Echoes of Arrival MDW2024

Echoes of Arrival Past Event

Presented by Indra Liusuari

Dates

Fri 31 May 3:00pm - 8:00pm
Fri 31 May 8:00pm - 11:00pm
Opening Celebrations
Sat 01 Jun 12:00pm - 6:00pm
Sun 02 Jun 12:00pm - 6:00pm

Tickets

Free, Booking Required

Venue

d’Shut, Brunswick. The exact location and address will be shared to attendees who register to attend.

Access

Accessible bathroom, All gender bathroom, Assistance animals welcome, Seating available, Wheelchair accessible

This immersive installation delves into the complex interplay of three South and Southeast Asian diaspora experiences converging in Melbourne.

Echoes of Arrival illuminates the transition from previously colonised Eastern cultures to life in Melbourne, a Western settler-colonial society through the narratives of three individuals from the South and Southeast Asian diaspora: an Australian-born citizen, a decades-long immigrant, and a temporary visa resident. The designers and artists in this exhibition explore the nuances of their upbringings, comparing the complexities of lived experiences in Australia by touching upon the complex relationship between assimilation as a means of survival, freedom, or policing of expression.

Drawing from their diverse backgrounds in textiles, hybrid performances, and design-based visual arts, the installation sheds light on the challenging transition between historically colonised Eastern cultures and Western society, revealing the enduring exploitation of “Brown bodies” in Melbourne through the appropriation of international creatives for social capital. This challenges an illusion that Melbourne is post-colonisation.

Participants

Alexis Patawaran

Alexis Patawaran is a final-year Master of Architecture student undertaking multidisciplinary studies to explore her heritage and culture through mixed media visual arts and sculptural installations. Her work aligns thematically with her ethnicity and cultural identity as a Filipina, as well as her academic background in architecture and design in Australia, merging the two in projects that unpack discourse in Filipino politics and the Filipino diasporic experience, as well as interrogating the concepts of colonisation that remain deeply entrenched in Filipino and Australian history.

Asish Mohapatra

Asish Mohapatra is a multidisciplinary designer and artist with a deep interest in the intersection between diasporic community building and climate resilience. Their praxis utilises sound production, garment and textile design, mixed media, and visual arts to introduce new dimensions to which we might tackle the present and emerging problems of the 21st century.

Indra Liusuari

Indra Liusuari is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes audio-visual media, documented performances, and site-interventive installations. Conceptually, they are focused on critical discourses around the presence of white supremacy in contemporary lifestyles, which manifests via absurdist exaggeration and satirical self-exotification. Brutalist architecture and industrial design, audio-visual remnants of the 1990s and early 2000s, and the underground rave scene have become paramount influences in their practice. They have presented work with Immigration Museum, Blindside, RMIT Culture, Pink Dot Singapore, West Space, Sinema Transtopia, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien and recently with Sawtooth ARI and PHOTO 2024.