February 5-20 | Porter College Faculty Gallery
In conjunction with the conference “Native Pacific Cultural Studies on the Edge,” the Hawai`i Studies Research Cluster presents an art exhibit by Jewel Castro. Castro is a visual artist who creates multimedia installations about Samoan identity and history from her drawings, paintings, sculptures, and recorded sound. Her installation-environments invoke a sense of inside and outside, past and present layered together in the same space. Jewel Castro was born in Chicago, Illinois, spent her first year in American Samoa, and then was raised in San Diego, California. She considers herself a border dweller. She is half Samoan, half Danish and Irish. She currently lives on the border of Mexico and the United States, as well as on the border of the Barona Reservation in Southern California, and previously lived on the border of the Suquamish Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. She has spent a great deal of time in the Southwest, and has collaborated with Chicano border artists. Her work is influenced by Samoan art forms (especially fine mats and tapa), as well as Mexican muralists, Chicano art, and Native American art forms.
Co-sponsored by the Asian-Pacific Islander Programs at Merrill College, the Asian American Pacific Islander Resource Center and the Hawai`i Studies Research Cluster.