Sculpture (Sculpture)

For many years Tripp has been involved in reviving Karuk ceremonies that had been discontinued for decades, he developed his signature abstract style, based in Karuk design, ceremonial regalia forms, and related cultural and political iconography. The two works in the KADIST collection are a continuation of these forms with in the medium of sculpture.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

The artist duo João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva traveled to Japan for a month to make a series of short 16mm films, often shot in slow-motion. This film, shown in continuous loop, has a run-time of just under 3 minutes, and is presented without sound. It captures a traditional Shisa (combination of a dog and lion from Okinawan mythology) animated by an invisible person.

Falling Wall is choreography consisting of a wall, three performers wearing uniforms, and a short ritual. The performers stand aligned in front of the wall, which suddenly falls, menacingly, in the direction of the viewers. The synchronicity of collapse echoes the possibility of transgressing borders such as state frontiers, or even the museum wall.

Photography (Photography)

Mercedes Dorame utilizes photography to investigate, recode, and connect with her Gabrielino-Tongva tribe culture, as well as to bring current Indigenous experiences to light. The Tongva were the original inhabitants of what is now Los Angeles, and their domain stretched from Malibu to San Bernardino, including Aliso Creek. They have lived in the Los Angeles basin for over 8,000 years.

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Hama Goro works with a traditional method called the Bogolan technique, which is inspired by a method used in Mali to color clothes. The ingredients of the various colors originate from natural products such as clay, leaves and bark. The colors had a symbolic significance and were used during ritual ceremonies.

Installation (Installation)

Flowers for Africa is a protocol project started in 2014, which questions the material that history is made of: its fragility, its infallibility, its visibility and its hierarchy. Starting with extensive research into visual archives related to decolonization, Kapwani Kiwanga focused upon the floral arrangements that were omnipresent in the images of ceremonies or events related to the independence of African countries. In the work’s protocol, the artist enumerates the bouquet’s components in order to reproduce them as found in the images.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Global? 1 & 2 documents an annual event during which people of a particular religious group gather around Jejuri in Maharashtra, India. The six-day festival, from the first to sixth lunar day of the bright fortnight of the Hindu month of Margashirsha is celebrated to allow the meeting of the principle God (Khandoba) with other gods carried from different homes of the patrons who take them back at the end of the ceremony.

Sculpture (Sculpture)

For many years Tripp has been involved in reviving Karuk ceremonies that had been discontinued for decades, he developed his signature abstract style, based in Karuk design, ceremonial regalia forms, and related cultural and political iconography. The two works in the KADIST collection are a continuation of these forms with in the medium of sculpture.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

The Wedding is a silent film, a probing observation of marriage rituals in Qatar in which we soon notice that there is not a single woman visible. The film is part of the broader project The Challenge through which the artist depicts the boredom and rituals endured by young Qatari men throughout various forms of costly and codified entertainment, including the highly theatrical practices of falcon hunting or car racing. The strange, almost surreal, choreography set against an artificial, overexposed backdrop, highlights the privileged presence of men in this part of the world, grouped together by sex and social class.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

A Flags-Raising-Lowering Ceremony at my home’s cloths drying rack (2007) was realized in the year of the 10th anniversary of the establishment of The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. The artist asked his parents to perform a flags-raising-lowering ceremony on their home’s cloths drying rack, with the HKSAR regional flag, and the flags of PRC and The UK. Artist Lee Kit hand-painted the HKSAR regional flag following the detail instructions in “The State’s Standards of The People’s Republic of China, GB16689-1996”, issued by The State Authority of Technical Monitoring.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Clarissa Tossin’s film Ch’u Mayaa responds to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House (constructed 1919–21) in Los Angeles, an example of Mayan Revival architecture. By re-appropriating the structure as a temple and imbuing it with a dance performance based on movements and postures found in ancient pottery and murals, the choreography takes its influence from the house’s design and the body positions on ancient Maya ceramics and buildings. A pulse, breathing, and a pre-Columbian clay flute are among the sounds on the soundtrack.

Sculpture (Sculpture)

7-headed Lalandau Hat by Yee I-Lann is an intricately woven sculpture evoking the ceremonial headdress worn by Murut men in Borneo. The materiality and form of this traditional headpiece represents the strength and fierceness of forest warriors. Their ‘chimneys’ on top are intended to resemble trees in the jungle onto which hornbill feathers would once have been stuffed.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

PANGKIS by Yee I-Lann is a looped video performance. The work is named after the triumphant warrior cry, an animistic guttural call, which punctuates the traditional Dusun Sumazau dance. For this work, the artist collaborated with Tagaps Dance Theatre, a group of young dancers whose practice merges traditional and contemporary styles.