What’s for – Decolonial – Dinner?

Online art platform Contemporary HUM’s last publication of 2019 sees Indigenous Canadian artist and curator Tania Willard explore the work of New Zealand artists BC Collective and Louisa Afoa, currently on display in the exhibition Transits and Returns at Vancouver Art Gallery in Canada.

Co-curated by Lana Lopesi and featuring New Zealand artists such as Ahilapalapa Rands and Edith Amituanai, the exhibition presents the work of 21 Indigenous artists from Northern America and the Pacific. In HUM’s essay, Willard contextualises BC Collective’s work within a wider art history and personal history.

“The comfort foods recall family and culture back home, while also asserting the plurality of Indigenous identity, belonging and migration. Afoa’s wallpaper is another kind of ‘auntology’ that recollects story, family and nostalgia as a way of relating knowledge.” – Tania Willard.

Image credit: BC Collective (Cora-Allan Wickliffe and Daniel Twiss) with Louisa Afoa, Hākari as guests, 2019, Niuean Hiapo, Lakota ceramics, beaded napkins, velvet tablecloth, dining table, chairs, chandeliers with cut acrylic shapes, vinyl wallpaper, Courtesy of the Artists,

Photo: Maegan Hill-Carroll, Vancouver Art Gallery