Salote Tawale
credit Jeremy Weihrauch
About
From the perspective of her Indigenous Fijian and Anglo-Australian heritage, Tawale explores the identity of the individual within collective systems. Examining through self-performance, Tawale draws on personal experiences of race, class, ethnicity and gender formed by growing up in suburban Australia.
“My cultural identity is a constant focus in my art work. I explore inherent conflicts of being from a mixed heritage that simultaneously includes and excludes me from the dominant culture - that is, a colonial Australian society. This is a position of constant dislocation, or more accurately a state of translocation. My interest in these critical standpoints is based on an attitude of defiant analysis of colonial structures and narratives that persist in contemporary society.”
Tawale completed an undergraduate degree in Media Arts and Masters of Art at RMIT University, Melbourne and a Masters of Fine art and Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. Having exhibited nationally and internationally most notably at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art; Spring Workshop in Hong Kong for Para Site gallery; the FCACHeartsJogjatour of Jogakata Indonesia. Tawale undertook a Indigenous Visual and Digital residency at the Banff Centre in Alberta Canada and received the Inaugural 2017 Create NSW Visual Arts Midcareer/Established Fellowship. Tawale recently undertook the Australia Council for the Arts six-month residency at Acme, London, focusing on colonial archives; Fijian Objects, imagery and written records. Tawale is currently Associate Lecturer of Screen Arts at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney.
Performance Contemporary, 2022
Liveworks 2022
K'AINGA CommonWealth, Liveworks 2023
Past Programs