There is no ocean sound when I hold this to my ear
Talia Smith
2021, digital assemblage.
Commissioned by Firstdraft. Courtesy the artist
Soft Power presents experimental responses, new critiques and speculative futures in the face of myriad power systems we must confront and dismantle. Like her peers, Talia Smith explores what is obscured and nullified in emergent and established systems of power.
I've lived in Sydney for seven years but Aotearoa and my family have always just been a plane trip away. However, these past two years I have not been able to see them as often and so the emotional distance between here and there grows just as wide as the geographical. This work explores the disconnection between my place of birth and ancestral homelands, and where I currently reside – and the familial ties that keep me precariously grounded.
Talia Smith is an artist and curator from Aotearoa New Zealand and now based in Sydney, Australia. She is of Samoan, Cook Island and Pakeha heritage. Her photographic and moving image practice looks at concepts of time, memory, familial histories and her lived experience of being of Moana heritage. She has exhibited in Aotearoa, Australia, USA and Germany. In 2021 she completed her Masters of Fine Arts (Research) at UNSW. She currently works as the Curator at Granville Centre Art Gallery.