Posts tagged ‘Ema Tavola’

#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.

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!

"Real Talk" by Tepora Malo

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

#2girls1conference @PledgeMe campaign is *LIVE*!

Leilani Kake and I are raising funds to travel and participate in the 11th International Symposium of the Pacific Arts Association in Vancouver, Canada in August.

Our PledgeMe campaign is now LIVE and open until Thursday 20 June.

We have to raise our target of NZ$2500 in order for our campaign to be successful, so every dollar counts!

We have a range of rewards for donations of $20, $50 and $250:

  • $20 Donation // A SOUTH publication and Thank You card (40 available)

    Receive a copy of SOUTH publication (Issue 2), a 48-page full-colour publication about South Auckland arts and culture co-edited by Ema Tavola. This issue features a profile on Leilani Kake as well as writing from Fear Brampton, Reuben Friend, Kolokesa Mahina-Tuai, Ngahiraka Mason and Anna-Marie White. ALSO receive a hand-made thank you card from Ema and Leilani.

  • $50 Donation // A 2 GIRLS 1 CONFERENCE T-shirt (40 available)

    Our limited edition fundraising t-shirt has been created in collaboration with Mangere-based emerging artist, Tepora Malo! It’s a bold statement t-shirt that supports the cause AND an exciting young artist who is definitely one to watch!

  • $250 Donation // A customised guest lecture or workshop on Pacific Arts and Audiences (4 available)

    Ema Tavola and Leilani Kake will deliver a guest lecture, presentation or workshop on Pacific art and artists and community engagement in South Auckland. Talks can be tailored for audiences ranging from intermediate age children, secondary or tertiary students to professionals or community groups. Talks can be delivered within the Auckland region.

CLICK HERE TO PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT!!

#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.

Whilst Leilani and I are now both embedded in other pursuits within the education sectors, we remember and acknowledge Fresh Gallery Otara’s role, mana and history, particularly at this time.

The Golden Era!
Chocolate Mudcake birthday cake (2011)
Opening Fresh with Leisa Siteine (2006)
Fresh at ARTSPACE (2009)
The last Pacific Arts Summit (2012)
Janet Lilo’s “Top 16” at Fresh (2007)

#2girls1conference COMING SOON!

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2 GIRLS 1 CONFERENCE is the name a fundraising campaign to support Leilani Kake and I to travel to Vancouver, Canada to present papers at the Pacific Arts Association (PAA) 11th International Symposium.

The theme of the event is, Pacific Intersections and cross currents: uncharted histories and future trends. The PAA regards their gatherings as opportunities for contemporary artists, cultural leaders, historians, museum and gallery curators, researchers, and collectors to engage in lively and creative dialogue in the spirit of true enquiry.

We have presented before with the PAA, and in 2010 travelled to Rarotonga, Cook Islands to participate in the 10th International Symposium. This year Leilani has proposed to discuss her video installation practice in the context of recent research into intercultural identities. I’ve been invited to contribute to a panel entitled, “Curating Pacific Spaces: The New School of Contemporary Pacific Art from New Zealand”.

Presenting at the Pacific Island Media Association Conference (2009)
Pacific Studies Research Group, Center for Race and Gender, UC Berkeley

Having collaborated on international travel, lecture tours, exhibitions and events since 2004, we have built our *award-winning* art practices on strong networking, bold advocacy, a genuine sense of service to our communities and lots of love, sweat and tears! In the past we have attracted support from a wide range of organisations for our collaborative endeavours, but this year we have both returned to full-time tertiary study and arts-related funding for various reasons has been out of reach.

