A blue-green and orange background to bright blue contour lines showing the text of the project title in Gagana Tokelau, Vosa vakaviti and Cantonese

Kafai e he kitea e koe ni ata ko tona uiga ko tō tino e he ia iloa fakalogo ki ona laloga
Studio Kiin

In this work, Studio Kiin probe the way geneaological knowledge transference is deconstructed, redefined, verified and rejected in the digital, and its impact on embodied ontologies in a futurepast where an inheritance cannot be visualised.

Through the scope of the Digital Vā (Koya, 2017) Kafai e he kitea e koe ni ata ko tona uiga ko tō tino e he ia iloa fakalogo ki ona laloga (Gagana Tokelau) or Ni ko mino ni gaca rawa nai yaloyalo, kena i balebale ni sa mino ni rawa ni vakila na nomū yago ka sa mino ni rawa ni rogo na nomū taliga (Vosa vakayale) or 无形象思维 (Simplified Chinese) is a series of live and digital works that negotiate, dissolve and reinforce cartographical perceptions of relationality and borders.

Emele Ugavule and Amy Zhang interrogate the cause and effect of the disembodiment of knowledge in the virtual, and the disruption of procedural memory in a live performance that brings together oratory, movement and original sound composition by Jane Stark.  Natasha Ratuva reveals the reformation of memory retention, as a result of the introduction of Web 1.0. Conceptualising the compartmentalising of iTaukei iTovo, Natasha draws from family archives of knowledge captured through text, verbatim recordings and images to build a mirror of her internal digital harddrive on Web 3.0.

Read Artist Statement

I often return to the dilemma that “social” media creates for embodied practices of kinship and story making. When I think about feelings, racing through my veins & synapses connecting, I wrestle between intentional community building and dissolving, and where they both meet consent in the digital. I ask myself over and over and over “How do I measure consent? Am I making informed decisions? Who are my decisions in the digital responsible to?” And these questions return me to the crisis that lingers at the precipice of our fingertips – The unknown unknown. The liminal space. My favourite Oceanic theological scholar & close kin, Brandon Tacadena, speaks to the feeling of seeing something you cannot interpret as diaspora as the “anticipation of your own grief”. Kafai e he kitea e koe ni ata ko tona uiga ko tata ko tō tino e he ia iloa fakalogo ki ona laloga contemplates the domino effect of this pending grief across a century through imagining the reality of diaspora in the digital, and projecting the future of a digital afterlife that automates and immortalizes our stories, forever reminding us of our own memories, so that we do not have to.

Following the journey of a museum tour guide, audiences are invited to pull apart how the digital numbs, redirects, and reconstructs our memories, micro-challenging how we feel, how we think we feel and how we articulate how we feel. It pulls a mirror on how the virtual allows us to mistake the name for the thing, the messenger for the message and calls us to assert our digital sovereignty without losing the wisdom of our bodies. 

Read Artist Statement

I often return to the dilemma that “social” media creates for embodied practices of kinship and story making. When I think about feelings, racing through my veins & synapses connecting, I wrestle between intentional community building and dissolving, and where they both meet consent in the digital. I ask myself over and over and over “How do I measure consent? Am I making informed decisions? Who are my decisions in the digital responsible to?” And these questions return me to the crisis that lingers at the precipice of our fingertips – The unknown unknown. The liminal space. My favourite Oceanic theological scholar & close kin, Brandon Tacadena, speaks to the feeling of seeing something you cannot interpret as diaspora as the “anticipation of your own grief”. Kafai e he kitea e koe ni ata ko tona uiga ko tata ko tō tino e he ia iloa fakalogo ki ona laloga contemplates the domino effect of this pending grief across a century through imagining the reality of diaspora in the digital, and projecting the future of a digital afterlife that automates and immortalizes our stories, forever reminding us of our own memories, so that we do not have to.

Following the journey of a museum tour guide, audiences are invited to pull apart how the digital numbs, redirects, and reconstructs our memories, micro-challenging how we feel, how we think we feel and how we articulate how we feel. It pulls a mirror on how the virtual allows us to mistake the name for the thing, the messenger for the message and calls us to assert our digital sovereignty without losing the wisdom of our bodies. 

Toe fai!

A person with their back to the camera stands infront of a seating bank full of young members of a choir. The lighting is blue.
A person sits on a stage floor with a purple toned spotlight on them. They are wearing all blue and one hand is raised.
A Tokelauan choir perform.
    • FRI 23 September 2022, 19:00 – 20:00 AEST
    Event Concluded
  • 75 mins
    • Arts House, 521 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  • English / Gagana Tokelau
  • Pay if you can $35 AUD
    Standard $20 AUD
    BLAKTIX $10 AUD
    A small transaction fee will be charged per event

    • Auslan Interpreted
    • Wheelchair
    • Assistive Listening
    • Quiet Space Available

    Quiet Space available.

