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Summary

Tan Floren Meno Paulino was born in 1925 in the village of Inalåhan. As a young girl she learned to weave first from her father. By the age of 12 she was proficient at weaving guagua nengkånno' (food baskets) and tuhong siha (hats). As she grew older, she learned how to weave more and more items from family and friends and eventually became skilled at making akgak (woven pandanus items).

floren paulino weaver

Tan Floren Meno Paulino was born in 1925 in the village of Inalåhan.

As a young girl she learned to weave first from her father. By the age of 12 she was proficient at weaving guagua nengkånno’ (food baskets) and tuhong siha (hats). As she grew older, she learned how to weave more and more items from family and friends and eventually became skilled at making akgak (woven pandanus items).

Over her life Tan Floren demonstrated her weaving skills and displayed her work for countless school children and at numerous public events. Through her work at Gef Pa’go Cultural Village in Inalåhan, she shared her love of weaving with many island residents and island visitors. In 1997 she was recognized by Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities Agency (CAHA) as a Master of CHamoru Culture for Weaving.

Tan Floren passed away in February 2022. The Guam Museum offers its condolences to her family and expresses gratitude for her decades of commitment to sharing the culture of the CHamoru people.

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In her first solo show, Julia Birn presents Chewing on Static. She regards this body of work as an exploration of what it means to live in a life that no longer feels entirely familiar. Ms. Birn uses her work as a way to consider what happens when something changes the way one moves through the world, the relationship with oneself, and understanding of the future, as a result of chronic illness. Her paintings emerge from this unresolved experience, giving shape to the feeling of living with something that cannot always be explained or communicated. Through abstraction, fragmentation, and restricted palettes, the works hold onto that tension, allowing forms to shift and remain ambiguous. What emerges is a reflection of what it is like to live with a reality that has become difficult to recognise. The title of the exhibit, Chewing on Static speaks to the mental noise that comes from searching for clarity, questioning one's own experience, and trying to communicate something that refuses to become simple or certain. It is about what happens when one is forced to construct a new understanding of oneself and continue living within something that is unchosen. Through her work, Birn asks the viewer to enter a space where certainty is difficult to find, and to sit with what cannot be resolved. Julia Birn is an accomplished artist, graphic designer, and entrepreneur, who has participated in multiple large and small group shows in Guam since 2022. She has recently earned her BFA in graphic design from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Summa Cum Laude. Follow her on Instagram @deafeningsilenceco or contact via email at deafeningsilenceco@gmail.com

Chewing on Static

Chewing on Static https://www.guammuseumfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Chewing-on-Static-INSTAGRAM_4K_H265.mov The next exhibit opening October 24, 2026 at the Guam Museum Cafe Gallery. In her first solo show, Julia Birn presents

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