OLD HAUNTS Anthem ARI - Metro Arts, Gallery One 5-26 June, 2021
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OLD HAUNTS
Anthem ARI
Metro Arts, Gallery One
5-26 June, 2021What does it mean to be haunted? manners, good taste, attendant
What lies dormant in the places behaviours and professional
and the spaces we inhabit in our contemporary art conventions.
darling Meanjin (Brisbane)? Old
Haunts blurs borders between In many ways, if the Coronavirus
what is artificial, crafted, arranged pandemic lockdown had not taken
and under construction, as well place, Anthem ARI may never have
as the liminal spaces created and formed. Amidst the looming and
offered by ‘cultural authorities’ such oppressive feeling of alienation
as museums and art institutions. within the arts community and
Drawing from often submerged enforced isolation world-wide,
facets of Australian identity, Old Anthem revealed itself to the world.
Haunts coalesces the personal It was borne out of a desire to
narratives of the Anthem ARI artists extend tenderness and appreciation
through uncanny simulations and to all BIPOC voices, especially
quirky depictions of established those working from Meanjin /
cultural and art traditions. By Brisbane. Seeking to disrupt the
adopting aesthetics of preservation Eurocentric lens associated with
and formal depictions of exoticism, cultural institutions in Australia,
Anthem seeks to explore both their Anthem undertakes exhibitions that
own familial ground and the new include culturally diverse artists
locale of the Metro Arts space while considering implications
in West Village, West End. The predetermined by the White Cube.
scattered and submerged familial
and geographic histories the artists ~
Lucy Nguyên-Hunt and Keemon
speak to are fraught with boundary- Williams’ collaboration Venus and
ridden vernacular, curfews and David is a visceral performative
restrictions, racial segregation, video in which the artists adorn
disenfranchised youth and now, the themselves with so-called traditional
gentrified and commercial ventures garb, all in white. Referencing
of a growing Brisbane metropolis. ethnographic documentation and
By appropriating and reconfiguring archival portraiture, Nguyên- ~
erections of exhibition architecture, Hunt and Williams transform
Anthem ARI devises darkly humorous themselves into statues belonging
interventions to subvert gallery to an unknown institution, enactingconventional postures and on the gallery’s architecture. These
embodying what it means to be a works speak to nostalgia, the past,
living archive. Voiceovers of the two what haunts, but also a sense of
artists accompanying the work echo inauthenticity. What were archives
typical educational vernacular, an of the past - wunderkammers
omnipresent first-person narrative (cabinets of curiosities) and archival
from the perspectives of the documentation - have now become
‘documented’, discussing poetically IGTV videos and reels. Both artists
rich territories of national pride, depict how traditions, examinations
primitivism and caucasity - “I’m of past histories and connectivity
rethinking how I know myself, are shifting with the advent of new
the more I become aware of technologies and new methods of
how colonised I am… I’m finally storytelling.
recovering from my amnesia.”
Continuing with examinations of
Being a product of white history the archive, Iraqi-Syrian Ruaa Al-
that imposes architecture of white Rikabi has created an exact replica
structure and mannerisms, there of the shoe thrown at US President
exists to this day an unethical George W. Bush on December 14,
display of cultural objects, 2008, entitled Farewell kiss. The
inadequate education on cultural single size 10 shoe was thrown at
safety, appropriation, and tokenism. Bush by Iraqi journalist, Muntadhar
Using satire to shine a light on the al-Zaidi. Al-Rikabi depicts the shoe
fetishization and capitalisation of ceremonially, revealing this shoe
significant cultural artefacts Lucy as the moment Middle Eastern
~
Nguyên-Hunt and Keemon vilification took on a tangible form.
