Multidisciplinary artist Salote Tawale uses her body to create humorous and provocative portraits that explore perceptions of ethnicity, gender, identity and race. The installation Sometimes you make me nervous, but then I know we are supposed to sit together for a long time deconstructs and reassembles motifs from conventional still lifes — such as the skull, fresh fruit and cut flowers — to reveal the layers of migrant and colonial heritage that inform our contemporary identities.

The accompanying flower arrangement that rotates through a cycle of renewal and decay is based on Fijian funeral flowers, bringing further attention to the underlying sense of grief and mourning that Tawale transforms into a celebratory affirmation of her being-in-the-world.