#2girls1conference Art Auction: Margaret Aull

Margaret Aull

Title: Mata nui
Date: 2012
Series: Concealed Ancestors
Medium: Acrylic, Gold Leaf, Ochre and Paper on Board
Dimensions: 800x800mm [circular]

Artist Statement

My work is an investigation of the notion of Tapu / Tabu, a cultural construct embedded in most indigenous frameworks. For both Māori and Fijians, objects and personal items were often created as visual representations of ancestors and gods often imbued with mana and fear, a spiritual governing law / lore that could transform the mundane into veneration. Imagery and meaning could be transferred or transported through its reproduced format.

I am interested in the type of reverence applied to such objects, and the relationships that existed with their owners and communities during their “life” time. In Museum collections, the value and context of the objects have shifted and changed over time. Its ‘life force’ subdued and dormant as if defunct from the life and intent it emerged from.

The images I have referenced and adopted, as visual representations, aim to reclaim and re-activate meaning as personal cultural signifiers. Traditional ochre/oil for masi (Fijian bark cloth) is a way of locating my identity, bringing forth whenua / vanua (land) within my work. The traditional nature of the pigment challenges the way I work; its natural form resisting synthetic composites destabilizing surfaces… a response perhaps to my blurred genetic code as Māori, Fijian and other.

Concealed Ancestors becomes a way to test boundaries and explore tensions between what is culturally prohibited and what is respectable. These ancestors are concealed within museums, within display cabinets, representatives of a people or a provenance. I am interested in the value of such objects, the cultural negotiations / obligations of collectors and the space between the physical and spiritual.

Bio

Margaret Aull (Te Rarawa, Tūwharetoa, Fiji) completed undergraduate studies at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and Waikato Institute of Technology where she completed a Bachelor of Media Arts winning the Waikato Museum ArtsPost Award for excellence in Academic Record in 2006.

Aull has exhibited extensively in New Zealand since 2005 with a solo exhibition entitled Na Kena Yali (Loss) at the Chartwell Gallery, Hamilton in 2008 and Concealed Ancestors at Papakura Art Gallery, Auckland in 2013. She is currently studying to complete a Master of Fine Arts degree at Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design and is employed as the Art Collection Curator for Te Wananga o Aotearoa in Te Awamutu.

Aull’s work reflects the tensions of culture and identity between her Fijian and Māori ancestry. Her work is the ongoing effort to find equilibrium between the two cultural powerhouses by investigating the relationships of whakapapa, faith and politics. She is a noted painter but currently expanding her practice into sculpture and installation. Aull has works in private and public collections including Auckland Council, The Barry Hopkins Art Collection, Fiji Museum, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and Open Wānanga Collections, Waikato Institute of Technology and Waikato Museum of Art and History.

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#2girls1conference Art Auction: Benjamin Work

Benjamin Work

Title: Palatavake Flag
Date: 2013
Medium: Acrylic on Board
Dimensions: 790x1190mm

Artist Statement

On Captain Cook’s third voyage to the Kingdom of Tonga, he was gifted by the then ruling king, the Tui Tonga, the royal headdress, the Palatavake, decorated with prized red parrot feathers. The motif of the Tui Tonga then went on to be engraved into history by Tufunga Akau (master carver of war clubs).

Discovered in the thesis of Dr Andrew Mills, the motif is central in this weathered wooden flag – a comment on nationhood, kingship and Tongan society.

Bio

Benjamin Work is a South Auckland-based visual artist of Tongan heritage. With a strong foundation in aerosol painting and graffiti, Work is a core member of the Auckland art collective, TMD. He has worked on diverse projects including large scale public mural commissions, limited edition wine boxes and postage stamps, and recently, his practice has also expanded to photography and performance. Work travels to Tonga frequently and is an active member of the Auckland-based Tongan art collective, No’o Fakataha. He maintains a strong interest in ngatu (Tongan bark cloth) making, design and motifs.

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#2girls1conference Art Auction: Ema Tavola

Ema Tavola

Title: Unsettled Earth Pylon City
Date: 2006
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 865x1200mm

Artist Statement

Pylon gazing in Otara, after the rain.
Missing home.

