Taloi Havini and Michael Toisuta have collaborated to create Dengung Hyena (Hyena Resounding), 2020. Unable to travel to their respective communities in light of the imposed travel restrictions of the pandemic, Havini to the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea and Toisuta to the Republic of Indonesia, both artists developed this collaboration remotely in Australia drawing upon their respective archives as source material.
By combining Havini's video footage of a ritual practiced along the coastal areas in Buka Island—an event whereby her community witness and celebrate the full moon ushering coral spawning—and Toisuta's sound recording of his exploration of a Banyuwangi gamelan set, the artists highlight the connectivity and communality of ritual practices throughout the Asia-Pacific.
This methodology borne from necessity has opened new paradigms and perspectives for collaborators—affording them the idea to define history not as a sequence of events acted out by individual agents, but as the simultaneity of separate but contingent social frameworks. The work suggests that profound historical understanding (if not objective knowledge) can be achieved through various kinds of sharing of cultural material; rejecting traditional artistic and cultural hierarchies. By fragmenting, deconstructing and reconstructing their recorded material, the artists fracture the narrative fluidity of their archival material; resisting anthropological tendencies. Instead the artists offer a meditation of co-existence.
Press release courtesy SILVERLENS.
2263 Don Chino Roces Avenue Extension
Makati City
Manila, 1231
Philippines
www.silverlensgalleries.com
+63 2 88160044
+63 917 587 4011 (Fax)
Tuesday – Saturday
10am – 5pm