MISSING THREADS

By: Alfe RM (Alfeo Sanches Pereira)

OPENING THURSDAY 23 MAY 6-8pm

 ‘Missing Threads’ references the tais, a hand-woven fabric of Timor-Leste which appears in or lies behind Alfe's work. Tais represents and unites clans, passes down stories and offers ancestral protection for Timorese. The tais has been unraveled through almost 500 years of colonisation, occupation and foreign intervention in Timor-Leste. People are becoming disconnected from their land and livelihoods that sustained families for generations, surviving through connection and cooperation with others. We depend on a system that divides us and places boarders around us, creating tension between individual actions and collective needs. This exhibition of paintings and illustrations reflects on the process of repairing and reconnecting the threads of the tais through culture, family and everyday acts of self-determination.

Alfe RM:

Alfe RM (Alfeo Sanches Pereira) is a Timorese visual artíst. He trained at the Arte Moris art school in Dili from 2004-2010, in a newly-independent Timor-Leste. Alfe has refined his practice through several international cultural exchanges and has exhibited in solo and collective exhibitions in Dili (2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016), Switzerland (2008), Australia (2010, 2014, 2016, 2017) Macau (2016) and France (2017). In Melbourne, he has painted murals in Richmond, Fitzroy and the CBD and has co-created projections for the Gertrude Street Projection festival. Alfe's work connects closely with activist movements in Timor-Leste, and his stencil art became a symbol of his country’s fight for a fair maritime boundary with Australia, a longstanding dispute which was resolved in 2018. Alfe moved to Australia in 2016 and is currently living in Melbourne.

NOISE sound artists: 

Alfe will be joined for opening night by Dili-based experimental sound artists; Noise Timor. Etson Caminha and Yohan O'Bulak use vocals and a variety of traditional Timorese and modern instruments and electronic sound shaping tools, to take listeners on a contemplative journey across unpredictable and intriguing sonic realms. It's been called 'dangerous' and 'healing.' Their sound will have a uniquely Melbourne flavour for this special performance. Alfe will accompany Noise's experimental sound with live painting.