  • This is an all ages show.

Toe fai! (meaning ‘Do it again’ in Gagana Tokelau) looks at the ways our memories betray us and imagines a future where our descendants cannot visualise their inheritance. Toe fai! reveals the tensions between the usefulness of forgetfulness, the unforgiving immortality of memories in the digital age, and the necessity for procedural memory to ensure the survival of embodied knowledge. Through verbatim storytelling Emele Ugavule weaves together a narrative that asks ‘what happens when technology enables procedural memory to dissolve?’ bringing together stories across generations, choreographed by movement artist, Amy Zhang.

Credits
  • Lead artist - Emele Ugavule
    Lead artist - Natasha Ratuva
    Lead artist - Amy Zhang
    Composer - Jane Stark
    People weaver - Linda Iriza
  • Studio Kiin has been commissioned and produced by Arts House, City of Melbourne as part of BLEED 2022.
  • BLEED (Biennial Live Event in the Everyday Digital) was conceived by Campbelltown City Council through Campbelltown Arts Centre, and the City of Melbourne through Arts House. BLEED 2022 is produced and presented by Campbelltown City Council through Campbelltown Arts Centre, and the City of Melbourne through Arts House, Taipei Performing Arts Center and Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei.  BLEED has been supported by the Taiwan Ministry of Culture and Cultural Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Sydney

Au mino ni nanuma

    • Available On Demand
  • English, Vosa vakayale, Kadavu, Viti
  • FREE

  • This work is mixed media: collage, digital and archival images and text best experienced on desktop

The memory capacity of our iTaukei ancestors were incredibly resilient, fluid and fortified. It was and continues to be stored in our minds, embedded in our bodies, fixed into the ocean and the entire natural world. These storehouses of memory were continued in our descendants and kinship groups. However, colonization disassembled many of our reflective technologies, imposing their own upon our peoples.

The early 90s introduced the world to web 1.0, the first ever browser for websites. Microsoft Windows 95′ was the first Windows software to add surfing the internet as a feature. Consequently, it was where Natasha’s digital memory began.

Au mino ni nanuma is a series of folders labeled in the Kadavu-Yale dialect that sit on a personalised desktop. Each folder is named after a particular memory, person or iTovo vakaviti (Fijian cultural protocol). These works reflect on the ways that digital memory and data have affected iTaukei traditional forms of memory capacity, pertaining particularly to Natasha’s own experience of memory in her digital infancy.

Users are invited to navigate through these intimate pieces of Natasha’s personal and collective memory, whilst also reflecting on the ways they embed memory into their digital worlds.

Credits
  • Emele Ugavule - Lead artist
    Natasha Ratuva - Lead artist
    Amy Zhang - Lead artist
    Jane Stark - Composer
    Linda Iriza - People weaver
  • Studio Kiin has been commissioned and produced by Arts House, City of Melbourne as part of BLEED 2022.
  • BLEED (Biennial Live Event in the Everyday Digital) was conceived by Campbelltown City Council through Campbelltown Arts Centre, and the City of Melbourne through Arts House. BLEED 2022 is produced and presented by Campbelltown City Council through Campbelltown Arts Centre, and the City of Melbourne through Arts House, Taipei Performing Arts Center and Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei.  BLEED has been supported by the Taiwan Ministry of Culture and Cultural Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Sydney
Acknowledgement of Country
Arts House, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Taipei Performing Arts Center, and Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands we work on, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, Dharawal, and Ketagalan peoples. We extend our respects to their Elders past, present and future while respecting the vast Traditional Owners Nations our digital platforms reach. We extend this acknowledgment to Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and Austronesian artists, audiences and communities, and First Nations peoples globally.
墨爾本藝術之家、坎貝爾敦藝術中心、臺北表演藝術中心及台北當代藝術館向我們土地上的第一民族暨傳統所有人致上敬意,包括烏倫杰里族(Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung)、塔爾瓦斯族(Dharawal)、凱達格蘭族(Ketagalan)及其眾支系。因著BLEED數位介面所將廣泛觸及的各種傳統民族與土地, 我們尊榮各地過去、現在及未來的祖先與耆老。我們更將這份對台灣與澳洲原住民族、托雷斯海峽群島民族及南島民族的藝術家、觀眾與社群的致意延展至全球各傳統領地與第一民族。