artists tend to resonate with younger generations who desire a more relevant connection to their Pacific Islander heritage. In summary, these artists play a pivotal role in perpetuating cultural knowledge in the Pacific Diaspora while making the unique character of Islander heritage visible to the rest of the world.

Speaker No. 2: Adrienne Pao
Affiliation: San Francisco Art Institute and Academy of Art University
Presentation Title: Hawaiian Cover-Ups
Abstract: Adrienne Pao is a Photographer based in San Francisco, California. Pao’s Hawaiian Cover-ups photographic series examines the dual nature of the colonized experience in Hawai’i, through her own position as a part-Hawaiian person born and raised in California. She will discuss her Hawaiian Cover-ups photographic series, the strategies behind the making of the work, and how family history and genealogy contribute to the conceptual underpinning of the project. She will also introduce a new series of Hawaiian family portraits and discuss how fantasy, including historical recollection and contemporary consciousness, shapes each family member's current sense of identity. Adrienne Pao is currently visiting faculty in the Photography Department at the San Francisco Art Institute and the Academy of Art University. Her work can be viewed at www.adriennepao.com.


Speaker No. 3: Dan Taulapapa McMullin
Affiliation: independent artist, Laguna Niguel, California
Presentation title: In the Nest of the Eagle
Abstract: On the flag of the United States Territory of American Samoa is a bald eagle holding in its claws a Samoan fue or fly whisk, and a uatogi or war club, signs of wisdom and power. In the nest of the eagle, or in the United States itself, I am often concerned in my work with narratives of representation. Lately, representation in my artwork has followed themes of metamorphosis: an old woman's upper body becoming a young tree, my body twinned and both bodies joined headless at the neck, churches growing from the foreheads of friends. This literal hybridity, following the violence of colonialism, the forced separation from our ancestors, the dishonoring of our sovereignty, leaves one's body seeking shelter in the detritus of imperialism stolen from Native soil. My positionality as a diasporic Samoan artist is what (in)forms my art, and the beat of my narrative reflects this. http://www.taulapapa.com


Speaker No. 4: Bernida Webb-Binder
Affiliation: Cornell University
Paper title: Oceania as Center in Pacific American Art
Abstract: The art of Jewel Castro and Reggie Meredith illuminates the concerns of the significant population of Pacific Islanders within the United States. Castro and Meredith reference Samoan tradition and textile (siapo) in their body of work and in doing so, speak to the transformation of Samoan culture in the wake of the colonization of American Samoa by the United States. Their work offers an opportunity to examine notions of indigeneity and diaspora as applicable to the context of the continental United States. I suggest that, in the United States, issues of indigeneity and diaspora for Pacific Americans become a larger question of relationship to self, others, and land, with Oceania as the center of this equation. In their contemporary practices as Pacific American artists, Castro and Meredith point to the inclusion of the United States in the “sea of islands,” as conceived by Epeli Hau‘ofa.


Speaker No. 5: Anne Keala Kelly
Affiliation: independent artist, Kailua, Hawai`i
Presentation title: Kuleana Media: Making Hawaiian Resistance Media in the Era of Elimination
Abstract: In the midst of Hawaiians’ declining population in their homeland, this presentation will give some contemporary political and historical context to this unacknowledged form of elimination, or what Hawaiians are beginning to refer to as “ethnic cleansing.” It will consider the lack of discourse between homeland and diaspora Hawaiians and what that means, and hopefully put forward possibilities for changing that reality through the production of resistance media. My remarks will address the documentary I produced, Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai’i (2009) and the differences between its reception by Hawaiians on the continental United States, as compared to Hawaiians in Hawai’i. It will also consider examples of journalism I have done for radio, and artworks I have created – such as the installation entitled, Aloha: Wishing You Were Here, (2006) in an attempt to make these issues known to a larger and more diverse audience.