Incinerator Billboard — Hyphenated Biennial

Location
Incinerator gallery
billboard
180 Holmes Rd, Aberfeldie VIC 3040︎︎︎

ARTIST IN CONVERSATION: TALIA SMITH
WED 30 MARCH 2022, 1pm
ONLINE
FREE, BOOKING REQUIRED
BOOK NOW︎︎︎

access
This work is located in the open carpark outside Incinerator Gallery and is viewable outside of opening hours
covidsafe︎︎︎

Maybe this is letting go is a photographic billboard installation by Talia Smith that explores the emotional connection to familial histories and ancestral homelands when you are physically removed.

The term, vā, is a Sāmoan term that can be loosely translated to describe a space in between where past, present and future coexist to facilitate both personal and collective wellbeing. Smith's research and practice uses their own personal lived experience to investigate this space and to position that those from the pacific diaspora can use the vā to reflect on their identities outside of western constructs.

The project is an attempt at visually exploring this notion of the vā through still life, archival and landscape photography that have been taken from her birth country, ancestral homelands and the unceeded lands she now lives on. With pacific or moana peoples being so global how can one maintain their connection to their cultural histories?