mario lemafa: malie_inmediasres_turtle
Recommended
At the home gallery run by Joey Veltkamp and Ben Gannon, lemafa's show considers "pan-indigenousness, the frictions as well as the unions involved in relation, from one 'indigenous' person to another." It touches on various forms of communication and connection—from a painted internet router to a series of baskets that are a result of a weaving talk-story sesh—parsing out what it means to recognize, care, and call on other people. The title pulls from three languages (Samoan, Latin, English); "malie" means shark in Samoan, a reference to lemafa's heritage. Malie and "turtle" (of Turtle Island, a common indigenous name for North America) together reference legends of the Shark and Turtle from Vaitogi, a village in Samoa, which lemafa also visually represents as "it's not always cute between us" in the show.
by Jas Keimig