Wales Arts International wishes to congratulate artist Taloi Havini on winning the Artes Mundi 10 Prize, showcasing work highlighting key issues faced by indigenous communities.
At the beginning of the third year of the UN Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022 – 2032), it is crucial to recognise the significant role artists continue to play in ensuring indigenous knowledge and experiences are shared more widely.
Taloi Havini is a multidisciplinary artist using a range of media including photography, audio–video, sculpture, immersive installation and print, to probe intersections of history, identity, and nation-building within the matrilineal social structures of her birthplace, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
At Mostyn, Llandudno, Havini presents a major immersive video installation, Habitat. The three-channel work continues her ongoing investigation into the legacy of resource extraction and Australia’s fraught relationship in the Pacific. Here, Havini also presents a new work, Where the rivers flow, (Panguna, Jaba, Pangara, Konawiru), a series of 40 prints extracted from the artist’s film archives following her journey through the centre of the tropical island of Bougainville. At Chapter, Cardiff Havini presents a further new photographic work comprising a mural and three lightboxes, entitled Hyena (day and night).
Eluned Hâf, Head of Wales Arts International said:
“I would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to Taloi Havini on winning Artes Mundi, her work is extremely powerful and just as relevant to us here in Wales as it is all over the world. The way she deals with the misuse of land and the natural world in her homeland of Papua New Guinea offers us an opportunity to reflect on the impact of economic developments on indigenous communities and cultures.
The scars of the slate quarries of Snowdonia are an impressive backdrop to the work exhibited in Mostyn Gallery and challenge us to consider what we are doing to our environment here in Wales for the benefit of the economy but at the expense of the environment. The indigenous culture that has been chased from the land and reminds us of our global responsibility that we have here to support indigenous cultures and languages.This is an area we’ve been engaged in through our Gwrando (listening) programme which has supported artists to listen to and learn from endangered indigenous communities and languages of the world as part of the UN Decade of Indigenous Languages.”
Wales Arts International welcomes 10 curators from Brittany to visit many Artes Mundi sites and galleries all over Wales and are looking forward to presenting the work of Taloi Havini to international guests at Mostyn.
For the tenth anniversary edition (20 October 2023 to 25 February 2024), Artes Mundi exhibits work across five venue partners in Wales for the first time. The shortlisted artists and exhibition locations for AM10 are: Mounira Al Solh, Rushdi Anwar and Alia Farid at National Museum Cardiff (one of the Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales family of museums); Nguyễn Trinh Thi at Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea and Chapter, Cardiff; Taloi Havini at Mostyn, Llandudno and Chapter, Cardiff; Carolina Caycedo at Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown and Chapter, Cardiff; and Naomi Rincón Gallardo at Chapter, Cardiff.
For more information on the artists supported through the Gwrando programme, see here