Jeffry Feeger has been announced as the successful recipient of the inaugural Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust and Pacific Cooperation Foundation Artist Residency 2009. The residency provides the artist with return airfares, accommodation and a stipend for the six week duration. The 26 year old Feeger will use his time in New Zealand to meet and interact with the local art community, to establish networks and promote his own art. He will also visit galleries and libraries and use public institutions for research. He has been invited to participate in several Pacific-related events held in Auckland. This residency is organised by the Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust and sponsored by the Pacific Cooperation Foundation. It is open to Pacific artists from outside New Zealand.
Jeffry Feeger and "A New Bougainville". Image courtesy of Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust.
Performance works from Pacific artists will set the Galatos stage alight this Friday 27 February 2009, for the opening night of the Auckland Fringe Festival. ‘Tautai: OFF STAGE at Galatos’ brings together well-known artists including Leafa Janice Wilson, John Ioane, Marlon Rivers, Rob George and Andrea Low alongside talented newcomers for an evening of new and experimental works. “It’s going to be a night of live and mediated performance works – a mix of the high-brow and experimental, with a party atmosphere,” says organiser Christina Jeffery. Presented by the Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust, the event features a range of Pacific artists including Lonnie Hutchinson, Shigeyuki Kihara, Janet Lilo, Sheyne Tuffery, Itiri Ngaro and LindaT. They will be joined by a number of emerging artists including Vaimaila Urale, Junior Taumoepeau, Mose Eteuati, Angela Tiatia and Fristar Viliamu. The event begins at 6 pm at Galatos, 17 Galatos Street, Newton, Auckland.
John Ioane, one of the artists performing at "Tautai: OFF STAGE" at Galatos. Image courtesy of Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust
Up-and-coming Christchurch stylist, designer and producer, Andhy Blake, recently added his Fijian touch to the new Ladi 6 video “Dark Brown” from her album Time is not Much. Working with the hip-hip and soul diva on her debut album was Blake’s first foray into the world of music and entertainment, and comes in the wake of his successful direction and production of “Style Christchurch“, the South Island’s premier fashion event. Blake has since been confirmed as one of the judges for Miss World New Zealand’s Miss Swimsuit and Top Model sections. These are scheduled for March 8th and April 12th 2009, with the finals on 25 April 2009.
Lovers of poetry will celebrate the arrival of another Pacific literary gem when Fast Talking PI hits the bookshop shelves on the 9th of March 2009. Complete with the voice of its author burnt on the audio CD and tucked in its jacket pocket, this collection has a riveting sound to it. Written and performed by Selina Tusitala Marsh, this collection is a significant contribution to the growing corpus of Pacific women’s writing in English. As a literary mirror of the multiple Pacific Island identities in Aotearoa and greater Oceania, the poems reflect the complexities of being PI in our local and global world. The poems resonate with Selina’s life, her family, her communities, her ancestries, and her histories. The collection is published by the University of Auckland Press and will be launched on Wednesday 11 March 2009 at the Fale Pasifika at the University of Auckland. Selina is of Samoan, Tuvaluan and European descent and currently lectures in the Department of English at the University of Auckland.
Christchurch audiences were treated to another enthralling performance by Tusiata Avia, at the launch her new collection of poetry, Bloodclot, one of the highlights of Christchurch’s Iva Pacific Arts Festival. After the resounding success of her first book Wild Dogs Under My Skirt (2004), Tusiata’s second collection will consolidate her status as a veritable “goddess of poetry”. Bloodclot is an allegorical recasting of Tusiata’s life through the Samoan goddess of war Nafanua, as she leaves the underworld to wander the earth in the form of an afakasi girl in Christchurch. Tusiata read from several of Bloodclot’s 50 poems to cap off another success for Pacific Underground, the principal organisers of this year’s Arts Festival. Dedicated to her daughter Sepela, Bloodclot is released today (20 February 09) from Victoria University Press.
