Quishile Charan To Attend Summer School In Balkans Thanks To A Grant From Tautai

Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust and the Office for Contemporary Art Aotearoa are pleased to announce that Quishile Charan will be attending the 2025 Summer School | Revolutionary Roads. Destination: Comradeship, in the Balkans in August, thanks to a grant from Tautai as part of their new Artists Across Borders initiative.

Quishile Charan and Matthew Galloway have both been invited to participate in the 4th edition of the Summer School, Revolutionary Roads. Destination: Comradeship, organized jointly by the Moderna galerija (Ljubljana), the Museum of African available from Tautai through their new Artists Across Borders initiative, Quishile is now able to accept the invitation and join Matthew, who was selected by the summer school organisers to receive a travel grant from the Office for Contemporary Art Aotearoa.

Dr Olivia Laita, Operations Director at Tautai said: "This is our first year launching our Artists Across Borders initiative, which is dedicated to supporting Pasifika Artists who have been invited to participate in international Contemporary Art projects. Often, artists need support from multiple sources to fulfil one project and Artist Across Borders is just that, a top up fund that can make a significant difference. To date, we are proud to have supported three exceptional recipients, including Quishile . Her international project stood out as both compelling and rare. The strength of her application, combined with her remarkable track record, made her a clear and deserving recipient of this support. We look forward to hearing all about it on her return!"

Quishile and Matthew will join the 28 Summer School participants, from 21 countries, on a nomadic learning experience, traveling through three cities in the Balkans — Ljubljana (Slovenia), Belgrade (Serbia), and Podgorica (Montenegro) — while exploring the legacy of Yugoslav socialism, solidarity work actions, antifascist monuments, and the cultural connections of the Non-Aligned Movement. This journey will include lectures, workshops, discussions, and performances, with a special focus on “locally situated knowledge.” The participants will engage with three distinctive museum collections that challenge traditional Western-centric art histories and canons.

Te Whanganui-a-Tara based artist, Matthew Galloway, and Indo-Fijian, Tāmaki Makaurau based artist Quishile Charan were both selected by the Summer School organizers, from more than fifteen applicants from Aotearoa New Zealand, who the selectors noted were of a very high standard.

About Quishile Charan

Indo-Fijian craft and social practitioner, researcher, writer and critical theorist Quishile Charan approaches craft as a science-fiction practice of building new worlds from the seeds of reality. As a descendent of Girmit (indentured labour)— part of a history and present in which autonomy was/continues to be denied to her people—Quishile holds close a core set of anarchist—anti-colonial, anti institution, anti-authority—values.

In her experimental, relational pursuits, Quishile expresses these values while seeking to form different visions of home with her own hands. Melted into Indo Fijian gardening, cooking and living, it’s a family effort that prioritises the anti-colonial work of nurturing and caring for each other outside of Western hegemony. Quishile’s practice cannot function without the people in her life. A lot of her work lies in these relationships—choosing her family, holding them in the fabric of community and moving beyond historical systems of harm.

Quishile has an MVA from Auckland University of Technology, where she also completed a PhD in visual arts. She has exhibited at institutions including Artspace Aotearoa, Tāmaki Makaurau; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin; and Kunsthalle Wien Museum. You can find Quishile working at her whare/ghar, which she shares with her chosen family in Aotearoa, making tarkari for loved ones, deep in talanoa while tending to her dye pots and sewing in the garage.

About Matthew Galloway

An interdisciplinary artist, Matthew’s work operates within a documentarian and historiographic mode, engaging critically with social, political, and environmental issues through the tools and methodologies of design.

Matthew commented “Much of my recent work has centred on resource extraction and power dynamics within industrial systems, with an emphasis on questioning the colonial and capitalist frameworks that shape them. The opportunity to participate in Revolutionary Roads. Destination: Comradeship provides a deeply valuable context for expanding this research. I am excited to see how the themes of this program play out across different locations, and to learn from the participants and facilitators involved.”

These research themes are seen in two of his ongoing bodies of work. Empty Vessels, produced in collaboration with Sahrawi artist, Mohamed Sleiman Labat, directly addresses Aotearoa New Zealand’s ongoing reliance on phosphate rock (used for the production of fertilisers) mined from occupied Western Sahara. By tracing the movement of phosphate-carrying ships and counter-surveilling infrastructures of oppression, the project seeks to amplify subjugated voices and present alternative ways of understanding and resisting systems of extraction. This collaborative work highlights the importance of solidarity and dialogue, aligning strongly with the ethos of the Non-Aligned Movement explored by the Summer School program.

Similarly, Matthew’s project The Power that Flows Through Us investigates the socio-political context surrounding the Clyde Dam, a monument to the infrastructural ambitions of mid- century New Zealand politics. This research examines the hydro dam as a political site, asking what memories it holds, and considering the way such State infrastructures continue to govern everyday life.

Matthew Galloway is a current doctoral candidate at Elam School of Fine Arts, and a Teaching Fellow, The School of Design Innovation, Wellington Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation, Victoria University. He is represented in Aotearoa New Zealand by Sumer.

About the Summer School

The 2025 Summer School | Revolutionary Roads. Destination: Comradeship, will address three main topics:

“Other Easts”: Re-examining the East through a decolonial and pluralized lens, with a focus on the Arteast 2000+ collection in Ljubljana.

Monuments & Memory: Examining the post-WWII Partisan resistance monuments created in Yugoslavia, which commemorate the antifascist struggle and the socialist revolution. Many of these monuments, ranging in style from socialist realism to modernism, were damaged or destroyed after the changes in regime in the 1990s. The participants will reflect on how these monuments shape collective memory and identity.

Challenging the Western Canon: Exploring three museum collections that break away from linear, traditional art-historical narratives: Arteast 2000+, the collection and archives of the Belgrade Museum of African Art, and the collection of the art of non-aligned countries in Montenegro Museum of Contemporary Art. These

collections offer diverse, non-linear explorations of art, politics, and history, and will allow the participants to broaden their perspectives on the legacies of the East and the Non-Aligned Movement.

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