Pasifika Futurism: In Conversation with Gisela Charfauros McDaneil and Dan Taulapapa McMullin

Join us for a conversation between contemporary Pasifika artists Dan Taulapapa McMullin and Gisela Charfauros McDaniel as they come together to “talk story” about their respective trajectories and artistic practices. Pasifika, referring to the Indigenous people of the Pacific Islands, is made up of several cultures that primarily include Samoan, Cook Islands Maori, Tongan, Niuean, Fijian, Tokelauan, Tuvaluan, and Kiribati.

This talk will highlight the urgent importance and beauty of Taulapapa McMullin’s and Charfauros McDaniel’s work as Pasifika Futurists, whose art envisions and documents the true beauty and resilience of Oceania and its peoples through a decolonial lens. 

As Indigenous peoples of Oceania, their discussion will center on the shared Pasifika values that inform their works and emphasize collective forms of reciprocity, service, the importance of family, and respect for Elders.  These values and an understanding of family extend an urgent need to address the well-being of their (is)lands, ocean, marine life, indigenous flora and fauna, as well as access to clean water threatened by increased militarization and tourism. Together, they will speak on the trite colonial framings of Oceania and its peoples as “remote” and “exotic” destinations, reducible to plastic dashboard Hula Girl figures and “doomed” islands whose loss to rising sea levels can be written off as a fait accompli.