Art, Identity and Place: Perspectives from Re-Orient
- What
- TALK
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- Tickets
Join Pia Johnson, the photographer behind the Re-Orient exhibition, alongside artist Torika Bolatagici and curators Sophia Cai and Moya McFadzean in a discussion about how art can impact and negotiate contemporary representations of identity, culture and migration.
In Re-Orient: Reclaiming Spaces, Redefining Stories, Chinese-Italian Australian artist Pia Johnson examines the rich and emotional territory of identity, and questions how site and place can shift our sense of belonging across time.
This panel conversation, hosted by Moya McFadzean and featuring Pia Johnson, Torika Bolatagici and Sophia Cai, draws upon Re-Orient to explore questions about how archives, photography and architecture can be utilised to create new narratives within today’s cultural landscape.
Panellists
Pia Johnson
Pia Johnson is a photographer, visual artist, curator, and lecturer, who has exhibited across Australia and internationally, and is collected in private and public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria. Her work has been a finalist in many photography awards including the National Photographic Portrait Prize, Olive Cotton Award, Bowness Photography Prize, Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award among others.
Pia holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts from University of Melbourne and has a Doctorate in Fine Arts from RMIT University.
Sophia Cai
Sophia Cai is a curator and writer based in Naarm / Melbourne, Australia. She is the current Artistic Director of Bus Projects, one of Australia’s longest running artist-run organisations, while maintaining an independent curating and writing practice. From 2020 to 2023, she taught as a lecturer at the Victorian College of Arts, University of Melbourne and Monash Art Design & Architecture, Monash University.
Sophia’s research interests include Asian art histories and the intersections between contemporary art and craft. Since 2020, Sophia has been researching the connection between fandom and curating as dual practices rooted in care.
Torika Bolatagici
Dr. Torika Bolatagici is an artist, writer and academic working in photography, video, installation, publication, and curation. Her work explores transcultural notions of value and the social, cultural and political movement of bodies. Torika’s multidisciplinary projects centre the counter-narrative of marginalised histories and knowledges.
Her curatorial collaborations, symposia, and public programming include the Contemporary Pacific Arts Festival Symposium, the Pacific Photobook Project and the Community Reading Room. She is also the Program Manager for the Master of Fine Arts (Coursework) in the School of Art at RMIT University.
HOST
Moya McFadzean
Dr. Moya McFadzean is Senior Curator (Migration & Cultural Diversity) at Museums Victoria. Her work focuses on the application of material culture and memory of migration and cultural diversity to interpretations of Australian migration, refugee, and asylum seeker narratives. Her research also looks at museums as sites of social activism and their potential for developing relationships of genuine engagement and reciprocity with communities and creatives.
Moya has widely published and presented on these subjects in national and international forums and was also part of the team that collaborated with Pia Johnson to produce the Re-Orient exhibition.
Accessibility
We can assist with any access requirements you may have for this program, please contact our team on 13 11 02 or email us at [email protected] to discuss how we can support your museum visit.
See our Access page for more helpful resources.
Re-Orient: Reclaiming Spaces, Redefining Stories is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.
