Spanning three years and filmed over four countries, Angela Tiatia’s The Dark Current explores migration, femininity, and the intersection of digital and physical realms.
Boundaries blur, and perceptions shift as the work weaves film, AI-generated visual effects, and a mesmeric soundscape to create a dream-like visual poem that carries the audience through moods that shift and swell in a time-place belonging to no definitive idea of here or there, then or now. Tiatia lays bare her own image-making through unscripted scenes. The work captures the dark and chaotic feeling of the current moment while unravelling the artist’s connection to her matrilineage and Sāmoan culture, and flexing the beautiful yet murky surface of Pacific myth-making, particularly the representation of Pasifika females, to arrive at a hopeful vision for the future.
Angela Tiatia, The Dark Current (Blue Screen 2), 2023, pigment print on cotton rag, ed. of 5 plus 2 artist’s proofs, 42 × 32cm (framed), 40 × 30cm (unframed). Courtesy the artist and Sullivan+ Strumpf, Sydney
Sullivan+Strumpf
14 March to 20 April 2024
Sydney
