2020 Matateko International Forum Review:
Making friends, then art

On a rainy December morning in Taipei, a small group of Indigenous artists and curators gathered together for the 2020 Matateko International Forum. Matateko is a Pangcah word meaning the place where rivers flow together, where people and other beings meet, and where relationships are formed and sustained. Co-curated by Nakaw Putun (Pangcah) and Jow-Jiun Gong (Han), the forum’s goal was to facilitate international exchanges between Indigenous artists and curators. Matateko unfolded over two days of presentations and discussions with participants from Aotearoa (New Zealand), Australia, Indonesia, Canada, and Taiwan. With overseas travel restricted by COVID, Taiwanese participants convened at Taipei’s Contemporary Culture Lab, while international participants joined online.

Taiwan has a vibrant Indigenous art world, with many international connections. Since 2012, the Pulima Art Festival has invited First Nations artists to Taiwan, and has sent Indigenous artists and curators abroad from 2014. Other Indigenous-led festivals and gatherings across Taiwan have created an environment for artists to expand their creative horizons, while Paiwan artist Sakuliu Pavavaljung is slated to represent Taiwan at the upcoming 2021 Venice Biennale. Despite these exchanges, Taiwan has yet to set aside resources for a recurrent, large-scale international Indigenous contemporary art festival. In this context, co-curators Nakaw and Jow-Jiun were inspired by their experiences at aabaakwad 2020: NIRIN, an international program of Indigenous-led exhibitions, performances, and conversations on Indigenous art, co-organized by Wanda Nanibush and Brook Andrew at the 2020 Sydney Bienniale. When Nakaw and Jow-Jiun returned from Sydney they set out to bring the spark they found at aabaakwad to Taiwan. The Matateko International Forum was the result.

Matateko focused on curatorial perspectives, although many of the presenters were artists as well as curators and so brought a fluidity of perspectives to the table. The format was largely open-ended and centered around high-level questions of Indigenous curatorial practice. What do Indigenous methods of curating look like today? How can Indigenous curators work together transnationally to nurture and sustain these practices? And how might Taiwan contribute to international curatorial conversations?

As speakers shared their curatorial experiences, many of the forum’s conversations came to center on concepts of curation as companionship, a process of making friends and sustaining relationships. In her opening presentation, Nina Tonga introduced a curatorial model shaped by ‘aha, a Hawaiian sennit fiber used for rope-making. She suggested that ‘aha represents the kinds of linkages and bonds at the heart of curation: the most important question for a curator is not who you are, but who you bring with you. Brook Andrew built on this idea in his discussion of the 2020 Sydney Bienniale NIRIN, explaining how he worked to move away from Western biennial models by inviting art collectives and communities. He shared behind-the-scenes images of companionship at NIRIN and highlighted Breaking Bread, a South African art collective that supports artists at international art events. In the largely colonial, capitalist spaces of the art world, Breaking Bread uses food to create alternative spaces of comfort and community. Mirwan Andan closed the first day of presentations on a similar note, sharing his experiences as co-founder of ruangrupa, a Jakarta-based initiative organized around the Indonesian idea of nongkong, or hangout. With the motto “make friends, not art,” ruangrupa works as a kind of extended living room, creating open spaces where anyone is welcome to join.

These stories resonated with the Taiwanese speakers, many of whom were experienced artists but first time curators in the 2020-21 Pulima Art Festival. As they introduced their curatorial work, they also shared personal journeys, describing how curation had become a process of connecting with community, place, and self. Pulima producer Alice Chiang Cheng-hua explained that one of the festival’s goals is to accompany curators and artists on these journeys, so they do not feel alone. In turn, many of the curators sought to provide similar companionship for the artists and communities they worked with. Akac Orat’s Real Men Series: Action Intuition connected artists with several communities across Taiwan’s east coast to learn traditional skills and practices from elders. Rather than simply making introductions, Akac accompanied each artist throughout their process, often sitting and learning alongside them. Dondon Hounwn took a different approach in Mtukuy: Be a Sower, as he invited artists into his home community Dowmung. Dondon began the project with workshops to introduce visiting artists to community members, nurturing and guiding their relationships. In making these connections, his goal was for the artists to create site-specific works, drawing from local knowledge and histories to turn the entire community into a place of storytelling.

