The eighth of 15 Actions designed to interrupt public space and raise awareness for West Papua is going down this weekend at Pasifika Festival. For the first time Manukau City will play host to Auckland’s iconic festival… this should be interesting!
I made this illustration. Action 8 is powerful, emotional, bold – I can’t wait.
Follow Oceania Interrupted on Facebook for updates.
The LAST event of the epic Between Wind and Water residency at Enjoy Gallery is tomorrow! Join five inspiring Pacific speakers discuss ideas about the future in the BWAW Futures Forum from 2pm, Saturday 24 January 2015.
This special event is part of the Between Wind and Water (BWAW) exhibition and residency project that has been timed to coincide with Wellington’s annual Positively Pasifika Festival. The exhibition features new and experimental works by three South Auckland-based Pacific artists working with themes ranging from systemic racism, stereotypes, migration histories and origin stories.
The BWAW Futures Forum is the last of six public dialogue events developed to deepen audience engagement with the themes, issues and dynamics of making and presenting contemporary Pacific art in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Focusing on the statistics of deprivation, health, wealth and educational achievement for Pacific people in Aotearoa can be depressing; this event is an opportunity to discuss ideas about the future in a more utopian and light-hearted fashion. Less strategy, more dream talk – what does our future look like in an ideal world?
Speakers
Teresia Teaiwa is an I-Kiribati / American poet and academic who was raised in Fiji. Described as, “a groundbreaking scholar in the research of the culture of the Pacific Islands”, Teaiwa obtained her PhD in History of Consciousness in 2001, on the topic “Militarism, Tourism and the Native: Articulations in Oceania”. Teresia works as a Senior Lecturer Pacific Studies at Victoria University
Herbert Bartley was born in Lower Hutt, raised in Naenae and currently lives in Newtown. He works at The Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa as part of the Audience Engagement team and as the Tokelauan Representative on the Wellington City Council Pacific Advisory Group.
Faith Wilson‘s writing explores ideas of what it is to be a twenty-something afakasi (half-caste) Samoan female in the twenty-first century and the tropes or expectations of that personhood. In 2014, she completed her Master of Arts folio, entitled Dolly Mix Tape, at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victory University. She was awarded the 2014 Biggs Family Poetry Prize and has her poetry published in Turbine, Mayhem and in Enjoy art gallery’s journal.
Fuimaono Karl Pulotu-Endemann is a Samoan-born, New Zealand-based academic, medical professional and fa’afafine. Coming to New Zealand as a child, and trained initially as a psychiatric nurse, Pulotu-Endemann became a health consultant on Pacific Health issues. In the 2001 New Year Honours, Pulotu-Endemann was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Public Health. He has also been a sitting member of the Creative NZ Pacific Arts Committee.
Coco Solid is the musician, writer, zine-maker and artist Jessica Lee Hansell. Raised in South Auckland, and acclaimed on her home-turf and abroad, the outspoken Māori/Samoan/German Aucklander has proven herself as an enduring and shapeshifting artist in recent years.
When
BWAW Futures Forum
What does an ideal future look like for Pacific people in Aotearoa and Oceania? A series of quick-fire utopian dream talks from diverse Pacific perspectives, including Dr Teresia Teaiwa, Fuimaono Karl Pulotu-Endemann, Faith Wilson, Jessica ‘Coco Solid’ Hansell and Herbert Bartley!
The residency of Between Wind and Water artists will take place from 10-24 January 2015; the exhibition will be on show until 31 January.
Where
Enjoy Public Art Gallery is located on the First Floor, 147 Cuba Street, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Between Wind and Water has been produced with support from
Leilani Kake’s exploratory new work, MALE – Maori or Polynesian has been developed for Between Wind and Water, an exhibition and accompanying residency at Wellington’s Enjoy Gallery.
The work reflects Kake’s ongoing research and interest in the problematic nature of visual representation of Maori and Pacific males in New Zealand entertainment and advertising. The popular New Zealand television series, Police Ten 7, inspired her lenticular print which combines three photographic portraits of male relatives who represent not only the core cast, but also an audience who see themselves reflected within it. In a specially devised gallery activity, Kake invites audiences to take time to consider assumptions and attitudes towards Maori and Pacific males by creating a unique hand-drawn Identikit drawing.
Gallery visitors are invited to create composite sketches from one of three customised Identikit booklets featuring some familiar faces from New Zealand sports and entertainment. The drawings are being compiled and added to a growing creative lineup on the Gallery wall!
Leilani Kake will discuss her work, ideas and wider visual arts practice at an Artist Talk on Thursday 15 January from 5.30pm at Enjoy Gallery, First Floor, 147 Cuba Street, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Between Wind and Water has been produced with support from
Tanu Gago’s new work for Between Wind and Water is a follow-up from his 2010 three-channel video installation, YOU LOVE MY FRESH, a work developed for the Manukau Festival of Arts first shown at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts in Pakuranga, East Auckland.