Bio

Ema Tavola is a South Auckland-based visual artist, writer and curator of Fijian / New Zealand Pākehā ancestry. Having established her art practice at the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific (Suva, Fiji), Tavola went on to complete a Bachelor of Visual Arts at the University of Auckland. She has exhibited in group shows in Auckland, Suva and Hawai’i and presented her first solo exhibition, BLOOD + BONE at the House of Taonga showroom in Auckland in 2009. In a curatorial capacity, Tavola has delivered numerous exhibitions at Fresh Gallery Otara, in addition to collaborative projects and exhibitions for ARTSPACE, Auckland Art Gallery, Mangere Arts Centre, Papakura Art Gallery and Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts.

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#2girls1conference Art Auction: Tanu Gago

Tanu Gago

Title: Peter + William
Date: 2012
Edition: Artist Proof
Series: Avanoa O Tama
Medium: Photographic Print on Archival Crystal Matte
Dimensions: 841x594mm

Artist Statement

As a Pacific Gay Male I have struggled over time to identify a clear distinction of Pacific masculinity I feel comfortable relating to. Searching for a cohesive sense of self and a recognizable sense of presence within the world we occupy, has lead me to this point in my artistic journey.

The Avanoa O Tama series presents a visual narrative that observes, critiques and articulates Pacific male identity in all its forms and with all its complexity, looking at the performance of our own unique perception of what it means to be a Pacific Male in the 21st century.

Bio

Born in Samoa and raised in Manukau City, Tanu Gago belongs to a large family with a diverse cultural background. Gago draws on his unique perspective and life in South Auckland to make art that directly engages with urban social issues including the fluid nature of ethnic and gender identities. Gago held his first solo exhibition, YOU LOVE MY FRESH at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts in 2010 and later developed his first photographic series, Jerry the Fa’afafine (In The Manner of a Samoan Man) for Mana Takatāpui: Taera Tāne curated by Reuben Friend for City Gallery Wellington in 2011. His follow-up series, Avanoa O Tama was developed for a solo exhibition at Fresh Gallery Otara in South Auckland and went on to be shown as part of Home AKL at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in 2012. Gago’s work features in private and public collections including Auckland Council, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and University of Auckland. He holds a Bachelor of Performing Arts majoring in Directing for Film & Television from Unitec.

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#2girls1conference Art Auction: Rebecca Ann Hobbs

Rebecca Ann Hobbs

Title: Otara at Night
Date: 2011
Edition: 2/10
Series: From a series of video works shot in South Auckland spaces, influenced by dance.
Medium: Lightjet Print
Dimensions: 330x250mm

Artist Statement

Occupying the Fairmall stage, in Otara, late at night. Otara at Night is part of a series of video works shot in South Auckland spaces, influenced by dance. Dancehall refers to a genre of music that originates from Jamaica, but it is also a term that indicates an entire culture in which music, dance, fashion and community collide. For example the more flamboyant and dexterous a dancehall queen’s performance the more she is able to represent her hood at a “Sound Clash”[1] event. Social and political change is the platform from which dancehall culture evolved; a change in politics from Manley’s PNP to Seaga’s JLP created shifts in the local economic structure of Jamaica. This movement allowed people to start advancing out of the confines of their previously prescribed socioeconomic status. Again the aforementioned dancehall queen can maintain her own beauty business during the week and perform at the “Sound Clash” on the weekend, dressed in the full dancehall regalia that her small business finances. In this moving image work we watch a South Auckland queen take Otara as her stage to perform her nocturnal dance. This video work is intended as a celebration of dancehall and the reinterpretation of culture through site.

Video by: Rebecca Ann Hobbs
Dancer: Amelia Lynch
With Help From: Tanu Gago, Leilani Kake, Graeme Marshall and Ema Tavola.

[1] Sound clash – a musical competition where crew members from opposing dancehall sound systems pit their skills against each other.

Bio

Australian born Rebecca Ann Hobbs is a contemporary fine art practitioner and currently academic staff at the Manukau Institute of Technology in Otara, Auckland. Working with new media to create video and still images that address issues around class, gender and race. Hobbs has been selected to participate in many international exhibitions at notable institutes such as; the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen in Germany, the Centre Pompidou in France and the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia. In 2002 Hobbs received the Australian Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, allowing her to undertake tertiary education at the California Institute of the Arts, where she completed a Masters in Fine Arts in 2005.

