I wrote a response to the 2015 Summer Residency project, between wind and water, produced last year with artists Tanu Gago, Leilani Kake and Luisa Tora for Enjoy Public Art Gallery. The Third Enjoy Five Year Retrospective Catalogue is a beautifully produced, thoughtfully designed publication chartering the last five years of Enjoy’s impressive art history. Pick up a copy for NZD20 here.
The Between Wind and Water publication documents the Enjoy Public Art Gallery Summer Residency undertaken in January 2015 by Tanu Gago, Leilani Kake, Ema Tavola and Luisa Tora. It has been designed by Meredith Crowe and features written and drawn contributions by Tanu Gago, Leilani Kake, Fuimaono Karl Pulotu-Endemann, Jessica Hansell, Kaliopate Tavola, Teresia Teaiwa, Luisa Tora and Faith Wilson.
Being between wind and water is to be precarious, vulnerable.
Making, presenting and discussing Pacific art and Pacific audiences in Aotearoa is a political, problematic and divisive process. Our small community is fragmented and diasporically disjointed. In a dominant cultural environment, Celebration By Default Syndrome too often squashes criticality particularly in the context of a top-heavy funding paradigm. In Aotearoa, assertion of identity is an act embedded in systems of power, privilege and oppression; Pacific people and Pacific art will never be ‘post-identity’.
The Between Wind and Water exhibition and residency was planned to literally and conceptually align with Wellington’s annual Pasifika Festival. The project centralises Pacific art, people and ways of seeing. A grant received from Creative New Zealand enabled the artists to develop new and experimental work for the exhibition, and the Summer Residency at Enjoy Public Art Gallery allowed us to present it, discuss it and bring people together to reflect and honour Pacific lives and experience in Aotearoa.
The artworks define their community, their intangible context of relational accountability. They represent the people and spaces the artists’ draw from, and are sustained by. They cut close to the heart for some, and reveal attitudes towards Otherness, privilege, colonisation and its residue on our everyday lives. Over two weeks, the Gallery became a forum for conversations about the Ocean, race and belonging, merging communities and the flawed ideal of the Super City. We broke bread with new friends, shared tears for West Papua, and got inspired by some of New Zealand’s most conscious Pacific thinkers, culture shapers and trailblazers.
This publication is a record of our residency, an epic collective undertaking. It represents the spaces around and between Pacific art and audience, capturing moments of love, respect and consciousness for Oceania.
Ema Tavola
Curator
Things have been quiet on the blog front since Between Wind and Water, a residency and exhibition that took place in January at Enjoy Public Art Gallery in Wellington. This beautiful publication is in development and documents the whole thing with photos, papers, extended artist statements and drawings – the first print run is headed to the Contemporary Pacific Arts Festival Symposium in Melbourne next month where I’ll be delivering a keynote presentation entitled, Curating Pacific Spaces: Oceania and the White Cube.
[Front cover: Installation view, Naqalotu: Na qalo tu (2015) by Luisa Tora]
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
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