Fabrics have a long tradition of informing the matriarchal descent lines across cultures. Last year, artist Paula Schaafhausen purchased a sewing machine so that she could create garments from the many precious fabrics stored in her family dowry box. She says that she has been teaching herself to sew in the last year and in the process, she has become inspired to create art works that record the time between the memories contained within the box, and the new memories they will create when they become garments in their own right. Schaafhausen says ‘the art works have become my investigations into the purpose of thread, and how thread metaphorically connects me to the past and the future’. Material Culture is sponsored by the Fresh Gallery Otara and runs until 2 October 2010. The artist will talk about her work at 12 noon on Saturday 25 September. (Image: ‘Flora MacDonald’, 2010. Courtesy of Fresh Gallery Otara)
On the cusp of a new decade, a group of senior-level art students demonstrate what it means to create art in an environment no longer bound by rigid geographical notions of place. A large-scale multimedia exhibition opening at St Paul Street Gallery in on 9 September and running until the 24th, Make/Shift will present the viewer with the exciting array of art that is being produced by Auckland’s Pacific innovators throughout the city’s five tertiary institutions. Curator Nina Tonga says that owing to globalisation, the Pacific identity has become increasingly interconnected across traditional geographical boundaries, and these artists’ work provides an insight into art-making practices in a ‘post-colonial, post-migration, post-facebook world’. The line-up features Luke Willis Thompson, Mele ’Uhamaka, Ane Tonga, Tony Tia, Caroline Cotter, Victoria Patea, Vaimoana Eves, Selina Woulfe, Chloe Marsters and Nastashia Simeona. Make/shift is organised by the Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust and opens at 5.30pm on 9 September with a special guest performance by Black Grace. Artists and curator will walk and talk about their work at 2pm on 18 September.
Niu Pasifik is an exhibition of contemporary art from New Zealand and the Pacific Rim from the personal collection of curator and educator Giles Peterson. It features multi-media work including graph art, painting, drawing, animation, hip hop music video, sculpture, photography, installation, embroidery textile and street fashion. The exhibition is in its final days and closes this Sunday, 5 September, 2010 at the Mount Marua Gallery in Upper Hutt, Wellington. (Image adapted from the Expressions Arts and Entertainment Centre website)
Viewers have two more days to enjoy “Tongan Style”, an exhibition featuring the Tongan art and practice of embroidery and crocheting. The exhibition has been showing since 16 April at the Fresh Gallery Otara in South Auckland and will end this Saturday 8 May 2010 with an artists’ floor talk. “Tongan Style” is a special tribute to five Tongan-born, New Zealand based women artists and their embroidered and crocheted sheets, pillow cases and dresses. Curator Kolokesa Mahina-Tuai says embroidery and crochet as fine arts play a significant role in Tongan ceremonies – including gift giving, birthdays, weddings and funeral decorations. Other Pacific cultures practice the art of embroidery and crocheting including the Cook Islands and Kiribati but this exhibition features the work and garments of five Tongan women: Lingisiva ‘Aloua, Kolokesa Kulikefu, Noma ‘Ofa-ki-nu’usila Talakia’atu, Manuesina Tonata and Hulita Tupou. (For more information, read an article about the exhibition in the Papakura Courier, 5 May, 2010.)
Detail of embroidered pillowcase made in the 1990s by Kolokesa Kulīkefu. (Image courtesy of the Fresh Gallery Otara.)
Warm Pacific greetings to you. After two months of work to upgrade and improve the new Pacific Starmap website, the project team is pleased to announce that the site is up and running again. We hope that you will enjoy the new look and we look forward to receiving your feedback. We encourage you to visit the site and to make yourself familiar with the new tabs and functions.We apologise for being offline for so long and we look forward to making up for lost time . Vinaka vakalevu.
This year’s Ten Pacific Festival introduces a brand new Pecha Kucha ™ night featuring significant Pasifika artists who originate from Christchurch. Among the confirmed participants are Anton Carter also known as Antsman of Rhombus and The Nomad, Pacific art historian Stephanie Oberg, writer and poet Tusiata Avia, actor and filmmaker Barbara Carpenter, and playwright Victor Rodger. The event will be held at the Dux de Lux on Thursday 4 February from 7.00pm. The Pecha Kucha is immediately followed by a Mark Vanilau concert at the same venue. Mark has a long history with the festival which started with Tribalincs, a five piece soul jazz fusion group. In 2006 when Mark embarked on a solo career, he toured as Dave Dobbyn’s keyboardist, vocalist, and still tours with him today. Mark will also join Anton Carter on Friday 4 February at 6pm for a Songmakers and Creative NZ workshop, before local reggae band D’sendantz and jazz artists K.T.O take to the stage from 8.30pm until late. The Ten Festival is organised by Christchurch’s Pacific Underground.
Maori and Pacific Island students who fancy a creative career can have funding support for their education with Champions for Success, the Media Design School’s scholarship programme. Five scholarships will give students $1000 towards their fees in a diploma of digital creativity and the use of an iMac at home for the year. The diploma of digital creativity is a one-year foundation course suitable for school leavers, teaching them graphic design, web design, digital video and 3D animation to provide the skills for higher level diplomas. Applications close on Thursday 28 January 2010 and are available for digital creativity intakes on February 1 and March 15. Interested individuals should contact the Median Design School on (09) 303 0402 or email inquiries@mediadesign.school.nz.
Creative New Zealand has launched a new Art Access guide with practical advice to improve art venues for accessibility and to take better care of the needs of those with disabilities. The 68-page Arts for All: Opening Doors to Disabled People was launched at Te Papa last Friday (4 December 2009). The guide has been endorsed by Pati Umaga, a leading Pacific musician from the Wellington region and cousin of rugby great Tana Umaga. An accident in May 2005 altered the Hutt musician’s life and confined him to a wheelchair. He is now actively involved in disability rights and continues to play music. Creative New Zealand says there is significant demand within the disabled community for accessible arts and events.
Award winning Samoan photographer Edith Amituanai is bringing her latest installation to Wellington. The show is a collection of photographs she has taken of a Burmese family resettling in New Zealand, presented alongside Film Archive footage which documents the immigrant experience in this country. The exhibition shows at the Film Archive’s Mediagallery, corner of Ghuznee St and Taranaki St, from 10 September to 10 October 2009. Art lovers and members of the public are warmly welcomed to attend the opening of “La Fine del Mondo” on Wednesday 9 September at 5.30 pm at the Film Archives.
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.
