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Micki Davis

@marimick

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Chamoru / Artist
📸🔥🛢🔥📹
LA
@pileleprojects
Pasifika Transmissions (@pieam_arts)
@pacific__concrete

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Pilele Projects is thrilled to present:

Ia Manatua

Solo exhibition for Mylee Etuale

Opening Saturday, October 3, 2026
3-5pm

Ia Manatua is a Samoan phrase which can be translated as to remember, or to recall. It incorporates a Samoan concept for memory combining the term mana, meaning sacred power or spiritual energy, and tua, meaning back or support. The word ia calls manatua into presence, defines it as an act rather than an abstract concept, and positions it in a system of relationality. For Etuale, the practice of painting enacts the practice of memory. Her images are drawn from her own experience of returning to Samoa from her life in Southern California diaspora, welcomed in family, but also unfamiliar with so much of the language and lifeways that connect her to her ancestral home. Her paintings evince patient observation, joyful participation, and a sense of place, placement, and displacement which are at once vulnerable and assertive. The underlying images are made of photographic fragments, but the paintings emerge from a layered and resolutely manual process which unifies them into singularly resonant emotional chords. Her figures are intimate, but also turned away or partially hidden, sometimes cropped just beyond the edges of her canvases, so that what is given is more a feeling than a person. Similarly, her treatment of color and texture produce a dense generosity at the surface of her paintings which is also the result of a calculated withholding of the kinds of realism that offer up a picture in a single glance. Her paintings do not so much hold her memories as caress them into the present. taken in 3307 W Washington Blvd by @marimick

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11 days ago

Opening Saturday May 16, 2026
11am-4pm
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Talåyan Langhet
Sid Duenas and Isa Gagarin
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In this collaborative exhibition, Duenas and Gagarin use the talåya (fishing net) as a metaphor for connection, culture, and the fragmented nature of language.

Through bilingual poetry, multimedia, and the musical structure of kåntan Chamorrita, the artists weave together a visual and sonic dialogue that explores their CHamoru fluencies. Just like a net, their work is a beautiful balance of what is held together and the spaces left in between.
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Pictured: Stills from Talåyan Langhet
Digital video, audio. 2026
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#TalayanLanghet #CHamoruArt #SidMDuenas #IsaGagarin #PileleProjects #PacificIslanderArtists
#NHAAPIHeritageMonth #AAPIHeritageMonth#PasifikaArt #CurateLA #IndigenousArt #ContemporaryArt #MicronesianArt taken in 3307 W Washington Blvd by @marimick

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5 months ago

This is just one way to support. Check the Sinlaku resource linktree in my bio for a collection of relief efforts and an Amazon list by Marianas Strong Sinlaku.

Please follow for more updates and volunteer calls:
@micronesiaclimatealliance
@inafamaolek_mutual_aid
@inafamaolek.u.s
@marianasstrong
@kutturanchamorufoundation by @marimick

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6 months ago

Scenes from the studio 📽️✨
…like sand through the hour glass …
⏳🕛🕐🕑🕒✨✨✨⌛️

SYM MF + FF
@pileledvs
@edwardsterrett by @marimick

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10 months ago

OPENING Saturday June 28

I Hagan Sirena (The Daughter of Sirena)
Gallery Hours: 11–4 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Pilele Projects is honored to present Isa Gagarin’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, I Hagan Sirena (The Daughter of Sirena). Gagarin will present three works that represent i tinituhon, the beginning, of incorporating Chamoru language into her creative practice. Themes of beginning, birth and rebirth can be found in the exhibition’s centerpiece, a large ink-on-paper painting Tataotao i Tano’ (Body of the Land), it is accompanied by an audio and text work of the same title, and an artist book I Hagan Sirena (The Daughter of Sirena). Drawing from Gagarin’s experiences of visiting Laso’ Fuha in Guåhan (Guam), studying a kantan Chamorita song and recalling the sounds of luring dukduk crabs out of their shells, the artist invites the audience into a moment when her worldview is transformed through learning her maternal heritage language.