Williams evoke unspoken tensions The work does not necessarily
and address the uncanny feelings encapsulate the anger towards
BIPOC identities face in the Bush but the sense of pride of the
White Cube space. Both artists Iraqi people and Al-Rikabi’s own
reference these nuances in their childhood magnification of the
individual works, Nguyễn-Hunt experience. Watching it happen live
with their I’m Half series and on TV as an 8-year-old Iraqi-Syrian
Williams with A SIGN OF SINS Australian, Al-Rikabi identifies how
TO COME, banners that impede she never felt more proud of beingan Iraqi and that the political nature present now, turning into the futures
of the early 2000s made her relish in to come.” Slow dancing on a chair
her familial heritage. Her work Axis under a magnolia tree, the viewer
of Evil complements Farewell kiss. shares a sense of nostalgia and
The map of the Middle East focuses melancholy as Takeuchi moves
directly on Iraq and Syria. The Axis delicately in her anonymous
was first introduced on January environment.
29, 2002, five months after 9/11
at the State of the Union and was Filipino artist Rhanjell Villanueva
propagated by Bush as a concept delves into his personal nostalgia
that encompassed Iraq, Iran and and memories of gathering and
North Korea. eating with his family in Butterfly
gold, placing a ceramic tea cup
Reina Takeuchi’s work what the and saucer onto a plinth. This work
trees tell me and these ghosts, these responds to the immigration wave
trees speak to uncanny interventions as well as the peak of Corelle
in West End’s landscape. these kitchenware in the tables of many
ghosts, these trees is a photographic Filipinos in the 1970s. Honouring
series captured on analogue film the hardwork and the familial love
throughout the West End area, language that is close to his heart,
from Boundary Street, Montague Villanueva extends the symbol
Road and Orleigh Park. Using a of the etched gold butterflies
piece of ephemeral tulle fabric, and speak to his collaboration
the photographs document the with Reina Takeuchi, entitled
white material entangling itself, Paruparo, performed by Joshua
unwrapping and morphing into the Taliani. Paruparo is an exploration
landscape. Takeuchi’s performative of spiritual and cultural dance
video alludes to the statements traditions, using butterflies and
and questions that perhaps these restless spirits as its departure point.
trees hold within themselves and There is an old Filipino, Bicolano
disjointedly describes feelings and Ilocano belief that the dust
trapped within the West End from a butterfly or moth’s wings can
landscape: “a blood-moth stain cause blindness and that a butterfly
spreads over this place, time falls or moth hovering around the body,
heavily here, the past here is the especially after death or waking, isactually a visitation from a deceased List of works:
loved one. Recordings from the
Ruaa Al-Rikabi, Axis of Evil, 2021. Shoe.
artists can be overheard throughout Dimensions variable.
the performative video, “I dance for
my ancestors, to reclaim land, feel Ruaa Al-Rikabi, Farewell Kiss, 2021.
Printed map. Dimensions variable.
my presence through this dance,
~
this flutter.” Taliani’s body morphs, Lucy Nguyên-Hunt and Keemon
shifts and transforms, blended and Williams, Venus and David, 2021.
overlaid with vibrant visuals created Video. 15 minutes.
by Villanueva. ~
Lucy Nguyên-Hunt and Keemon
Williams, Venus and David, 2021.
By revealing connections between 2 photographic prints. Dimensions
peoples and places, alternative variable. Images courtesy the artist.
pasts, presents and possible futures, ~
Lucy Nguyên-Hunt, I’m Half, 2018 -
Anthem highlights the importance ongoing. Photographic print. Dimensions
of nurturing and giving agency variable. Image courtesy the artist.
to emergent cultural dialogues of
Reina Takeuchi, what the trees tell me,
BIPOC arts practices within the 2020-2021. Documented by Regis
contemporary Australian landscape. Lansac. 8.10 minutes.
These luminous perspectives speak
Reina Takeuchi, these ghosts, these trees,
of what could not be articulated in
2021. 6 photographic prints. Dimensions
public domains by their ancestors, variable. Images courtesy the artist.
and now, more than ever, these
dialogues will shape ongoing Reina Takeuchi, small puffy plant, 2021.
conversations as we look toward Plant, tulle. Dimensions variable.
ever-shifting futures. Rhanjell Villanueva and Reina Takeuchi,
Paruparo, 2021. Performed by Joshua
Taliani. 1.50 minutes.
