Thirteen local artists have a new show at Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum. The artists are a part of a queer, CHamoru art collective called Guma’ Gela’.
So’le Celestial is a trans and queer multimedia artist and one of the collective's founding members. They were born and raised in Guahan — or Guam — but moved to Spanaway, Washington, with their family in 2013.
"As Indigenous Pacific Islanders, we're always connected to our native lands and our seas and our ancestries, no matter how far we go from the island. So it's like a grounding point for us," Celestial said.
Celestial explained the name Guma’ Gela’ roughly translates to “Home of Queer” in the CHamoru language.
The group formed in 2018 and their art has been a part of a number of events around the city including Legendary Children, a celebration of the QTBIPOC community, and house and ballroom culture. Most recently, they won a grant from the Wing Luke Museum which let them put together this yearlong exhibit. The show features art across a wide range of mediums including sculpture, printmaking and weaving.
The Guma' Gela' show is curated around the theme: “part land, part sea, all ancestry.”
"I think one of our hopes is people are able to come in and find themselves. You can be able to find home, and how we express how we found home with each other, and within our culture, that people are able to connect to your ancestry, no matter where they come from...," Celestial said.
"And be able to leave with the confidence and curiosity to explore what identity and sexuality is and how it can look because there are so many different ways to look."
Celestial said the CHamoru art collective has been thinking about the idea of home a lot. Just a couple of weeks ago a super typhoon struck Guam causing lots of structural damage. Being so far away has been difficult for all of them.
"There's a lot of tenderness, a lot of grief that we've all been holding," Celestial said. "A lot of what you'll see in the exhibit also is honoring of grief and life as well."
Celestial contributed several musical pieces that play throughout the show representing the land, sea and ancestry. The exhibit will be on display through May 2024.
