Pride at Shangri La: Three Artists You Should Know

Izik, Navid Sinaki, and Dr. Jamaica Heolimelekalani Osorio all express their ideas of place, identity, and connection in ways that are unique to his/her/their personal experiences. This feature explores how each artists has chosen to connect with Shangri La or their Muslim identity through performance and digital animation. Izik and Dr. Jamaica Heolimelekalani Osorio were selected for the #8x8_shangrila_22 exhibition and Navid Sinaki was selected for the 2020 American Muslim Futures exhibition.

The Mughal Gallery is Doris Duke's former bedroom and features beautifully inlaid semi-precious stone floral arraignments in the private bath area. The incredible talents of singer/songwriter lzik are on full display in this intimate site-specific performance about unfolding self-care, self-love, and self­ awareness in order to expand outward into the universe with confidence and grace.Read Artist Statement

Izik
Izik is an award-winning singer/songwriter who has has released two albums and toured around the world.

This piece merges Iranian art and turn-of-the-millennium gifs to create spaces for identities to triumph. As a queer artist, Navid is energized by spaces, stories and myths that provide nourishment for fellow multicultural, Muslim, LGBTQ voices.

View Artist Statement

Navid Sinaki is an artist from Tehran who currently lives in Los Angeles. His films have exhibited in venues including the Moderna Museet of Stockholm, Lincoln Center, British Film Institute, and Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre in Spain. His film "Pop!" was included in the book "Queer Cinema in the World" (Duke University Press, 2016). Most recently, his writing appeared in BOMB Magazine.

With this powerful work, Kanaka Maoli wahine mākua/artist/activist/scholar/storyteller Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio invokes the sacred connections that exist between people, place, and culture.


Read Artist Statement

Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio is a Kanaka Maoli wahine artist / activist / scholar / storyteller born and raised in Pālolo Valley to parents Jonathan and Mary Osorio. Jamaica earned her PhD in English (Hawaiian literature) in 2018 from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Currently, Jamaica is an Assistant Professor of Indigenous and Native Hawaiian Politics at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Jamaica is a three-time national poetry champion, poetry mentor and a published author. In 2020 her poetry and activism were the subject of an award-winning film, This is the Way we Rise which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2021.

In 2022 she was a lead artist and Co-writer of the revolutionary VR Documentary, On the Morning You Wake (To the end of the world), that premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2022 and won the XR experience Jury award at SXSW 2022. She is a proud past Kaiāpuni student, Ford Dissertation (2017) and Post Doctoral (2022) Fellow, and a graduate of Kamehameha, Stanford University (BA) and New York University (MA). Her book Remembering our Intimacies: Moʻolelo, Aloha ʻĀina, and Ea was published in 2021 by The University of Minnesota Press.