Who’d have thought a police band was hot contemporary art?

Michel Tuffery's large-scale performative installation opens up the "memory banks" on Samoa's German colonial history.
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Cross platform, collaborative, multi-disciplinary, regional, and embedded with storytelling and cross-cultural connection – this project certainly ticks all the boxes of what is hot now across numerous art sectors. And, yet, this project is far from “fashionable” – at its centre is a police band and a very un-sexy history of German colonisation.

Siamani Samoa: Michel Tuffery & The Royal Samoa Police Band is a visual art installation-cum-performance-cum-participatory event commissioned by Sydney’s Carriageworks and opening this week (16-18 July).

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Gina Fairley is ArtsHub's National Visual Arts Editor. For a decade she worked as a freelance writer and curator across Southeast Asia and was previously the Regional Contributing Editor for Hong Kong based magazines Asian Art News and World Sculpture News. Prior to writing she worked as an arts manager in America and Australia for 14 years, including the regional gallery, biennale and commercial sectors. She is based in Mittagong, regional NSW. Twitter: @ginafairley Instagram: fairleygina