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#GROUNDED Festival of Sustainable Arts, #Otara

on July 2, 2013

Leilani Kake and I had a stall at the GROUNDED Festival of Sustainable Arts pop-up market last weekend, hosted by Manukau Institute of Technology’s Faculty of Creative Arts in Otara, South Auckland.

The #2girls1conference fundraising campaign t-shirt is designed by senior student, Tepora Malo, currently studying to complete a Bachelor of Creative Arts. Tepora undertook an internship with Leilani and I on the #2girls1conference campaign, overseeing the process of crowdfunding, social media marketing and leading the design and hand-printing of the limited edition t-shirt.

Tepora’s design employed a complex printing process that presented a fairly massive learning curve for all involved! The outcome is gorgeous and represents multiple hours of trial and error, laughs, sweat and tears!

We produced a limited range of 70 t-shirts and 20 canvas tote bags – both are selling fast; sales enquiries can be directed to Ema using the Contact page here.

The PIMPI fans are seasonally misguided, but on sale for NZ$60.

Images courtesy of MIT Faculty of Creative Arts.

#2girls1conference Limited Edition Art T-shirts, proudly made in #SouthAuckland!

Leilani Kake and my fundraising efforts to get to the Pacific Arts Association International Symposium in August are gaining real momentum!

A 25-day campaign on the New Zealand crowdfunding website, PledgeMe was an enormous success – we were overwhelmed with the support from our communities and networks on and offline. This initial fundraising effort attracted over $4000 of support which covers the bulk of our return airfares to Canada! A HUGE Thank You to everyone who pledged, shared, liked and retweeted to support our cause.

Part of our fundraising effort has been the design and production of a limited edition art t-shirt which we were able to hand-print using the excellent facilities at Manukau Institute of Technology. Tepora Malo, a third year student studying at the Faculty of Creative Arts worked as our intern on the project – we all learned a lot about the four color printing process and talked for long hours about art making and money making. Otara artist, activist and recent graduate, Amiria Puia-Taylor was our first choice to model the t-shirt for us. Her position on community awareness and artistic empowerment is particularly refreshing and she definitely represents the concept of REAL TALK! We also benefited from the very promising expertise of first year student, Sean Atavenitia who created our promotional photography. The whole initiative has been a really rewarding, Made in South Auckland experience!

The limited edition #2girls1conference art t-shirt is on sale now for $50!

We also have a limited amount of canvas shoulder bags for $30 and $15 repurposed jumbo tote bags from the slightly imperfect printed t-shirts!

Come find us at the GROUNDED Festival of Sustainable Arts Pop-Up Market from 10am – 5pm on Saturday 29 June, 50 Lovegrove Crescent, Otara, South Auckland, or click here to submit a sales enquiry.

Massive Support for #2girls1conference

on June 8, 2013

We’re blown away with the support for the #2girls1conference campaign currently running on PledgeMe!

Every dollar pledged is helping Leilani Kake and I with travel and participation costs for the 11th International Symposium of the Pacific Arts Association in Vancouver this coming August! We’re less than $500 away from hitting our crowdfunding target with 12 days still to go. We’re hoping the #2girls1conference campaign (including crowdfunding, art t-shirt and auction) will generate a minimum of $6000 in total, so every dollar we make on PledgeMe effectively takes a little bit of pressure off our other fundraising initiatives.

We’ve had a great week generating awareness for what we’re doing; on Tuesday, Adrian Evans‘ piece in the Manukau Courier was published. We were reminiscing about our 2009 lecture tour to California and smiling about how many times we refresh the browser permanently open on PledgeMe!

On Wednesday we joined Yolande Ah Chong, the excellent and thoroughly conscious and informed host of Radio531pi‘s Breakfast with Lande show to discuss art making, Pacific audiences, leadership and crowdfunding. It was an awesome opportunity to really thrash out some of the principles and beliefs we have about why Pacific art and South Auckland are important.

