Aluaiy Kaumakan

Born 1971 in Pingtung County, Taiwan
Lives in Sandimen Township, Pingtung County
Paiwan Nation, Paridrayan Community, Taiwan Indigenous Peoples.

Interdisciplinary textile sculptor and installation artist Aluaiy Kaumakan belongs to a leading noble family of the Paiwan Nation from the Paridrayan Community of Pingtung County in southern Taiwan. She creates sculptures with wool, cotton, copper, silk, and glass beads, weaving organic or vegetal forms. Aluaiy Kaumakan uses ‘Lemikalik’, a Paiwan artistic technique that consists of weaving in concentric circles – intertwining life memories of tribal nobility to form a place for an Indigenous Taiwanese uprising and its legacy in art, ecology and cultural politics. Her practice is inspired by her Paiwan culture and tradition and by her role as an Indigenous woman responding to current issues. In 2009, her village was hit by the particularly violent Typhoon Morakot, forcing the inhabitants to relocate to the Rinari community. Looking for ways to connect members of her displaced community through a creative process, which reactivates and transforms a set of traditions, her work in customary culture becomes a statement about developing ways to dwell in a disturbed environment.

Aluaiy Kaumakan’s project for the 23rd Biennale of Sydney is co-curated by Taiwanese Indigenous curator Biung Ismahasan (Bunun Nation) working closely with the Curatorium of the 23rd Biennale of Sydney.