Ema Tavola | PIMPI KNOWS

The head, the hair and the selfie, #PIMPIWinterSeries

Fresh cuts, Sione Monu

In the first of three two-week exhibitions that make up the inaugural PIMPI Winter Series, U Can’t Touch This is a site-specific group show that acknowledges the head, the hair and the selfie. In many parts of Oceania, the head is the most sacred part of the body, and in the words of Stanley Kirk Burrell, U Can’t Touch This!

Situated in and around the barber shop floor, four Pacific artists have created new work about the head (literally), and the most important and sacred parts of life. Alongside Mt Eden local, Samoan new media artist Siliga David Setoga, this show features the work of three first-time exhibitors, Talafungani Finau, Sione Monu and Daisy Tavilione. Each artist responds to the exhibition’s themes and context with custom pieces ranging from adornment to illustration, photography and print.

Canberra-based Tongan visual artist Sione Monu has established a keen following for his photography, painting and illustration work on Instagram. Beyond the indulgence of selfie-representation, he explores the potential of digital self-portraiture using apps, props, environments and people in his life, offering gentle insights into Tongan experience in Australia’s capital city. Monu’s whimsical illustrations are part fashion, part colonial sketchbook, suggestive of the loaded spaces between self and other, what is seen and who is looking.

West Papua and the work of Auckland-based collective, Oceania Interrupted, has informed and inspired South Auckland-based Tongan maker Talafungani Finau. Her custom-made garland is an ode to the past and future of the embattled Melanesian territory currently occupied by Indonesia. Commonly used to celebrate achievement and meaningful moments, the work acknowledges the surge of awareness and support amongst the Pacific community for the plight of West Papua and the ongoing fight for independence.

Daisy Tavilione‘s playfully reworked family portraits capture the influence of African American popular culture, hair and style on urban Polynesian experience in Aotearoa. Her series of fluro hand-pulled screen prints is based on illustrations of her family’s abundant photographic portrait collection; studio-based, classically posed and controlled reminders of familial bonds and pictorial genealogy. In the adding and subtracting of features and patterns, Tavilione’s new portraits speak to a wider blended experience of Poly-global history and fiction.

In Siliga David Setoga‘s new work he addresses the cultural expectations and binaries of long versus short hair. His noted performance practice is reflected in two new photographic and print works that focus on the process and stages of having his own hair cut. With a background in the T-shirt trade, Setoga has a keen interest in accessing new audiences with his trademark visual style and pointed cultural commentary.

U Can’t Touch This is the first exhibition in the inaugural PIMPI Winter Series. Over eight weeks, three site specific exhibitions open back-to-back showcasing the work of 12 visual artists of Asian-Pacific heritage at Big Willie Legacy Barber & Tattoo Studio. The initiative is a collaboration between Ema Tavola (Curator) and Stan Lolohea (Owner-Operator) to celebrate new ways to consider Pacific art, ideas and experience in Aotearoa New Zealand. As a collaboration between two Pacific business entities, the PIMPI Winter Series also aims to enable Pacific artists to show and sell new work to support their professional development and audience exposure.

U Can’t Touch This
16 July – 1 August
Private View 6-8pm, Thursday 16 July
Featuring Talafungani Finau, Sione Monu, Siliga David Setoga, Daisy Tavilione

Big Willie Legacy Barber & Tattoo Studio is located at 159 Mt Eden Road, Mt Eden, Auckland.
Open Mondays from 9am-6pm, Tuesday-Saturday from 9am-7pm.
Appointments and enquiries: (09) 630 4380 / bigwillie.barber.tattoo.studio@gmail.com

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#FlashbackFriday Art Takeaway and a decade of arts advocacy in #SouthAuckland

I made an experimental art publication called Art Takeaway 10 years ago

It was the first project I produced in Otara, for Otara, in a way my first ‘exhibition’, definitely the first time I secured funding, and the first time I publicly declared my slightly bumbling position and thinking about art, audiences and site specificity. It was black and white and featured photography and page works by 10 artists. I launched it at the Otara Market on July 9, 2005, which attracted the attention of TVNZ’s Tagata Pasifika, who did a slightly bizarre story on the project, thankfully before the days of YouTube.

