Tickets
General Ticket: $10
Members: $5
Join us for a conversation between contemporary Pasifika artists Dan Taulapapa McMullin and Gisela Charfauros McDaniel as they come together to “talk story” about their respective trajectories and artistic practices. Pasifika, referring to the Indigenous people of the Pacific Islands, is made up of several cultures that primarily include Samoan, Cook Islands Māori, Tongan, Niuean, Fijian, Tokelauan, Tuvaluan, and Kiribati.
This talk will highlight the urgent importance and beauty of Taulapapa McMullin’s and Charfauros McDaniel’s work as Pasifika Futurists, whose art envisions and documents the true beauty and resilience of Oceania and its peoples through a decolonial lens.
As Indigenous peoples of Oceania, their discussion will center on the shared Pasifika values that inform their works and emphasize collective forms of reciprocity, service, the importance of family, and respect for Elders. These values and an understanding of family extend an urgent need to address the well-being of their (is)lands, ocean, marine life, indigenous flora and fauna, as well as access to clean water threatened by increased militarization and tourism. Together, they will speak on the trite colonial framings of Oceania and its peoples as “remote” and “exotic” destinations, reducible to plastic dashboard Hula Girl figures and “doomed” islands whose loss to rising sea levels can be written off as a fait accompli.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
GISELA CHARFAUROS MCDANIEL
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Gisela McDaniel (b. Bellevue, NE 1995) is a diasporic indigenous Chamorro artist. Her work is based in healing from her own sexual trauma and reflecting the healing of women and non-binary people who have survived sexual trauma. Interweaving assemblages of audio, oil painting, and motion-sensored technology, she creates pieces that “come to life” and literally “talk back” to the viewer upon being triggered by observers. She intentionally incorporates survivor’s voices in order to subvert traditional power relations and to enable both individual and collective healing. Working primarily with women who identify as indigenous, multiracial, immigrant, and of color, her work deliberately disrupts and responds to historical and contemporary patterns of censorship as it relates to the display and exhibition of women’s bodies, voices, and stories. She aims to heal those who have experienced gender-based sexual violence, giving a voice, space, as well as a confidential vehicle for survivors to not only share their experiences, but to also explore how those experiences have affected them long-term. Based in Detroit, she received her BFA from the University of Michigan.
DAN TAULAPAPA MCMULLIN
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Dan Taulapapa McMullin is an artist and poet from Sāmoa i Sasa'e (American Samoa). Their artist book The Healer's Wound: A Queer Theirstory of Polynesia (2022) was published by Pu'uhonua Society and Tropic Editions of Honolulu for HT22 the Hawai'i Triennial. Their book of poems Coconut Milk (2013) was on the American Library Association Rainbow List Top Ten Books of the Year. The Bat and other early works received a 1997 Poets&Writers Award from The Writers Loft. They co-edited Samoan Queer Lives (2018) published by Little Island Press of Aotearoa. Their work was shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Metropolitan Museum, De Young Museum, Musée du quai Branly, Auckland Art Gallery and Bishop Museum. Their film Sinalela (2001) won the 2002 Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival Best Short Film Award. Their film 100 Tikis was the opening night film selection of the 2016 Présence Autochtone in Montreal and was an Official Selection in the Fifo Tahiti Film Festival. Taulapapa's art studio and writing practice is based in Muhheaconneock lands / Hudson, NY, where they live with their husband.