Potu faitautusi: Faiāʻoga o gagana e, ia uluulumamau!

Be Courageous, Language Teachers! Reading Room

September 18, 2020 - April 7, 2022

Visitors are encouraged to read and interact with the texts and take a free newspaper, edited by Ke´y Rusú Katupyry & Verá Poty Resakã, home with them.

Extending on Minus Plato’s The Empty Days Library project (2019-20), Potu faitautusi: Faiāʻoga o gagana e, ia uluulumamau! gathers important books on international Indigenous visual arts and philosophies at the Columbus Printed Arts Center as a kind of constellatory (multiple sites/cites) syllabus. This project alternates being led every few months by a different international Indigenous artist/writer whose practice delves deeply into sensual, spoken and marked languages (tattoo, built environment, painting, literature, etc). Each will share which books are significant for their art hxstories and design a limited edition screenprint centered on an Indigenous language phrase, proverb or concept whose resonances through oratory and ceremonial-political life are generative.

– Dr Léuli Eshrāghi (Guest Librarian)

Contributing artists include (click names for artist websites):

Dr Léuli Eshrāghi (Sāmoan), Mparntwe/Alice Springs, Australia

Sebastián Calfuqueo Aliste (Mapuche), Santiago, Chile

Sarah Biscarra Dilley (yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini), xučyun/Oakland, United States

Ke´y Rusú Katupyry & Verá Poty Resakã (Guarani-Nhandewá), Jaguapiru Reservation, Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

Indigo Too Wutch Un Gonzales (Southern Ute, Afro-Indigenous), Columbus, Ohio

Listen to Léuli Eshrāghi discuss the ideas around this project and the creation of their printed poster with CPAC at the link below. Some parts of this interview were recorded for the Minus Plato radio show dear fellow settler colonizer, on Verge.Fm.