After participating in Papakura Art Gallery’s Ako Art Bus Tour this week, an initiative supported with funds from Papakura Local Board for the Auckland region-wide Matariki Festival, I got to thinking about the values of community arts and participation, empowering audiences and the different ways engagement is measured. I’m writing about these themes for an upcoming essay that’ll be published during the Whau Arts Festival, an excellent site-specific community-driven programme supported by the Whau Local Board.

I found my only copy of Art Takeaway the other day. The first page features this imagined conversation between time and space…

#PIMPIWinterSeries: 3 shows, 8 weeks, 12 artists, all works for sale!

Big Willie Legacy Barber & Tattoo Studio, 159 Mt Eden Rd, Auckland City

I’ve been dreaming about establishing another gallery in South Auckland. I love curating, I love selling art and I love collaborating with artists to make good shows that contribute to broadening awareness and understanding of Pacific ways of seeing and being in Auckland, New Zealand.

Whilst I’m hopeful my one-day gallery is in the near future, in the meantime I’ve collaborated with Tongan tattoo artist, Stan Lolohea to develop the PIMPI Winter Series: a series of three pop-up exhibitions at his Mt Eden barber and tattoo studio. We’re working with 12 artists over eight weeks facilitating the presentation of around 25 individual pieces of work, most of which has never been exhibited before, and all work is for sale!

These artists excite me! From Canberra-based Sione Monu, the Brown-Instagram-famous selfie savant, Faafeu Kapeneta, photographing the small but visible Tongan community in rural Marlborough, to visual arts students Qingze Nan, Daisy Tavilione and Pati Solomona Tyrell, each making experimental, bold work at MIT Faculty of Creative Arts in the heart of Otara, South Auckland.

Caution Road Werq (2015) by Pati Solomona Tyrell

I feel super privileged that for some of these artists, this is their first exhibition. Some are Pacific art regulars, whilst others have been fairly quiet on the exhibition scene. The PIMPI Winter Series has been a call to action, inspiring new work and a different context for engaging with Pacific art and ideas.

U Can’t Touch This (16 July – 1 August) features Talafungani Finau, Sione Monu, Siliga David Setoga and Daisy Tavilione. In the first of the series, this site specific exhibition acknowledges the head, the hair and the selfie. In Fiji, like many parts of Oceania, the head is the most sacred part of the body; in the words of Stanley Kirk Burrell, U Can’t Touch This. Situated in and around the barber shop floor, four Pacific artists have created new work about the head (literally), and the most important and sacred parts of life. In references to family portraiture and the celebratory lei (garland), there are acknowledgements of nature and culture, life and death, loved ones and idols.

That’s not Pacific Art (6 – 22 August) features Faafeu Kapeneta, ‘Ana Lakusa, Qingze Nan and Genevieve Pini. Inspired by conversations around definitions, problematic terminology, authorship and belonging, this exhibition confronts popular expectations of what Pacific art is / should be. Some work deviates from direct references to identity and community, people and places, others present perplexing juxtapositions of tradition, human and geographical landscapes.

Know what I mean, jellybean? (27 August – 12 September) features Leilani Kake, Niutuiatua Lemalu, Waiora Palalagi and Pati Solomona Tyrell. In reference to a line from the movie Blood In, Blood Out, this exhibition touches on the idea of cultural chameleonism, and the everyday negotiation of difference across and between cultural and social environments, vernacular and humour, ways of being and seeing.

Meet the artists at the PIMPI Winter Series Private Views, pick up a copy of Stan Lolohea’s essay and get in quick – artwork is priced to sell!

Big Willie Legacy Barber & Tattoo Studio is located at 159 Mt Eden Road, Mt Eden, Auckland. It’s open Mondays from 9am-6pm, Tuesday-Saturday from 9am-7pm.

Appointments and enquiries: (09) 630 4380 / bigwillie.barber.tattoo.studio@gmail.com

On being Between Wind and Water in the Capital

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

#BetweenWindandWater publication… coming soon!

on March 10, 2015

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]

BWAW Futures Forum, Saturday 24 January

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

Wellington’s Positively Pasifika Festival is two weeks away!

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

Crowdfunding for #BetweenWindandWater

on December 21, 2014

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!

