Angelique Kalani Axelrode, Tiare Ribeaux, Brigitte Leilani Axelrode, Trisha Hattie Perreira-Axelrode. Juried Artists
Dreaming of the Sea
Presented by SAE at Ventspace for ISEA
Artist Statement
Kai Hali‘a (Sea of Memory) is a live cinematic experience and dance performance that reconfigures the traditional and phallic concept of memory by exploring memory from a sensual, queer, feminine, Kānaka ʻŌiwi, diasporic perspective. Seeing memory as an intricate ʻupena of both intangible and tangible threads of reality, intertwined with visceral feelings that intimately connect us with our kūpuna and the ʻāina, the act of remembering becomes our way back to our core.
Incorporating immersive media and interactive technology with 8mm and 16mm footage, direct film animation, projections, embodied movement/choreography, and generative animations spawned by movement, Kai Hali’a offers a bridge and a continuum of the past into the future and the future into the past. The images are atemporal, constantly shifting and evolving, revealing memory’s dynamic and malleable nature. With 3+ different video channels and performers, audience members have to decide where to look and what to pay attention to; the line between viewer and creator is indistinct, reflecting memory’s capacity to simultaneously experience and reimagine.
The movement in Kai Haliʻa is an exploration of how the body remembers and dances across generations and identities, and how the ‘iewe, or umbilical cord, is the bridge from the past/pō and into alternative futures.
Kai Hali’a opens dialogue into what it is to suppress memory while exploring how we process, de-stimagize and heal from trauma, both intergenerationally and within our lived experiences as queer kānaka. The work creates space for the following questions: How do we resurface and heal from painful memories that were suppressed for years or generations, with love and care among family, chosen family and community? How can we tend to our wounds and trust our bodies as we collectively move through pain? How do we honor the ʻāina throughout this process?
Memory is the ocean, to remember is to swim.
And our bodies do not forget.
‘Ōlelo No‘eau: “I ka wā ma mua, ka wā ma hope.”
The future is found in the past.
About the artists
Angelique Kalani Axelrode Director/Writer
Angelique Kalani Axelrode (they/she/’o ia) is an award winning film maker/multimedia artist who recieved their BS from Vanderbilt University in ’21. They leverage film as a medium for self-discovery and to connect with community, and focus on how to indigenize and queer filmmaking processes.
They are a soon to be graduate student at NYU Tisch and recently launced aka productions, a queer owned production company centreing BIPOC and Gen Z stories.
She as presented work at over 30 international film festivals, galleries, venues and conferences; notably the Asian Film Archives, Native Maerican and Indigenous Studies Association, British Film Institute and Aupuni Space Gallery.
They are a 2023 LIFT Awardee with Native Arts and Culture Foundation and recently served as a TRADES AiR Resident in O’ahu where they launched KAI HALI’A an expanded media performance, immersive installation and short film.
Tiare Ribeaux, Producer / Art Department
Tiare Ribeaux is a Kānaka ‘Ōiwi filmmaker and creative producer based in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Her films disrupt conventional storytelling methods by employing magical realist explorations of spirituality, labor, and the environment to critique both social and ecological imbalances. Her films use components of speculative fiction and fantasy to reimagine both our present realities and future trajectories of healing, queerness, lineage, and belonging. Ribeaux’s work traverses between the mundane and dreamworlds – creating stories around transformation and how our bodies are inextricably linked to land and water systems. She integrates immersion within community, personal/ancestral narratives, and Hawaiian cosmology into her films. Born and raised on O’ahu, and having lived for many years in the Bay Area before moving back home to the islands, she is interested in telling stories that include contemporary way-finding and resilience within the Kānaka diaspora. Her work often combines with installation elements to create immersive and expanded media experiences. Outside of film festivals, she has shown her work at galleries and museums – in single-channel formats, multi-channel, live cinematic performances, and augmented reality.
She has shown work both nationally and internationally, and has won numerous grants and awards for her artistic leadership including the NDN Radical Imagination Grant, the Native Lab Fellowship and Indigenous Film Fund from Sundance, two New and Experimental Works Grants from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the Building Demand for the Arts Grant from the Doris Duke Foundation, the Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the Center for Cultural Innovation, among others. She has given guest lectures at conferences and universities including ISEA, Stanford, UC Berkeley, SFAI, SJSU, and the school of ATEC at UC Dallas.
She founded B4BEL4B Gallery in Oakland in 2014 as a platform and community space to prioritize underrepresented + queer artists in media arts, where she served as Artistic Director for 8 years. She has curated and produced various media arts and performance festivals including the Soundwave Biennial and the Codame Festival, and co-founded Refresh Art + Technology as a collaborative and politically engaged platform for art, science and technology in 2016. She taught international multimedia arts workshops in Kyiv, Ukraine (2018) as part of the American Arts Incubator and Dunedin, Aotearoa, New Zealand (2023) as part of Leonardo’s Cultural Impact Lab.
She has screened her films at museums such as the MoMA, the National Gallery, the Hammer Museum, BAMPFA, the de Young Museum, the Asian Film Archive; as well as at the Jean Cocteau Theater, the Imagine Science Film Festival, the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival, CAAMFest, the Imagine Science Film Festival, the Hawai’i International Film Festival, and others.
Credits:
Angelique Kalani Axelrode – Writer, Director, Producer
Tiare Ribeaux – Producer, Production Designer
Brigitte Leilani Axelrode – Choreographer, Performer
Trisha Hattie Perreira-Axelrode – Performer
URL: https://angeliqueaxelrode.com/work/kai-halia