CoVA Films on Art: Natalie King with Yuki Kihara

We are here at Paradise Camp Yuki Kira’s exhibition from the Venice Biennale from 2022, now reconfigured and re curated at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. I’ve always found artists, guardians of the imagination and artists have taken me to places that I never expected.

So working with Yuki Kihara, who is inter fatiguable, heavily politically engaged, socially engaged artists, took me to the small island of Samoa and the very particular and urgent issues that face that community that impact all of us, such as, uh, small island ecologies, climate crisis, and intersectionality, as well as decolonization The project including Cova who came on board to support the more pedagogical and educational dimension to Paradise Camp.

Because for myself and the artist, it’s not just about exhibition making, it’s about discourse, dialogue around certain critical issues, enabling, uh, the Faina or transgender community. And with that in mind, we developed what was called Anoa Forum, which was a three day symposium held in Venice at Kaos University of Venice with a Center for Environmental Humanities.