MIF25: FALE SĀ / SACRED HOUSE at HOME
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FALE SĀ / SACRED HOUSE
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This year’s edition of Manchester International Festival features a very special ceremony and everyone’s invited.
Queer Indigenous collective FAFSWAG take over HOME with FALE SĀ / SACRED HOUSE, an exploration of ‘home’ as a fluid notion, one that for displaced people, is often precarious and unstable. This unique programme is rooted in Indigenous perspectives and features cultural ceremony, digital art and live events for audiences to participate in.
Produced especially for MIF25, FALE SĀ / SACRED HOUSE is the result of a two-year residency during which the collective worked on creating a ceremonial house inhabited by ancestral stories from the Pacific Diaspora of Aotearoa New Zealand. The project encompasses three Samoan cultural practices: Sauniga, Fāgogo and Talanoa.
Sauniga features the ceremony aspect of the work, focusing on our earliest ancestors – animals from the land, sky and ocean – through dance, chanting and ritual. The ceremony is both playful and reflective, considering humans’ relationship with the land.
Fāgogo is a digital exhibition, showcasing the different ways that artists use storytelling in weaving the narrative of cultural knowledge and experience, with a particular focus on the major issues that affect the lives of Pacific peoples.
Talanoa encompasses a lively programme of film screenings, discussions and workshops. FAFSWAG worked with filmmakers from the Pacific region to showcase their breadth of experience, while the workshops include artist panels, movement sessions and community discussions.
FAFSWAG are best known for boldly challenging the lack of representation of Queer and Indigenous people in the arts. Multicultural identities and collaboration take centre stage in their interdisciplinary art practice, which often takes place in both public spaces and the digital realm. Their unique aesthetic and commitment to social change means the collective has carved their own space in the world of contemporary art and continues to amplify the voices of the people we don’t hear from enough.
FALE SĀ / SACRED HOUSE focuses on indigenous practices, ritual and community storytelling at every point in the programme, making for a rich source of experiences and histories to learn from.
