“Tropical Cats“

Astria Suparak
Video, 7 minutes
2024
Created for the 2024 Carnegie Museum of Art Film Series
https://bit.ly/tropicalcats

Description
Watch preview
Exhibitions & Screenings
Quotes
Related to #Tropical works

A meta cat video pondering notions of the tropical and a cheeky inquiry about identity.

Tropical Cats spins out of Suparak’s research into shifting racialized categories as defined by political, imperial, and colonial agendas, but also points to possible expanded affiliations, affinities, and solidarities across geography and national borders. 😺

“A sly, sun-soaked detour into cat video territory, refracted through postcolonial critique and pop collage. This winking essay film uses the feline internet genre to unpack tropical aesthetics, exoticism, and identity politics, purring with layered audio, meme logic, and cultural dissection. As playful as it is pointed.” – Chicago Underground Film Festival

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Kids watching “Tropical Cats” by Astria Suparak in the play section at the front of the room, Diffusion Festival, Toronto, 2025. Photo: Almudena Escobar.

EXHIBITIONS & SCREENINGS

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Vivid Sunsets Over Glistening Oceans
May 25, 2024

The tropics exist as a dreamy respite from “real” life… for some people. White-made media reinforces a racialized, exotic vacation trope, training their cameras on and constructing sets with gangly palm trees, pristine beaches, glistening oceans, and deferential Pacific Islander, Asian, Caribbean, and/or Indigenous people. That is the cherry-picked, colonialist view of tropical lands. Wish you weren’t here.

This program features three short films, the premiere of a new video artwork, and a feature-length film that all expand viewers’ understandings of what the tropics are. Dessane Lopez Cassell, New York-based editor, writer, and curator, will introduce the films.

DIFFUSION Festival, Toronto, Canada

@ CineCycle, 129 Spadina Ave.
August 9, 2025, 3pm

DIFFUSION Festival features work pushing the boundaries of non-fiction filmmaking.

Program 4: Cats in the Cracks: Step into a world where plants push through city cracks, history comes alive through stories and stone, and childhood dreams sparkle on the beach. This program brings together short films about nature’s resilience, childhood wonder, moving animals, and the many ways people and places connect across time and space. These stories help us ask big questions about history, nature, and how people connect to the places they live.

Chicago Underground Film Festival, Chicago, Illinois, USA

@ The Harper Theater, 5238 S Harper Ave.
September 19, 2025 4:30pm
September 20, 2025, 6pm

The Chicago Underground Film Festival exhibits the most genre-defying, groundbreaking, and unique films emerging from underground scenes. As the longest-running underground film festival in the world, CUFF continues to be one of the most innovative and accessible platforms for those interested in making, experiencing, and discussing underground art.

Shorts 4: Mundi Ludicrum. Includes work by Astria Suparak, TT Takemoto, Karen Yasinsky, Tommy Becker, and more.

San Francisco Arts Commission, Main Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Dream Jungle
Jan. 29–May 2, 2026

Dream Jungle features artists who wield elements of performance to explore counter-ethnographies of the tropics, subverting colonial notions of the other.

Curated by Matthew Villar Miranda, the exhibition features work by Alexa Burrell a.k.a. LEXAGON, adrian clutario, Al-An deSouza, Astria Suparak, and Carlos Villa, along with archival holdings from The Center for the Study of the Study of the Tasaday and the Jessica Hagedorn Papers.

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QUOTES

CHICAGO UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL:

“A sly, sun-soaked detour into cat video territory, refracted through postcolonial critique and pop collage. This winking essay film uses the feline internet genre to unpack tropical aesthetics, exoticism, and identity politics, purring with layered audio, meme logic, and cultural dissection. As playful as it is pointed.”

DIFFUSION FESTIVAL, re:assemblage:

“Step into a world where plants push through city cracks, history comes alive through stories and stone, and childhood dreams sparkle on the beach. This program brings together short films about nature’s resilience, childhood wonder, moving animals, and the many ways people and places connect across time and space. These stories help us ask big questions about history, nature, and how people connect to the places they live.”

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