Rhanjell Villanueva, Butterfly gold,
2021. Ceramic tea cup and saucer.
Dimensions variable.
Keemon Williams, A SIGN OF SINS
TO COME, 2021. 3 banners. 500mm
x 4000mm.Artist biographies displacement, diaspora, and
~ the ethereal experiences of her
Lucy Nguyên-Hunt is an
interdisciplinary Vietnamese and peripatetic upbringing across Japan,
Samoan/Cook Islander Australian India, Thailand, and Australia.
artist with an abiding passion for These processes allow for a clarity
sharing lived experiences through of somatic contemplation for the
her artistic practice. Namely, artist and she, in turn, explores the
this manifests as dismantling potential for this sensitivity to be
preconceived notions of identity shared with the viewer.
through the lens of a camera and
Rhanjell Villanueva is an
her culturally hybrid and queer
emerging Meanjin-based
gaze. Working predominantly in
(Brisbane) Filipino artist whose
photography and moving image
practice critically analyses the
and implicating the body as self
~ traditional Filipino culture against
as a material form, Nguyên-Hunt
the language and values of
investigates the structures in place
western societies. In response to his
with consistently other outliers to
upbringing, his practice traverses the
a socially constructed ‘standard’.
multitude and intricacies of cultural
Regarding her practice as a safe
identity by unravelling post-colonial
space for licking her own wounds,
patterns and cultural conflict.
vulnerability, self-awareness, and
Working across an array of media
authentic representation is at the
including sculpture, moving image,
heart of her work.
and video installation, Villanueva
Reina Takeuchi is an Australian- materialises deep transcultural
Japanese artist-researcher, dance knowledge and narratives rooted
maker, curator and writer interested from oppression and the feeling
in interdisciplinary collaboration and of displacement. The resulting
facilitating embodied experiences works focus on decolonising the
of contemporary art. She explores eye, demonstrating the subjectivity
how sensorial experience can of ‘foreign in a domestic sense’
be enhanced through ritualistic towards the metaphysics of Filipino
performance, interactive Futurism. By sharing tales of the
installations, and time-based media. diaspora, he aims to engage with
Her work utilises choreographic other persons of colour and urge
processes and the transitory them to consider what they could
qualities of sound and action become, beyond what they are
to meditate on transculturation, expected to be.Ruaa Al-Rikabi is an Iraqi-Syrian a postcolonial world. His practice Australian emerging contemporary seeks to critically examine facets of artist whose practice investigates his identity and its intrinsic tethering themes of intersectional identity, self- to the wider context of being preservation, and re-representation “Australian.” Responding to realms of desirability. Ruaa’s practice of architecture, cultural production, looks at the rich experience of and pseudo-ethnic representations, intersectional identities and how Keemon reconciles a sense of this can be linked to experiences indigeneity and occupancy within of displacement and difference, the everyday. shown through an ongoing development of a living archive of her self-identity. Within her practise, Ruaa aims to create space for other marginalised communities by encouraging radical expression of self and multifaceted identities. Ruaa employs materials which she deems significant to her self-identity as surrogates to encapsulate her lived experiences, this includes hair, food, and photographs. Through rejecting essentialist assumptions about intersectional BIPOC identity, Ruaa’s practice aims to engage in an act of decolonisation that empowers and liberates intersectional identities. Keemon Williams is a queer interdisciplinary Meanjin (Brisbane) based artist of Koa, Kuku Yalanji and Meriam Mir descent. He utilizes a diverse range of mediums and performative elements to interrogate the relationships between location, personal histories, and the manifestation of culture in
Jo Thomas
Creative Director + CEO
Kyle Weise
Curator (Exhibition Program)
metroarts.com.au
97 Boundary Street, West End, Brisbane Qld 4000
(07) 3002 7100
info@metroarts.com.au
Metro Arts and the artist acknowledge the Jagera and Turrbal peoples, as the custodians of this land,
recognising their connection to land, waters and community. We honour the story-telling and art-mak-
ing at the heart of First Nations’ cultures, and the enrichment it gives to the lives of all Australians.You can also read
