KATRINA IOSIA & ONESIAN - 2022
Katrina Iosia is a Multidisciplinary Niuean artist born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand.
As a sculptor with a materiality based practice, her works have progressed into technical arts where she has developed expertise in 3D sculpting and modeling to create interactive animated experiences through both VR/AR.
She is inspired by tactility and the hybrid of textured surfaces from Niue’s ecology and coral landscapes combined with the decadence of desserts.
ONESIAN (Māori (Ngati Awa, Ngai Tuhoe), Samoan) is a multi disciplined artist from South Auckland, New Zealand, exploring the notions between digital space and real time through new technological mediums.
With extensive knowledge and expertise, ONESIAN challenges the boundaries of digital space by expanding on the endless possibilities that narrate Indigenous stories and creating dialogues for personal storytelling.
For VMF Winter Arts 2022, Katrina Iosia and ONESIAN worked collaboratively to bring to life both the augmented and the real world experience, using the physical presence of sculpture and digital spaces in response to the theme ‘Being Metaself’. The work is an exploration of the ‘self’, how we perceive ourselves in the presence of both worlds combined, and how we navigate through these spaces.
Their VMF Winter Arts 2022 installation, CORALSCAPE GARDENS, is a hybrid play of coral landscapes being reimagined in and amongst the cityscapes, it creates a dialogue for users to be able to immerse themselves into this experience.
Learn more about them and their work below and experience their installation in Yaletown during VMF Winter Arts (Feb11-27)!
VMF: How did you get into digital art?
KI: I have always been fascinated by materials and materiality of contemporary sculpture, that is how I interweave the knowledge of my past, present, and the evolutionary future of my works, through mixed reality.
I first discovered Augmented Reality in 2016 through Snapchat’s face filters. I wanted to shift the lens from face filters to sculpted objects.
In early 2018 I was invited to a private VR workshop and I had my first taste of sculpting a 3D object in the likeness of my physical sculptures, creating my first AR with Lens studio.
Since then I have become a verified Lens creator with Snapchat and an AR designer with spectacles, which has been a really huge learning curve. I’m still on the journey of pushing the boundaries of what storytelling can be and the duality between the physical and the digital, through the lens as an artist of the Moana (Pacifika).
ONESIAN: I was pretty much brought up with digital art in mind, as a young kid drawing digital works and animating them with a mouse on an Amiga 500 paint.
I’ve always had a deep curiosity about digital in general, to understand the aspects of creating and to push that curiosity into more experimental work. I generally see things in a different colour and that sparks a flourish of new visions whenever there’s something new I could create.
I can’t remember when I started working with AR. I’ve generally experimented a lot with different media to see what could make the vision pop and, as time has progressed, it’s getting easier for artists to paint a vision for others to see and experience in an immersive way through AR.
VMF: Tell us more about your AR piece. What inspired you when creating an experience like this?
KI: We decided it would be a great idea to continue with a personal project I was currently working on, keeping things fun and playful and blending both of our practices, through colours and composition.
The inspiration weaves together coral ecology and the landscapes of Niue island, reimagining its presence amongst the cityscapes. It gives viewers an opportunity to perceive themselves as meta-humans navigating through a coral scape garden. ONESIAN and I wanted to keep the forms organic.
VMF: How do you work together?
KI: We spend a lot of time brainstorming and discussing some very crazy ideas for projects that we are currently involved in as individuals, and as a couple. It’s important to both of us that we support our individuality which has always come so natural.
ONESIAN has extensive experience and knowledge across the board, to me he has always been an inspiration. We have a shared knowledge and we value each other's opinions. We’re grateful to share so much patience with each other, we’ve created our very own safe space to debrief and reflect.
VMF: What is the best way for people to enjoy your AR piece?
KI: The best way to enjoy the CORALSCAPE GARDENS is to be present and activate the space that you're in by exploring the textures and the forms, using every opportunity to embrace the meta-self.
“ONESIAN and I are both extremely excited and grateful for the opportunity to be part of VMF Winter Arts, being able to exhibit alongside very talented and awesome creatives that are shaping the XR movement and building the AR community.
It’s been amazing working collaboratively with the team at VMF who have been absolutely supportive of the ideas and creations leading up to the final design.
Although, due to the restrictions of travel, we are unable to be there physically, we look forward to learning how people are experiencing and interacting with our work.”
— Katrina Iosia
From February 11-27, you can experience Katrina Iosia & ONESIAN’s AR installation in Yaletown, at 1198 Mainland Street Vancouver.
You can find the location on the map and on our free VMF app from February 11th.
AR artwork supported by Yaletown BIA
Follow @winterartfest on social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) for updates on VMF Winter Arts 2022.
Presenting Sponsor: Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association
