Haema Sivanesan

Nirin: The 22nd Biennale of Sydney – Five Challenging Artworks

By Haema Sivanesan, AGGV Curator

I was “back home” in Sydney in early March, just before the COVID-19 pandemic was announced, and was gratified -– more than 30 years later — to be attending the opening of the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, titled Nirin. For the first time in its history, the Biennale was being curated by an Aboriginal artist, Brook Andrew, a Wiradjuri man, whose ancestral lands are in central New South Wales.

In Conversation: Imagining Fusang

The artists involved in Imagining Fusang: Exploring Chinese and Indigenous Encounters were invited for a panel discussion in early July, where they revealed the motivation behind their individual interest in the concept of Fusang.

A Glimpse into the Life and Work of Paul Horiuchi

By Marina DiMaio, AGGV Curatorial Assistant

Horiuchi was a painter and collagist whose work has become an important hybrid of Western-style abstraction, Asian calligraphy, and eastern philosophies. His body of work has helped situate an alternative narrative to the development of modern art in the Pacific Northwest, one that fully considers Japanese and North American relations.

Granting Buddhist Research: Q&A with AGGV Curator Haema Sivanesan

AGGV Curator Haema Sivanesan is a recent recipient of a Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation research grant in the amount of $150,000. She was also awarded a $50,000 curatorial research fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. What is Sivanesan working on and why? Hint: it’s infinitely vast with neither a beginning nor an end. Therefore, let’s start with the present moment…

Forest Breath: A Portrait in Progress

By Regan Shrumm, AGGV Assistant Curator

Many of the artworks in Supernatural: Art, Technology and the Forest are located on Vancouver Island, including Ian Wallace’s Clayoquot Protest, Mike McLean’s Jorden River series, and Leila Sujir’s Forest Breath. But seeing the forest through the medium of photography is a different experience from actually entering the forest. Or virtually seeing the forest through a stereoscopic video for that matter.

Exploring Nuu-chah-nulth Lands

By Audrey Wang, AGGV Volunteer The exhibition Point of Contact: On Place and the Westcoast Imaginary centers on a pertinent part of […]

A Chinese Artist in Victoria

By Audrey Wang, AGGV Volunteer August in the Gallery kicked off with a well-attended Curator’s Tour led by Haema Sivanesan, […]