Pacific vs Art: A Discussion on Curating #PacificArt for #BetweenWindAndWater

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

#BetweenWindandWater in Wellington this Summer!

on December 8, 2014

I’m excited to be producing my first arts project in Wellington next year! Entitled Between Wind and Water, the project includes an exhibition of new work by Tanu Gago, Leilani Kake and Luisa Tora, and a series of six events at Enjoy Public Art Gallery, where we’ll be collectively undertaking a two week residency from 10-24 January 2015.

Between Wind and Water is timed to coincide with the annual Positively Pasifika Festival in an effort to leverage off Wellington City Council’s civic celebration of Pacific cultures and communities. The project aims to attract and engage new Pacific audiences and symbolically centralise Pacific perspectives on contemporary art, interpretation and value.

An exhibition of new works by three South Auckland based artists provides the context for a series of talks, gatherings and activities offering audiences opportunities to discuss the artworks, themes, and wider context of making [and curating] art of and about Pacific experience in Aotearoa New Zealand.

New media artist Tanu Gago has attracted significant attention for his staged photographs that reframe masculinity, sexual identity and cultural privilege. His video works are digital landscapes of new Polynesian pop culture, ‘ghetto narratives’ from 21^st century South Auckland. Leilani Kake’s powerful video installations document family, ritual, cultural transmission and taboo. In a new and exploratory work, MALE – Māori or Polynesian, she begins to unpack stereotypes of criminality and the dichotomies of criminal/victim, brother/other. In Luisa Tora’s multidisciplinary practice, she employs visual codes and cultural references to interrogate historical and embedded power dynamics, value and values. Her installation, Naqalotu: Na qalo tu is informed by the origin story from her village in Kadavu (Fiji), symbolic relationships between people, histories, land and sea.

When one is between wind and water, they are said to be in a precarious or vulnerable position. Twenty years after Jim Vivieaere’s seminal show, Bottled Ocean, this exhibition project aims to stir the murky waters of contemporary Pacific art politics broaching issues of labels, positioning and expectations, diversity quotas, criticism and growth for Pacific art and artists in a post-identity era.

Public Programme Events

Pacific vs Art: A Discussion on Curating Pacific Art
Join writer-curators Ioana Gordon-Smith, Daniel Michal Satele and Between Wind and Water curator, Ema Tavola, in a spirited discussion facilitated by Sean Mallon, on Pacific art and the politics of engagement.
Time: 5.30pm
Date: Wednesday 14 January

Artist Talk: Leilani Kake
Exhibiting artist, Leilani Kake discusses the themes and inspiration for her new work, MALE – Māori or Polynesian, within the wider context of her video installation practice.
Time: 5.30pm
Date: Thursday 15 January

Oceania Interrupted: Empowering Collective Action – Meet & Greet
Meet members of Auckland-based collective, Oceania Interrupted, visiting Wellington to undertake the 8^th of 15 Actions to raise awareness for West Papua.
Time: 5.30pm
Date: Friday 16 January

Naqalotu: Na qalo tu – A panel discussion on new work by Luisa Tora
Exhibiting artist, Luisa Tora will discuss her new work and themes along with guest speakers, Kaliopate Tavola (Kaidravuni.wordpress.com) on Fijian identity and totemic relationships, and Milena Palka (Marine Species Advocate, WWF) on shark populations and protection in the Pacific.
Time: 5.30pm
Date: Wednesday 21 January

Artist Talk: Tanu Gago
Exhibiting artist, Tanu Gago discuss the themes and inspiration for his new exploratory video work, The Sound of the Ocean.
Time: 5.30pm
Date: Thursday 22 January

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 and more!
Time: 2pm
Date: Saturday 24 January
* This is the last event in the Between Wind and Water Summer Residency; closing drinks will follow this event.

Get involved

Draw a Suspect!
Based on Leilani Kake’s new work, MALE – Māori or Polynesian, visitors are invited to create a hand-drawn suspect drawing from some interesting and familiar faces!
Between Wind and Water Publication
Content for an exhibition publication will be generated throughout the residency; observations, photos, drawings and commentary from visitors will feature alongside extracts from dialogue events and extended artist statements. Meet and chat with the artists in the Gallery on most days between 10-24 January.

Dates

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.

Venue

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