Event Now You're Speakin' My Language

Now You're Speakin' My Language

Screening and panel discussion

28 October 2023
1–3pm

Curated by Kate ten Buuren, the online exhibition Now You’re Speakin’ My Language is a partnership between the IMA and the streaming platform Nowness Asia. Five artists with Australian First Nations, Southeast Asian, and Asia-Pacific backgrounds present newly commissioned video works reflecting on the ways that language and story connect us across oceans, rivers, lands, imposed borders, and time. Join us for a gallery screening of the videos, followed by a discussion between the curator and artists Tiyan Baker and James Nguyen.

 

Guest Info
  • Tiyan Baker works in photography and video, sculpture and installation. Born and raised on the Larrakia lands known as Darwin, she lives on the Awabakal and Worimi lands known as Newcastle. Baker researches relationships between places, words, and stories, and explores mistranslation and loss. Living far from her native lands, culture, and family in recolonised Borneo, she centres her Bidayǔh culture in her works. Part salvaging and part speculating, her imaginative storytelling and world building reclaim her indigenous heritage in the face of intergenerational shame and disadvantage, systematic destruction of culture, and geographical disconnection. 

    Kate ten Buuren is a Taungurung curator, artist, and writer working on Kulin Country, who investigates collective and collaborative ways of working. Her interest in art, film, and oral traditions is grounded in self determination, self representation, and the power of knowing one another. She is the founder the of First Nations arts collective This Mob, who make space for young artists to connect and create on their own terms. She is a curator at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Naarm/Melbourne, and was previously curator at Koorie Heritage Trust.

    James Nguyen works in Australia and Vietnam. His videos, installations, and actions range from the diasporic absurd to representational refusal. He has a PhD from UNSW (on broken translations), a MFA from the University of Sydney (on the cinematic body), a BFA (Hons) from the National Art School, and a Bachelor of Pharmacy from Charles Sturt University. He was a collaborative fellow at UnionDocs, Centre for Documentary Arts, New York.

Tiyan Baker 'Mouthbreather' 2023.

Related Exhibition

Now You're Speakin' My Language

Digital Commissions

15 Jul–31 Dec 2023

The Institute of Modern Art acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land upon which the IMA now stands, the Jagera, Yuggera, Yugarapul, and Turrbal people. We offer our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first artists of this country. In the spirit of allyship, the IMA will continue to work with First Nations people to celebrate, support, and present their immense past, present, and future contribution to artistic practice and cultural expression.

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