Mindanao Story Cycle
1 November - 15 December 2024
Mindanao Story Cycle
Ben Tupas
Ben Tupas, Invisibility Barong (still), 2024, Single channel video, variable dimensions.
Mindanao Story Cycle is the latest exhibition by Filipino Australian artist Ben Tupas. It is comprised of a trilogy of video works, and will feature the Umbrella premiere of the most recent work, Invisibility Barong. The videos act as self-portraits, individually and collectively exploring cultural identity and family history. They are layered with moving image, sound and symbolism.
In the titular work Mindanao Story Cycle, Tupas reflects on three generations of family history. Writer Ken Leslie noted that the artist presented the 2018 work objectively as a form of data visualisation to analyse and process the complex information within. For Greetings from Eurasia, 2022, Tupas reflects more subjectively, layering experiences, sights, sounds and memories with a curious collection of everyday objects. Through this layering, he considers the roles adopted to navigate between two disparate worlds. Finally in Invisibility Barong, Tupas works with a physical garment to interrogate the metaphysical and embodied experience of belonging.
Exhibitions launch
6pm Friday 1 November 2024
Mindanao Story Cycle
Exhibition catalogue
The catalogue features a trilogy of essays by Ken Leslie, accompanying the trilogy of video works which comprise the exhibition.
Ben Tupas is a Filipino Australian artist based in Toowoomba. His arts practice is largely focussed on video and sound, although Tupas is also an advocate for making the arts experience accessible through community engagement, public programming, and arts education. His first public art commission Social Fabric was installed in four Toowoomba CBD laneways in February 2023. From 2018 to 2020, Ben was the Artistic Director for LIT Festival: Stories In Light, a public arts festival that presented light-based art in Toowoomba spaces. His work has been exhibited at Rosalie Gallery (2024), Brunswick Street Gallery (2023), University of Southern Queensland (2023), Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts (2022), Crows Nest Gallery (2022), Outer Space Gallery (2022), Metro Arts (2018), and Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery (2018).
Also on display during this period
All Exhibitions1 November -
15 December 2024
Open Hours
Tues - Fri: 9am-5pm
Sat - Sun: 9am-1pm
Gallery closed Mondays, public holidays and during exhibition install weeks.
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Contact
408 Flinders Street,
Gurambilbarra (Townsville),
Qld, 4810 Australia
PO Box 2394,
Gurambilbarra (Townsville),
Qld, 4810 Australia
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Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts respectfully acknowledges the Wulgurukaba of Gurambilbarra and Yunbenun and the surrounding groups of our region - Bindal, Gugu Badhan, Nywaigi, Warrgamay, Bandjin and Gudjal - as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we gather, share and celebrate local creative practice. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the first people of Australia. They have never ceded sovereignty and remain strong in their enduring connection to land and Culture.
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Acknowledgements
Umbrella is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, part of the Department of Communities, Housing and Digital Economy, and by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, state and territory governments. | Umbrella is supported by the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation and receives funding from Creative Australia through the Australian Cultural Fund. | Townsville City Council is a funding partner of Umbrella's program.
