
Event
Manchester International Festival 2025
03 Jul 2025 – 20 Jul 2025
Manchester International Festival 2025
Manchester, United Kingdom
just opened
Critically acclaimed Queer Indigenous collective FAFSWAG take over HOME – with stunning digital art, live cultural ceremony and a programme of films and talks grounded in Pacific identity and culture
A celebration of queer Indigenous culture, FALE SĀ / SACRED HOUSE is the outcome of a two-year artistic residency by artist collective FAFSWAG.
Founded in Auckland in 2013, FAFSWAG’s work centres Indigenous world views, drawing from a deep well of ancestral knowledge to imagine potential futures for Indigenous people beyond the colonial gaze.
Created for Manchester International Festival, FALE SĀ / SACRED HOUSE responds to the reality that home is a precarious notion for cultures in a constant state of motion and displacement. Over two years, artists from the FAFSWAG collective were invited to create a ceremonial house inhabited by ancestral stories from the Pacific Diaspora of Aotearoa New Zealand and the wider Moana.
Culminating at MIF25, FAFSWAG welcome audiences on a cultural journey into the realm of Pacific storytelling as they take over the Manchester city centre venue HOME for the duration of the festival.
Encompassing an always-on exhibition of digital art, moments of live cultural ceremony and a programme of indigenous cinema and public discussions, FALE SĀ / SACRED HOUSE explores themes like transformation and ritual, fantasy and futurism, the environment, cultural languages and spirituality.
A joyous and thought-provoking celebration of cultural exchange and storytelling, with FALE SĀ / SACRED HOUSE FAFSWAG ask for your participation, not your consumption.
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