Since 2011, Tanu has worked predominantly in photography but his kaupapa has always been to acknowledge, represent and celebrate the unique positions and shared experience of his communities in South Auckland. Making photographs that reclaim the gaze, his work and the projects that have emanated from his practice, give voice, presence and mana to people, places and spaces that are generally otherwise unrepresented in New Zealand mainstream media and art history.
Five years on, The Sound of the Ocean is the sequel to YOU LOVE MY FRESH. An uncomfortable historical reminder of embedded colonialism and media power, stereotypes and expectations that still linger in coded interactions with critics and academics, curators and haters.
Concerned with authorship and representation, past and present, this work remixes found footage from the Internet with Google imagery of Pacific peoples history in New Zealand. The Idea is to re-author the past decade of Pacific media representation, using my own Pacific lens and perspective to tell my own story.
This is the informal Pacific history according to me.
Here’s a taste:
The full three part video work has been created for Between Wind and Water; Tanu will discuss his work and ideas at an Artist Talk on Thursday 22 January at Enjoy Public Art Gallery – all welcome!
When
Artist Talk: Tanu Gago
5.30pm, Thursday 22 January
The residency of Between Wind and Water artists will take place from 10-24 January 2015; the exhibition will be on show until 31 January.
Where
Enjoy Public Art Gallery is located on the First Floor, 147 Cuba Street, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Between Wind and Water has been produced with support from
This is us! On Saturday 17 January from 12 – 6pm, the artists from the upcoming Between Wind and Water exhibition and residency will be at Wellington’s Positively Pasifika Festival at Waitangi Park!
Come down and meet the crew and pick up a copy of SOUTH publication featuring artist profiles, reviews, photo essays and page works by South Auckland’s finest Maori and Pacific artists. Limited edition PIMPI fans will be on sale, as well as Oceania Interrupted T-shirts… and keep an eye out for Oceania Interrupted who’ll be on a mission to raise awareness for West Papua in the capital!
The exhibition of new works by Tanu Gago, Leilani Kake and Luisa Tora opens at Enjoy Public Art Gallery on Saturday 10 January; the first event of the residency is on Wednesday 14 January – Pacific vs Art: A discussion on Curating Pacific Art – all welcome!
Between Wind and Water has been produced with support from
We’re using the New Zealand crowdfunding platform, PledgeMe to raise some funds to cover costs associated with accommodation and transport during the Between Wind and Water residency at Enjoy Public Art Gallery next month!
Having been live for about three weeks, we’re now in the final hours. I’ve just added two PIMPI fans to the mix as rewards (NZ$75) and also the last three REAL TALK T-shirts (XL only) designed last year by Tepora Malo to support the #2girls1conference project (NZ$50). There are also signed photographic prints by Tanu Gago (NZ$200) and the option to contribute NZ$20 for an acknowledgement in the project publication.
The PledgeMe campaign closes at 6pm, Sunday 21 December! Every dollar, share, like and shout-out counts – much appreciated!
Click here to find out more + support!
Luisa Tora has been busy finishing her Bachelor of Creative Arts at Manukau Institute of Technology in South Auckland. But in the past 18 months she has also shown at St Paul St Gallery, Fresh Gallery Otara and OTARAwindow (which was also featured in the NZ Herald here), at Nathan Homestead, in a pop-up exhibition for the Auckland Pride Festival at Pitt Street Methodist Church, in a poster exhibition for IDAHOT, undertaken an internship with Auckland Museum AND had her work purchased for the Te Papa Tongarewa permanent collection!
Whilst developing on a new work for Between Wind and Water, Luisa slipped in another exhibition: The Drowned World curated by Daniel Michael Satele for Tautai Trust. As part of her enquiry into her village’s origin story and totemic relationship with the shark, Luisa worked with Fijian artist, Joana Monolagi, to create a salusalu [garland; lei] from laser cut Perspex. Read more here.
For Between Wind and Water, Luisa has developed a new and experimental installation entitled, Naqalotu: Na qalo tu.
‘Na qalo tu’ celebrates the central role of vasu and the ocean in my life. It profiles the strong, beautiful females who sustain, influence and inspire me. This offering merges the narratives of my village, Naqalotu’s origin story; our ika, the shark; and my vasu support system.
Luisa will discuss her work as part of a special panel discussion on Wednesday 21 January at Enjoy Public Art Gallery. Guest speakers Kaliopate Tavola (Fiji) and Milena Palka (WWF New Zealand), will speak to the wider themes of Fijian identity and totemic relationships, and the protection and state of shark populations in the Pacific.