Stories of place-based curation expanded discussions of companionship to include relations and responsibilities to land. Labay Eyong’s Dungku Asang stood out here, as an exploration of the intersections of weaving practices and mining history in Seediq/Seejiq Truku communities. In the wake of 40 years of destructive mining on Seediq/Seejiq Truku mountains, Labay set out to use curation as a healing act, bringing artists to the mining site to find ways to comfort and protect the mountains. In a separate Truku site, Talum Isbabanal also placed his curatorial focus on histories and impacts of mining, drawing on his background as a photojournalist to explore and document the relationships between people and land. Both projects will culminate in 2021, as Labay wraps part of the mountain in woven fabric and Talum creates a documentary and performance piece. Nina Tonga added an international perspective with her experiences as curator of the Honolulu 2019 Biennial. When she first arrived in Honolulu, she had to reimagine her curatorial approach to foreground ecological and genealogical connections to place. How, she asked, can we engage local models of stewardship in our curation? How can our curatorial practices can serve and enrich the land we are working on?

Questions of connection to place were closely interwoven with connections across generations, and here the conversation focused on curating as a process of listening, flexibility, and accountability. Integrational curation is not only about creating spaces for learning and knowledge transmission, but also about being attuned to the needs of different generations and, most critically, putting aside original curatorial visions to adapt to these needs. Miru Xiumuyi explained how in The Body of Forking Paths she offered dance lessons to children in the community she was working with, but soon realized that their mothers wanted to be involved as well, and so expanded her work to include classes tailored for them. Similarly, Labay initially organized two workshops with artists and community elders, with the goal of incorporating their stories into the project. She soon found that the elders valued these sessions for their companionship, and so restructured her project to center these workshops, adding more meetings and adapting the format to better fit elders’ needs.

Resonating with these approaches, Terudj Tjucenglav discussed how intergenerational curation is not a one-way flow, but is shaped through exchange and reciprocity. His project lamaljeng (Paiwan for “elders”) connected community elders with young artists, who then created performance art pieces based on their experiences. Each piece was then performed in the community where it was developed. Terudj’s goal was twofold: to give young people resources to connect with their own Indigeneity, and to help elders connect with younger generations and understand their different life experiences. Dondon’s project Mtukuy: Be a Sower also celebrated intergenerational exchange, using art to regenerate and sustain Dowmung. As artists from younger generations worked with elders, their works brought new energy to the community, imagining collective futures that were deeply rooted in place and practice.
 
Across Matateko’s two days of dialogue, participants spoke to many modes of emotional, intellectual, and material companionship in their curatorial processes, from teaching, learning, and hosting to working together, eating together, and simply being together. These moments may seem small, but in context of the broader art world they can be radical acts. From ruangrupa’s nongkong model of making friends to Nina’s ‘aha (sennit cord) and Dondon’s mtukuy (planting seeds), curation as companionship asserts non-capitalist values, elevates decolonial modes of teaching and learning, and centers relationships with people and place.

Underlying these experiences are ideas of curatorial sovereignty. Wanda spoke to this in her introduction of aabaakwad as an Indigenous-led space for art: a space run by Indigenous people for Indigenous people, where artists, curators, and writers can talk to each other about what matters to them. These spaces are both generative and challenging, centering Indigenous philosophies and ways of being, while at the same time allowing for transformation, rule-breaking, and refusal. Patricia Adjei approached sovereignty from a different perspective, as she shared protocols for using First Nations cultural and intellectual property in the arts. Her presentation highlighted the crucial rights-based and legal aspects of the work curators perform in protecting and respecting the interests of Indigenous communities and artists. Patricia also drew attention to continuing gaps in Indigenous IP, as right formats like community ownership remain unrecognized under copyright law. Brook shared a different kind of challenge in his accounts of curating at the Sydney Biennial, where he often faced pushback from organizers who didn’t respect his curatorial authority. Such challenges are an ongoing struggle for Indigenous curators, particularly as they work to create Indigenous-led spaces in non-Indigenous contexts.

The conference concluded with a final conversation around the themes raised in the presentations, and a discussion of future possibilities for international exchange. While there was collective energy around the idea of hosting an international Indigenous art festival in Taiwan, what form this will take remains to be seen. For now, the 2020 Matateko International Forum served as a starting point for future projects and a space of companionship, sharing stories, and making friends.