The #2girls1conference T-shirt is getting lovingly hand-printed next week using Manukau Institute of Technology’s excellent print studio facilities at the Faculty of Creative Arts. Tepora Malo, a third year student completing the Bachelor of Creative Arts programme, has been an excellent collaborator and intern on this project. We’re excited to be working under her leadership in the printing process.

And we’re absolutely humbled by the generosity of our artist friends who have committed works for our auction! We have some AMAZING pieces that have been part of recent South Auckland and Pacific Art History! A stunning large scale unframed photograph by Tanu Gago, part of his Avanoa o Tama (2012) series and a beautiful suite of video stills from Rebecca Ann Hobbs’ work, Otara at Night. Painters Margaret Aull and Nigel Borell have also donated works and the invitation to make or donate works for the cause also inspired this beautiful collaboration between Molly Rangiwai McHale and Luisa Tora!

Every dollar raised in the #2girls1conference campaign is making us feel more and more excited and empowered knowing that our papers at the Pacific Arts Association in August are supported with massive love and investment from our networks!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

To keep up to date on #2girls1conference campaign and our journey to the PAA, connect on Twitter, Facebook or subscribe to PimpiKnows.com for email updates!

#2girls1conference REAL TALK!

This is the design Leilani Kake and I have helped to develop with our excellent MIT Faculty of Creative Arts intern, Tepora Malo. Created at the Otara-based arts school, this design will be lovingly hand-printed by a team of volunteers using the Faculty’s commercial screen-printing facilities. Our aim is to produce a range of tote bags and t-shirts to support the #2girls1conference fundraising efforts to get Leilani and I to the 11th International Symposium of the Pacific Arts Association (PAA) in Canada this August.

Tepora is in the final year of her Bachelor of Creative Arts and working on the #2girls1conference fundraising campaign as part of a professional practice paper. We love her floral ‘island print’ mash-ups with leopard, zebra, text and cultural iconography and were keen to collaborate on a customised design for the campaign.

From our hashtags and conversations, stories and scribbles, Tepora came up with a design that we love a lot. Zebras, ‘island print’ and camouflage have been recurring themes in my art practice and Leilani has been planning a work using the idea of disruptive coloration for the past few years. Tepora was drawn to the term, REAL TALK, and that is exactly what we intend to take to the PAA!

Leilani and I will also have a stall at the GROUNDED: Festival of Sustainable Arts pop-up art market on Saturday 29 June at MIT Faculty of Creative Arts, 50 Lovegrove Crescent, Otara, South Auckland from 10am – 5pm. We’ll be selling t-shirts, totes and hand-made bits and pieces

Click here to find updates and info on the GROUNDED: Festival of Sustainable Arts

#2girls1conference and Fresh Gallery Otara

Leilani Kake and I are due to launch our first collaborative fundraising initiative tomorrow. We’re aiming to raise around NZ$6000 to support our travel and participation in the 11th International Symposium of the Pacific Arts Association in Vancouver, Canada in August. Read more here.

Tomorrow, we launch our crowdfunding campaign via PledgeMe

We chose May 26 to mark the actual anniversary of Fresh Gallery Otara, the community arts facility I managed from 2006-2012 within my previous role of Pacific Arts Coordinator for Auckland Council (previously Manukau City Council). Leilani and I have spent the best part of the past decade working tirelessly to support and contribute to the Pacific arts and South Auckland creative sectors; for most of the time Fresh Gallery Otara was the epicenter of those efforts.

I left the role at Council in 2012 after significant organisational changes compromised my principles as well as what I felt was a level of innovation and service that the South Auckland arts community deserved. Since my departure, I’ve observed further changes that have shifted the Gallery away from its founding philosophies. Since 2006, Fresh Gallery Otara’s anniversary was marked with exhibitions and events that honoured the community, local artists and themes pertinent to Otara. This year there are no such celebrations; the Auckland Triennial‘s presence in Otara is a dislocated exhibition, culturally and geographically isolated from an arts programme that has little to no value for Pacific communities in South Auckland.

Further to that, currently the personnel situated at the public interface of the Gallery represent a heartbreaking level of ignorance for the nuances of arts promotion and discourse within the unique socio-cultural environment of Otara and South Auckland.