Dulcie Stewart

  • Dulcie Stewart
© Dulcie Stewart
Graphic artist, Photographer, Librarian
Principal country concerned : Column : Fine arts, Photo

Dulcie Stewart was born in Suva, Fiji. A library assistant by profession, Dulcie is also an artist, blogger, and family historian specializing in Fiji research, covering European contact prior to cession (1800 – 1874).
A product of migration and colonialism, she has Fijian (vasu Bua, Kadavu, Rewa and Bau), Danish, Spanish, Filipino, American, Irish, Irish American, English, and Chinese ancestry.
As a family historian, she is interested in fragmented identities and explores mixed race stories, documenting the undocumented and making archival material accessible.
Dulcie's mixed heritage has influenced her arts practice. Her creative works have tried to understand, embrace, accept and acknowledge her "otherness". She examines her journey as a minority, and the experiences of migration and diaspora.
Working with digital images and the manipulation of photography on a mobile phone, her juxtaposed images move between abstract and figurative representation of contemporary Pacific identities.
The use of geometric designs and repetitive linear lines is prominent in traditional (like tatau, tapa, woven mats, adornments etc.) and contemporary Pacific art. Dulcie's arts practice explores and celebrates the relationships between visual culture and contemporary Pacific identities through Pacific symbols, motifs and iconography found in her Australian urban landscape.
Her digital images explore questions of identity, both her own and that of others. In Fijian in Brisbane (2011, digital image) she contextualizes the narratives of her Fijian/white/Asian mixed heritage against forced labels and identity; it is a visual interpretation of personal narratives.
Dulcie co-founded the Red Wave Collective, an artist collective based at the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies at The University of the South Pacific (USP). The Collective was formed in 1997 after a workshop by New Zealand based Niuean artist John Pule, under the guidance of Centre Director, Pacific philosopher and academic, the late Professor 'Epeli Hau'ofa.

Organizations

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Partners

  • Arterial network
  • Media, Sports and Entertainment Group (MSE)
  • Gens de la Caraïbe
  • Groupe 30 Afrique
  • Alliance Française VANUATU
  • PACIFIC ARTS ALLIANCE
  • FURTHER ARTS
  • Zimbabwe : Culture Fund Of Zimbabwe Trust
  • RDC : Groupe TACCEMS
  • Rwanda : Positive Production
  • Togo : Kadam Kadam
  • Niger : ONG Culture Art Humanité
  • Collectif 2004 Images
  • Africultures Burkina-Faso
  • Bénincultures / Editions Plurielles
  • Africiné
  • Afrilivres

With the support of