The Margin’s Cutting Edge is the stunning solo exhibition of emerging artist Theodore Ah Wong. Using techniques of cutting away paint and canvas to create his paintings Ah Wong is creating a unique style that is pushing at the edges of Pacific art. He has also developed a range of Pacific design products including furniture and other interior pieces which are destined to make in-roads in the New Zealand arts scene. The exhibition runs from 27 February to 22 March 2009 at the Nathan Homestead, 70 Hill Road, Manurewa, Manukau City. His artwork can be purchased from the Okaioceanikart Gallery.
Theodore Ah Wong: "Tali Ta". Oil on Canvas 1230 x 300 mm. Image courtesy of Okaioceanikart.
Inspirational and provocative artists, thinkers, writers, activists, heads of government and communities from around the world and across the Pacific region will come together for the fourth annual MAUForum. The 23 days of conversations, panels, presentations, ceremonies, and performances will feature Samoa’s Head of State, Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese in the Pacific Thought Symposium, and the New Zealand premiere of Lemi Ponifasio’s Tempest: Without a Body at the ASB Theatre, on the opening night of this year’s Auckland Festival. Other participants in the forum include Dean Roberts, The Laughing Samoans, Rhombus, Alexa Wilson, Dianna Fuemana, Kila Kokonut Krew, Fatu Feu’u, Filipe Tohi, John Ioane, Delicia Sampero, Pacific Mamas, Burnett-Rose, Global Children Project, HANDS UP!, Ishinha and Sing Sing. The Forum is hosted by Lemi Ponifasio and MAU from Feb 27 to March 21, 2009 at the Corban Estate, 426 Great North Rd, Henderson, Waitakere City, Auckland.
“Pacific Pattern” is a series of photographs by New Zealand photographer Glen Jowitt that document new developments in Pacific pattern making. The exhibition highlights the role that pattern, fabric and fibre play in the body adornment, costume, ceremonial rituals and architecture of the Pacific. The photographs also tell the story of how ideas, people and things flow and how connections are made. The exhibition celebrates the role that Pacific crafts people, especially women, play in transmitting cultural traditions in our changing world. Jowitt has spent over twenty years recording the craftwork of Pacific people. The exhibition is hosted by the Canterbury Museum and continues until 29 March 2009.
"Pacific Pattern" by Glenn Jowitt. Image courtesy of Canterbury Museum.
An exhibition of Tongan women’s art will be on show at the Fresh Gallery Otara from 20 February to 14 March 2009. Curated by Charmaine ‘Ilaiu and Nina Tonga, “Koloa et. al. Your Art is my Treasure” is a collection of textile art forms from the Mo’ui aonga Tongan women’s collective from Otahuhu. Reflecting the dynamic process by which older women transmit their skills to the younger generation, the exhibition features new materials and techniques in the creation of ngatu (bark cloth), fala (woven mats), and monomono (quilt-making). In preparation for the exhibition, the curators have transformed the gallery space in the customary manner of Tongan teuteu, or preparatory adornment. A curators’ floor talk and koloa demonstration will be held on Saturday, 7 March at 12 noon. The exhibition is part of the 2009 Celebrate Pasifika Festival.
Tongan Koloa Art. Image Courtesy of Fresh Gallery Otara
“Off Stage”, “Pollywood”, “The Minister’s Son”, and the world Premiere of “The Auckalofa Monologues” will feature prominently at Auckland’s first ever Fringe Festival. “Off Stage” is a free event organised by the Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust on Friday 27 February to showcase some of Auckland’s most creative and talented Pacific artists. Short experimental films and documentary screenings (2-7 pm) will be followed by live performances, readings, presentations (7-10 pm), and live music to round off the night. On Monday 16 March, “Pollywood” will screen Pacific films and celebrate Pacific people working in the industry. In “The Minister’s Son” (7 pm, 17 March), James Nokise takes an honest and unflinching look at his father’s personal journey from his violent history with his mother to be the man he is today. The Auckalofa Monologues (9 pm, 22 March) is a gritty series of characters and stories of Polynesian youth from Auckland. A bold tale of lust, dreams and Bebo, it is told through multimedia, movement and song. All shows will be performed at Galatos, in Newton. For more information contact Hilary Ord, MIC Toi Rerehiko, Level 1, 321 Karangahape Road, Newton, Auckland ( (09) 379-9922 ) or visit www.mic.org.nz.
