Director General Fan, on behalf of the Ministry of Culture, met with Barbara Moore, CEO Biennale Sydney on the November 22, to sign an MOU for both sides to support Taiwanese Indigenous Artist Aluaiy Kaumakan to participate in the 23rd Biennale of Sydney.

This is the first time a Taiwanese Aborigine artist has exhibited in the Biennale of Sydney, and is also the first time the Ministry of Culture has collaborated with the organizers of the Biennale.

Aluaiy Kaumakan was born 1971 in Pingtung County, Taiwan, and lives in Sandimen Township, Pingtung County Paiwan Nation, Paridrayan Community, Taiwan Indigenous Peoples. She creates sculptures with wool, cotton, copper, silk, and glass beads, weaving organic or vegetal forms. Aluaiy Kaumakan uses ‘Lemikalik’, a Paiwan artistic technique that consists of weaving in concentric circles – intertwining life memories of tribal nobility to form a place for an Indigenous Taiwanese uprising and its legacy in art, ecology and cultural politics. Her practice is inspired by her Paiwan culture and tradition and by her role as an Indigenous woman responding to current issues. In 2009, her village was hit by the particularly violent Typhoon Morakot, forcing the inhabitants to relocate to the Rinari community. Looking for ways to connect members of her displaced community through a creative process, which reactivates and transforms a set of traditions, her work in customary culture becomes a statement about developing ways to dwell in a disturbed environment.

https://www.biennaleofsydney.art/participants/aluaiy-kaumakan/