Sul Mare, 17th Istanbul Biennial, 2022

Newell Harry’s artistic practice is rooted in a prodigious kind of foraging for stories, documents, images of things, during his extensive travels and in various activities and collections, both public and personal. Reflecting on his own diasporic family history, and journeys in the geography increasingly known as the ‘Indo-Pacific’, Harry’s work explores the cultural friction brought about by migration and the associated complexities of identity, dislocation and myth.

For the Biennial, Harry was invited to share his long-standing research into the conflicting legacies and continuities of colonial engagement in the Pacific. Offset against two documentary films chosen by the artist, his quasi-archival installation gathers stories, images and artefacts revealing the obscure ironies and untimely reckonings that punctuate the postcolonial experience. From the region’s engaged paths to decolonisation, to emergent solidarities against apartheid and nuclear testing, from extractive corporate violence to new sectors of soft power. Harry’s eclectic constellation suggests an unwritten prehistory of global anxieties around environmental injustice, cultural appropriation and repetition of colonial wrongs.