When
Naqalotu: Na qalo tu – A panel discussion on new work by Luisa Tora
5.30pm, Wednesday 21 January
The residency of Between Wind and Water artists will take place from 10-24 January; the exhibition will be on show until 31 January.
Where
Enjoy Public Art Gallery is located on the First Floor, 147 Cuba Street, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Between Wind and Water has been produced with support from
Leilani Kake has become known for powerful video installations that document family, ritual, cultural transmission and taboo. For Between Wind and Water, the upcoming exhibition and summer residency at Wellington’s Enjoy Public Art Gallery, she presents a new and exploratory work entitled, MALE – Māori or Polynesian .
Employing lenticular printing as a new and experimental medium, the work begins to unpack her recent research into narratives of cultural identity and incarceration,stereotypes of criminality and the dichotomies of criminal/victim, brother/other.
This work stems from personal discussions and reflections of friends and family who are currently going through or have recently been through the New Zealand judicial system. I’m interested in how the over-representation of Māori and Polynesian men in New Zealand prisons affects the way our wider communities are represented visually in New Zealand society.
In a specially developed participatory component of the work, Leilani has created suspect flip books inviting audiences of all ages to create and hand-draw their own suspects! The drawings will be added to the exhibition and displayed until 31 January.
Leilani Kake will discuss her new work, research and contexts at an Artist Talk on Thursday 15 January – all welcome!
When
Artist Talk: Leilani Kake
5.30pm, Thursday 15 January
The residency of Between Wind and Water artists will take place from 10-24 January 2015; the exhibition will be on show until 31 January.
Where
Enjoy Public Art Gallery is located on the First Floor, 147 Cuba Street, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Between Wind and Water has been produced with support from
The first event we’re hosting as part of the Between Wind and Water Summer Residency at Enjoy Public Art Gallery brings together broad and diverse perspectives on Pacific art and the politics of engagement.
In a meaty debate, facilitated by Sean Mallon, writer-curators Ioana Gordon-Smith, Daniel Michael Satele and Between Wind and Water curator, Ema Tavola, intend to unpack some of the sticky and sometimes unspoken issues surrounding Pacific art making and curating in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Originally from Wellington, Ioana Gordon-Smith is a curator and writer based in Auckland. She previously worked with Artspace, Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust and Unitec, and has worked on exhibitions for Fresh Gallery Otara, Papakura Art Gallery and Gus Fisher Gallery. Ioana currently works as Curator at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery.
Daniel Michael Satele is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Auckland. His art writing has appeared in ArtAsiaPacific, Art New Zealand, The New Zealand Listener and other publications. The Drowned World, at the-drowned-world.com, is Satele’s first curation of an art exhibition. A video component of this exhibition will be shown in the Enjoy Gallery library from 10-31 January.
Ema Tavola is a curator, blogger, qualified arts manager and mother, passionate about Pacific art, grassroots creativity, activism and social inclusion.
Sean Mallon (Senior Curator Pacific Cultures, Te Papa Tongarewa) specialises in the social and cultural history of Pacific peoples in New Zealand. He is currently researching the cultural history of Samoan tattooing, and issues relating to the agency and activism of Pacific peoples in museums.
When
Pacific vs Art: A discussion on Curating Pacific Art
5.30pm, Wednesday 14 January
The residency of Between Wind and Water artists will take place from 10-24 January 2015; the exhibition will be on show until 31 January.
Where
Enjoy Public Art Gallery is located on the First Floor, 147 Cuba Street, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Between Wind and Water has been produced with support from
As part of the Between Wind and Water Summer Residency at Enjoy Public Art Gallery, come along to meet members and hear about Oceania Interrupted: Empowering Collective Action from 5.30pm on Friday 16 January, 2015.
Oceania Interrupted is an Auckland-based collective of Māori and Pacific women committed to undertaking public interventions to raise awareness for issues that affect Pacific Islanders both here in Aotearoa and throughout the region. The collective is currently engaged in producing a series of 15 Actions to raise awareness and demonstrate solidarity for the people of Papua and West Papua, who have been living under Indonesian colonial rule since 1962. They state, “Becoming aware of the gross injustices and ongoing human rights violations that Papuans and West Papuans endure inspires us to mobilise awareness amongst our own communities and those around us.”
Oceania Interrupted formed in 2013 and undertook the first of 15 Actions on Auckland’s Queen Street. They’ve since assembled to march, perform and dialogue at Otara Market, Pasifika Festival, Fresh Gallery Otara and most recently on Mission Bay beach.
Between Wind and Water exhibiting artist and Oceania Interrupted member, Leilani Kake, draws on her performance art practice to contribute key art direction for a number Oceania Interrupted Actions.
The collective’s next Action will take place in Wellington on Saturday 17 January. Come along to meet the crew at Enjoy Public Art Gallery to find out more and get involved! All welcome!
Keep informed about Oceania Interrupted developments on Facebook
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