Potu faitautusi: Faiāʻoga o gagana e, ia uluulumamau!
Be Courageous, Language Teachers! Reading Room
September 18, 2020 – April 7, 2022
https://www.columbusprintedarts.org/potu-faitautusi
Extending on Minus Plato’s The Empty Days Library project (2019-20), Potu faitautusi: Faiāʻoga o gagana e, ia uluulumamau! gathers important books on international Indigenous visual arts and philosophies at the Columbus Printed Arts Center as a kind of constellatory (multiple sites/cites) syllabus. This project alternates being led every few months by a different international Indigenous artist/writer whose practice delves deeply into sensual, spoken and marked languages (tattoo, built environment, painting, literature, etc). Each will share which books are significant for their art hxstories and design a limited edition screenprint centered on an Indigenous language phrase, proverb or concept whose resonances through oratory and ceremonial-political life are generative.
– Dr Léuli Eshrāghi (Guest Librarian)
Contributing artists include (click names for artist websites):
Dr Léuli Eshrāghi (Sāmoan), Mparntwe/Alice Springs, Australia
Sebastián Calfuqueo Aliste (Mapuche), Santiago, Chile
Sarah Biscarra Dilley (yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini), xučyun/Oakland, United States
Ke´y Rusú Katupyry & Verá Poty Resakã (Guarani-Nhandewá), Jaguapiru Reservation, Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil – see their COVID-19 Report 2021
Indigo Too Wutch Un Gonzales (Southern Ute, Afro-Indigenous), Columbus, Ohio