Visualizing Pacific Mythologies

California-born and Tahiti-raised artist Alexander Lee’s interests in storytelling, mythology, the anthropic process, and post-colonial transformation are explored in his works of site-specific installations and murals, drawings, paintings, and sculptures, compounding his Hakka-Chinese origins to his Polynesian upbringing, through which he revisits Tahitian lore and representation. In his latest project, THE BOTANIST, Lee revisits the uru (breadfruit) and how its migration through colonial history has helped in the construction of the myth around Tahiti. He is currently Guest Artist Lecturer at the Centre des Métiers d’Arts de Polynésie Française where he is preparing the second edition of MANAVA, a workshop-exhibition project opening at the Musée de Tahiti in 2017.

Jason Wing, a Sydney-based Chinese-Aboriginal artist, calls into question our understandings of history and current socio-political realities by repurposing everyday objects and imagery. His works of street art, photography, installation, and painting explore the themes of indigeneity, mythology, colonization, migration, and racism, particularly as they relate to history and everyday life in Australia. Wing, who is currently an artist-inresidence at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), will present a talk entitled, “In-between Two Worlds.”

Professor Margo Machida (Art History and Asian American Studies, University of Connecticut) moderates and serves as discussant. Born and raised in Hawai’i, she is a scholar, independent curator, and activist cultural critic specializing in Asian American art and visual culture. Her recent book, Unsettled Visions: Contemporary Asian American Artists and the Social Imaginary (Duke University Press, 2009) received the Cultural Studies Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies. She is an Associate Editor of the new journal, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas (Brill) and co-editor of the 2017 special issue, “Island Worlds, Oceanic Diasporas, & Global Flows.”