Legacies features five short films for cinema by New Zealand artists Edith Amituanai, Martin Sagadin, Pati Solomona-Tyrell, Sriwhana Spong and Thai filmmaker Ukrit Sa-nguanhai.

Commissioned by CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image and curated by Dr May Adadol Ingawanij, the project developed from a series of propositions put to the artists by Ingawanij about the potential meaning and resonance of the term ‘Legacies’.

“Legacies as: the pre-modern artistic, cultural, linguistic and religious heritages of the place and land that you were born into and raised in; through to the legacies of colonisation, and the spectres of nations and nationalisms; the legacies of the modern art/film histories; the narratives and ways of knowing that shaped you, and that bring an ambivalence and a desire to undo.” – May Adadol Ingawanij

From this starting provocation, each artist was invited to make a short film which articulated the artist’s own personal sense of what a Legacy might be.

The result is a programme of five new works, including a portrait of a young Pasifika matriarch; a reflection on the cinematic history of Thailand; an artist sculpting clay in their studio; an animation based on a Balinese painting made by the artists grandfather, and a vivid interpretation of Samoan funeral chants and speeches. Spanning documentary, animation, post-internet aesthetics and traditional art mediums, the programme is also a dynamic response to the cinematic apparatus, and how it can be used to articulate contemporary political and personal concerns.

CIRCUIT is an arts agency based in New Zealand. Legacies is the latest edition of an annual project produced by CIRCUIT in which an internationally-based curator is appointed to develop a curatorial project with four artists from New Zealand artists and one international practitioner. CIRCUIT subsequently presents the programme worldwide in partnership with galleries and film festivals.