Therefore, we’re fundraising with all our energies to get to Canada and proudly represent our communities. Funds raised will support airfares and accommodation. We have three fundraising initiatives:

  • A campaign on New Zealand’s premier crowdfunding platform, PledgeMe
  • A pretty amazing art auction featuring work by some excellent artists who all lovingly support our cause
  • A limited edition art t-shirt created in collaboration with Tepora Malo, a promising young artist studying to complete a Bachelor of Creative Arts at Manukau Institute of Technology’s Faculty of Creative Arts in Otara, South Auckland

2 GIRLS 1 CONFERENCE is our all or nothing effort to get Pacific art and South Auckland on the PAA radar.

The campaign goes live on Sunday 26 May – a heartfelt acknowledgment of Fresh Gallery Otara’s 7th anniversary, a timeframe that had been historically marked with poignant locally inspired exhibitions, hearty celebration and the opening of the annual Pacific Arts Summit (between 2010-2012)… until this year. Leilani and I want to recognise the humble beginnings of this important South Auckland arts hub with a reminder of the original kaupapa – to generate awareness and engagement with South Auckland’s unique cultural landscape.

On Sunday 26 May, our PledgeMe campaign goes *live* and our efforts to hustle and share to the best of our abilities will go into overdrive!

Whilst we are two individuals travelling to one conference, we represent a community of hard-working artists and the massive interconnected network of Pacific people who sustain and inform them. Our participation is about representing our collectives, making South Auckland visible and engaging new audiences with our vibrant and unique arts and culture.

#ConcealedAncestors until 23 February

on February 20, 2013

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Fijian-Mãori artist Margaret Aull’s solo exhibition, Concealed Ancestors ends this Saturday 23 February at Papakura Art Gallery, South Auckland. A massively well-received exhibition, only three of the nine works on paper are unsold.

During the exhibition, Margaret presented an excellent artist talk on Saturday 9 February, and also managed to present some impressive new work in her end of year assessment exhibition at Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design where she is currently studying to complete a Master of Fine Arts.


Well done, Margaret!

It was a pleasure to work on this project alongside co-curator Nigel Borell. Margaret is a super organised and professional artist; helping her deliver this beautiful solo show was a joy!

#Twerk #SouthAuckland #ExpressYourself

Artist Ema

This is an ongoing project inspired by the #ExpressYourself social media campaign promoted by American DJ and producer, Diplo.

  • How Diplo’s #ExpressYourself campaign took on a life of it’s own… Read more here

In an effort to create a contribution to the campaign’s ongoing afterlife, I collaborated with artist Leilani Kake to photograph each other upside-down-twerking at various South Auckland locations. The perceived sexualisation and physicality of our bodies viewed from this angle has inspired feedback that reflects a broad range of attitudes from shock and shame to empowered support.

I have long been interested in the politics of fat, of brown skin and the male gaze. I’m interested that this series of photographs confronts and disgusts some people and empowers others.

Whilst making these photographs, Leilani and I have discussed body confidence, spatial politics and South Auckland… the ‘colonised butt’. As an experimental project existing as part performance / part virtual, it has been refreshing and engaging. The #ExpressYourself campaign is an engagement strategy I’m interested to reflect and weave into future projects.

#SOUTH Issue 2 on @RNZNights

on February 3, 2013

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I love being the South Auckland / Pacific Arts cultural ambassador for Nights on Radio New Zealand. In January, we discussed SOUTH – a publication I have co-edited with Nigel Borell. Issue 2 of SOUTH was launched on 12 January at Papakura Art Gallery and is available for free at art centres and libraries throughout South Auckland. We’re really proud of Issue 2 and excited to start entertaining new stakeholder relationships for Issue 3.

Listen to the full interview here:

Find SOUTH on Facebook here and read more about the cover image here

 

#ConcealedAncestors video

on February 3, 2013

This video briefly documents the journey of Fijian-Maori visual artist Margaret Aull from her Te Awamutu studio in the Waikato to her solo exhibition at Papakura Art Gallery in South Auckland. I co-curated Margaret’s solo exhibition, Concealed Ancestors with Nigel Borell; the exhibition features sculpture and works on paper and runs until 23 February 2013. Read more here.

This video was shot and edited by Leilani Kake and produced as an archival record with support from the Pacific Arts Committee, Creative New Zealand and Toi o Manukau.