Pilele Projects has printed 20 copies of Gagarin’s artist book, I Hagan Sirena (The Daughter of Sirena), for sale during the exhibition. The book is an experimental score written by Gagarin, in collaboration with Minneapolis-based musician Nona Invie. Written for a performance which took place in June 2025 at Invie’s music residency at the venue Berlin in Minneapolis, I Hagan Sirena tells the story of an imaginary descendent of Sirena, a legendary figure from a Chamoru folktale. The story becomes embedded into Gagarin’s personal narrative, as she shares experiences of reconnecting with her motherland and grandmother tongue. In this hybrid poetry and musical score, storytelling is incorporated with ambient sounds, a kantan Chamorita song and simple instrumentation using hands, shells and sand. Gagarin invites the reader into a dreamlike space where the light, air and waters of Guåhan (Guam) are embodied by sonic textures and spoken Chamoru.

#pileleprojects #isagagarin taken in 3307 W Washington Blvd by @marimick

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a year ago

Preceding the Closing of Taotao’mona Portraits: Mali’e Inetnon @pileleprojects, there will be a WEAVING WORKSHOP Led by CHamoru multidisciplinary artist @rockin_roquin Roquin-Jon Quichocho Siongco.
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No prior weaving/writing experience necessary: all are welcome!
✨ Come join us and make a little something special for Nåna / Mom!
✨🫶🏽✨
1-4pm
$45 suggested fee no one turned away for lack of funds.
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Closing to follow from 4-6pm
✨ by @marimick

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a year ago

Join us tomorrow, Friday 11/1, for a post-Halloween / pre-All Souls Day screening of shorts by Director Aleks C. Muñoz & Films by Youth Inside.
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✨🧛🏻‍♀️🧞‍♂️✨
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Muñoz will be in attendance, so stay for a cup of corn soup and a talk story. We will also have an altar and candles to light.
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🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️
Leftover Halloween candy welcome!
✨🍬✨ taken in 3307 W Washington Blvd by @marimick

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2 years ago

Join us next Friday (11/1) for a post-Halloween / pre-All Souls Day screening of shorts by Director Aleks C. Muñoz & Films by Youth Inside.
✨🧛🏻‍♀️✨
Muñoz will be in attendance, so stay for a cup of corn soup and a talk story that may or may not give you fugu (chicken skin)
✨🧞‍♂️✨
Leftover Halloween candy welcome!
✨🍬✨
🕯️🕯️🕯️ taken in 3307 W Washington Blvd by @marimick

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2 years ago

Infinite Dakota performing at Fest Pac 202 taken in Hawaii Convention Center by @marimick

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2 years ago

Chuuk, French Polynesia and Guåhan fashion showcase Day 2 Fest Pac taken in Hawaii Convention Center by @marimick

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2 years ago

I can’t remember the last time I spent Mother’s Day in person with my nåna.
I’m grateful to all the mother figures that surround us here in the city.
You make this day.
Magof Ha’ånen i Mannåna
🌺⭐️🌺⭐️🌺⭐️🌺⭐️🌺 by @marimick

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2 years ago

Yesterday was a serious kick off to NHPI heritage month!  @sid_m_duenas show at Pilele Projects was reviewed by Catherine Taft for @artforum
 @sambellee curated a sweet program of Pasifika films at the Art theatre (congrats @neil_tinkham and @alf.bordallo)!  @vcmediaorg Film Festival had an awesome kick off!   And many of us defied space and time, again (@xcelsior_56 @misseseel 👀)  So grateful for it all.   Follow @pileleprojects for info on our next artist in residence @dantaulapapamcmullin and all upcoming programs (readings, talks and a wiki edit-a-thon!)
 ⚡️link to review in bio⚡️ by @marimick

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2 years ago