BIO
Laurie Sumiye is a Japanese-American contemporary artist, animator and filmmaker known for her work with Hawaiian endangered species. Her cross-disciplinary practice explores themes of extinction, ecology and spirituality. She has exhibited her art in New York, Los Angeles, Hawai‘i and internationally, in the UK, South Africa and Brazil. Laurie has screened her award-winning films at DOC NYC, BAM cinemaFest and PS1 MoMA. She was selected for film directing fellowships with Firelight Media, Sundance Institute/Women in Film, Jackson Wild and UnionDocs Center for Documentary Arts. Laurie was awarded residencies at A Studio in the Woods (New Orleans), Blue Mountain Center (NY), Digital Artist Studios (N. Ireland), Sacatar Institute (Brazil), Artfunkl (UK), Bishop Museum (Honolulu) and BoxJelly (Honolulu). Laurie has an MFA in Integrated Media Arts from CUNY Hunter College, BA in Art & BS in Communications from Bradley University, and studied fine art at Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence and Pratt Institute in New York. Laurie formerly served as an Assistant Professor of Film & Transmedia at the University of Hawai‘i-West Oahu. Her first feature, A PARADISE LOST, is a hybrid animated documentary about a rare bird that sued to prevent their extinction. She is based in Los Angeles and Hawai‘i.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My creative practice is a holistic expression of Neo-Transcendendalist thought inspired by Thoreau, Darwin, ancient animist religions, and modern conservation science. As an interdisciplinary conceptual artist, I articulate my ideas through audio-visual, animation, 2D, 3D, and organic media experiments. I gather inspiration from the specificity of natural ecosystems producing unique forms; rare Hawaiian animals and plants surviving in remote, fractured enclaves. My localized research into endemic Hawaiian species observes human impacts on native biodiversity, recognizing threats of dominant continental species as a weedy metaphor for Western colonization. A growing scientific understanding of the interconnectedness of all things found in quantum physics, island ecology and climate change is blended with Native Hawaiian and Native American theology to imagine a utopian future for Mother Earth. By engaging in environmental justice issues as a documentary filmmaker, the study of endangered species as it relates to Homo sapiens as an actor in shared spaces becomes a meditation towards self-realization through scientific inquiry.