Salon X
How can we tell new stories with our bodies and our voices?
Salon X – part of this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival – poses this question during an evening of performance art, spoken word and dance with artists who draw from Polynesian, Japanese and Australian cultures. It’s a celebration of the cross-cultural history of tattooing, wrapped in ideas around community, identity and intersectionality.
Featured artists will include Aniva, a collective of Oceanian women and master storytellers who weave together movement, song and oration, in collaboration with spoken-word poet Grace Vanilau; Lay the Mystic, a poet and performance artist whose work explores what it means to be a queer, trans femme-boy of Tongan and Lebanese descent; and Sydney-based Ryuichi Fujimura, who’ll perform a stand-up-style act on failure, disappointment and perseverance.
There’ll be an opportunity for you to leave your own impression too as you wander through the exhibitions exploring tattoo culture in Samoa, Japan and the local Melbourne scene. If you’re feeling brave, take the stage alongside the evening’s resident poets, Australian Haiku Society, and share your own story.
Drinks and light snacks will be available.
Salon X is part of Our Bodies, Our Voices, Our Marks, a series of exhibitions and experiences showing at the Immigration Museum until October 6.
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Museums Victoria.