interviews
Interview
Visual arts

Artist and curator Léuli Eshrāghi talks about the "Réclamer la Terre" exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo

It is important to my creative ethic to affirm contemporary Indigenous complexity and vitality, because we are not solely the sum of intergenerational traumas.

Léuli Eshrāghi is an Australian artist curator and writer of Samoan, Persian and Cantonese ancestry. They were the winner of the Insitut Français’ residency programme at the Cité Internationale des Arts from April to July and are the scientific adviser for the Réclamer la Terre exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo. 

Updated on 26/08/2022

5 min

Image
Léuli Eshrāghi
Crédits
© Alireza Shojaian

Your work deals with the impact of colonialism on Indigenous cultures. How do you explore this in your artistic practice? 

Léuli Eshrāghi: My work focuses on spoken, signed, gestural and visual languages to attest to the many Indigenous cultures altered but not quashed by multiple European and Asian colonisations. It is important to my creative ethic to affirm contemporary Indigenous complexity and vitality, because we are not solely the sum of intergenerational traumas.

 

Do you think there is still a lack of understanding in western cultures of the multiple ways in which colonialism has harmed Indigenous populations? Is it what you want to show in your work? 

Léuli Eshrāghi: Absolutely, there is unfortunately widespread illiteracy in Indigenous art histories, and entangled histories of encounter and exchange, which, of course, include the genocides and land alienations undertaken through various colonialisms. In my work, I wish to demonstrate how beautifully and poignantly nuanced these histories truly are, so we might as humanity get to know and accept each other more.

 

As a curator do you consciously try to challenge Eurocentric ways of looking at the art of people of colour?

Léuli Eshrāghi: As a curator, I am invested in challenging the assumptions of certain Eurocentric approaches, particularly those fixated on identity, alterity, and communitarianism. To curate well is to curate by putting all of the artwork and artist first, which for me includes promoting a deeper consciousness of their art historical and socio-political context.

I am currently preparing ua usiusi faʻavaʻasavili, the 9th edition of the TarraWarra Biennial which will open in Spring 2023 near Naarm/Melbourne, for which I am ensuring to honour the art histories within which the artists are located but, to my mind, not adequately. I have previously worked to bridge cultural or linguistic borders through curatorial projects such as O le ūa na fua mai Manuʻa at the University of New South Wales Galleries in Gadigal Nura/Sydney in 2020, and Pasapkedjinawong: La rivière qui passe entre les rochers–The river that passes through the rocks, with co-curator John G Hampton, at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Musée d’art MacKenzie in Wascana in Regina in 2021.

Réclamer la terre, at the Palais de Tokyo, is a ground-breaking exhibition for the French context in many ways.

As part of your residency in Paris, through the Institut Français’ residency programme at the Cité Internationale des Arts, you explored French art and dance. 

Léuli Eshrāghi: For my residency I was really interested in engaging more with how contemporary dance influences performance art and vice versa. These varied from attending the opening of the Sámi and New Zealand Pavilions at the Venice Biennale, including yoiking, contemporary performance, and siva, to engaging with the queer performance scene in Parisian suburban clubs and parties. I really wanted to see how the concerns that are evident in Australian visual and performing arts might be contrasted or opposed to what motivates creative practice in France. 

 

You are a scientific adviser for the Réclamer la Terre exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo which aims to adapt an inclusive global perspective in face of the escalating ecological crisis. Could you tell us about the exhibition and your involvement?  

Léuli Eshrāghi: Senior Curator Daria de Beauvais and I had been in discussions for a number of years so when she invited me to be an advisor, I was thrilled to bring my understanding of global Indigenous art and ecology into focus. It is a ground-breaking exhibition for the French context in many ways, not least of which every artist or collective brings certain joys and nuances to a global understanding of intersecting crises and possible solutions necessitating everyone’s involvement. Fourteen artists, from different generations and cultural origins, examine links between body and land, our primordial human relation to soil and everything it nurtures, the disappearance of certain species, the transmission of Indigenous stories and knowledges, gleaning and collecting, or social justice and collective healing. 

 

You also describe yourself as a writer and a poet, and you say that your father used to read poetry in Persian. Is it how you came to writing? What makes you sometimes choose poetry instead of another art form? 

Léuli Eshrāghi: I think I came to writing because my family on every side is steeped in poetry, orality and storytelling. In my early 20s I immersed myself in Indigenous poetry of Aotearoa, Kanaky New Caledonia and Australia, which has served me as a solid literary foundation ever since. I think the form is selected naturally based on the impulse behind an artwork; language is important across my work, but so is a warm tropical sensibility.

The Institut français and the artist

Léuli Eshrāghi benefited from the residency programme of the Institut français at the Cité internationale des arts. 

Find out more about the Cité internationale des arts 

L'institut français, LAB