“Urenui” (2012)

Oceania is my natural habitat… at times, I am overwhelmed with longing.

I think of the ocean often.

I remember the feeling of belonging, of breathing warm air and feeling my feet touching the ground and feeling secure. Grounded.

Suva rain and softened earth
In between heaven and here
My heart… beats… home

I am the Ocean

Not visiting. Not searching.
She is my rhythm and I am her soul.
I see myself in people and smiles. I feel myself in spaces between

[I am a Fijian in silence]

Detail, Fijian ochre

“Matakau” (2012) installation, Totara and acrylic paint

Fiji Museum

The smell of collecting is intoxicating.
Aged
Dusty
Euro-

Noble. Memories. Frozen.
A History of Colonial Encounter.
Objects boxed, cased, pinned. Mana dissected.

In traces of silvery residue, I see slivers of my past.

Imperfect empowered

Excavating identity
Interrogating memory / loss

Eyes and tattooed mouths
Fingers and hands

She crafts inky dreams

Painting in the gaps of our mixed genealogy

Margaret Aull with her work, “Seek Utopia – The Way Home (series), Hawaiki nui: 2/4” (2012)

Anchored by new roots

Diaspora distorts colonisation

Generations [re]moved
Tradition and a new transmission
The economic burden and first world sacrifice

Emo- evolution
Facebook family and a digital constitution
Fiji Online

[Optional]

Concealed Ancestors

In language and behind eyes
I am your anger

In signs and knotted hair
In blood and sweat

You are my limits and my potential

I am filled with your journey
An agent of future souls

This is an experimental piece of writing by Ema Tavola developed for the exhibition catalogue of Concealed Ancestors – A solo exhibition by Margaret Aull