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Artwork for Sale, Community

A winter update; making, community + rangahau

It rained non-stop in Auckland yesterday, but the winter months have felt generally mild, generally manageable. I’ve been walking at Puke Ariki (Point View) Reserve in recent weeks, a 39 hectare pocket of native bush and grasslands in East Auckland, not far from Vunilagi Vou. The paths have been littered with beautiful pink flowers from Puriri trees. This walk has become my favourite way to decompress and clear the mind.

Earlier this month was the launch of Oceans Between Us: Pacific Peoples & Racism in Aotearoa at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland. The commissioned artwork for the front cover of this book finally left Vunilagi Vou on its one-way journey. Having it at the launch was a special way to see it meet audiences, and especially lovely to have artist peers, Marc Conaco and Leilani Kake come through to celebrate!

It was a privilege to sit on a panel discussion at the book launch with some of the book’s contributors, and especially lovely to see Vunilagi Vou salusalu adorning the authors and speakers. Vinaka vakalevu to Dr Sereana Naepi and team for a very special evening!

At the same time on the other side of the world, critically-acclaimed queer collective FAFSWAG were presenting an impressive body of new work at Manchester International Festival. The approach to embody ceremony as a mode of presenting stories and representations of Indigenous people was gently echoed in the presentation of Vunilagi Vou salusalu to mark the project’s opening. It was such an honour to make a small contribution to FAFSWAG’s impressive and groundbreaking work.

At home in Tāmaki Makaurau, Tongan textile artist and designer Czarina Wilson announced her involvement in next month’s New Zealand Fashion Week, showing with the Kāhui Collective. Czarina’s practice honours her cultural heritage through intentional design and craft processes, using fabric, weaving and cultural insignia as a form of visual storytelling. Part streetwear, part costume and couture, her first New Zealand Fashion Week collection explores legacy through Tongan quilting traditions and bold urban silhouettes.

As in the case with so many creatives trying to realise awesome projects at the moment, Czarina is inviting donations to support her New Zealand Fashion Week collection and campaign. If you’re interested to learn more and make a contribution, read more here.

For creatives on tight budgets, a way to support is through creative skills and services, so it was a lovely to be able to work with my niece Tiana Carling and artist, Pati Solomona Tyrell to make a few beautiful images of Czarina’s work at the FAFSWAG studio this week.

Vunilagi Vou was part of the Filemu Makers Market a few weeks ago too, a sweet initiative of Taualofa Totua and Iosua Ah-Hao, the makers of Filemu Zine. I was super keen to be part of this event because the venue, Ūkaipō Creative Space, is such an inspiring, maternal and fluid space run by mother-daughter duo, Cat Ruka and Lucia Davison. It was lovely to meet the other stallholders and reconnect with old friends, Luisa Lefao-Setoga of the iconic Popohardwear and Vaimaila Urale (of Moana Fresh), who was supporting her two daughters on their own entrepreneurial journey selling hand-made phone charms and phone cases! Such a lovely day!

After a few banner and bunting sales this month, I was inspired to make a few more mini banners now available under ‘Artwork’ in the Vunilagi Vou shop. This one is a textile altar for a matakau, a carved Fijian female ancestor figure featuring tattooed hips, loins and mouth. This particular matakau is from central Viti Levu, and is the “property” of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. As an altar, it’s an offering of reverence for a symbol of Indigenous female worlds; visualising matakau in my practice is a form of spiritual repatriation and remembrance.

This work incorporates silhouettes of the leaves and fruit of the Tavola tree (terminalia catappa), after which my father was named. The African wax print is a textile collected from our family’s time in Belgium. It is used here in the shape of a ‘lapita’ pot.

learn more here

Gratitude for those who have been supporting Vunilagi Vou through sales of the VV:Ono tea towel, hand-made bits and pieces, prints, patches and accessories. It has really helped keep the rent paid and lights on this winter – vinaka vakalevu.

I’m excited to also now be stocking Vunilagi Vou goodies at Moana Fresh in West Auckland! This beautiful boutique is located at 64 Rosebank Road, Avondale, a proudly Indigenous women-owned and operated small business – an excellent spot to shop, support and amplify!

Shifting Vunilagi Vou from an exhibitions gallery to a working creative studio has been a wild ride, fuelled by faith, audacity and the support of folx who subscribe, donate, buy and amplify the work of this small enterprise. It is the most gratifying part of this work to see Vunilagi Vou’s creative output out in the world, in homes and offices, on walls and on bodies, in Aotearoa and beyond. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

August and September is crunch time for my Master of Applied Indigenous Knowledge studies; I’m loving the process so much, but the pressure is ON. I’m trying to balance the need to keep making and driving sales with the importance of this rangahau (research) journey, so wish me luck! I can’t wait to share what I’ve been working on…

vinaka vakalevu

Artwork for Sale

Matariki clear-out // Prices slashed + offers welcome!

In the interest of clearing out the stockroom, offers are welcome on a small range of paintings and prints currently hanging in the Vunilagi Vou stockroom.

Backbone, a 2023 study on loose 14oz canvas is un-stretched + unframed, measuring 1200x1500mm. Read more about it here. Made for my solo exhibition of the same title, more here.

Lanuola Mereia Aniseko (2023) is a mounted and framed acrylic and mixed media painting on un-stretched 14oz canvas measuring 705x895mm. Originally produced for Backbone at Vunilagi Vou (April/May 2023), it was later shown in To Live + Die in South Auckland (2024) at Fresh Gallery Ōtara. This work is open for offers.

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Produced a year after Backbone, this print series was inspired by the first Melanesian Festival held in Aotearoa. An unlimited series, these A3 size prints are made with Epson Ultrachrome K3 archival inks on acid-free 210gsm Epson Enhanced Matte, more here.

The most popular print from this series is Wailoku Matakau, with the central guiding light of a Fijian matakau, a carved female ancestor figure, embedded in my parents’ garden in Suva, Fiji. Learn more about this work here.

Two mounted exhibition prints are also seeking homes, and any offers are welcome on these.

Produced in 2022, these gorgeous block mounted prints are made with Archival inks on Hahnemühle FineArt Metallic 340gsm. They shimmer in the light and are super lightweight measuring 595 x 840mm.

Only shown once in Nigel Borell’s Moonwalkerz 2022 exhibition, these prints are in good condition.

This one-day-painting and mixed media work was made on the day of the Toitū Te Tiriti activation in May 2024. An intuitive and responsive work, part protest banner, part processing, it was a form of creative activism for the introvert. Made with acrylic and glitter paint on calico, canvas tabs, ric-rac trim, pom-pom trim and hi-viz tape, the painting measures 723x600mm and hangs on an EcoPine dowel measuring 850mm in length. The hanging details are 510-520mm. Any and all offers welcome. More info here.

It’s always good to have a clear out to welcome in a new year! Any and all enquiries welcome!

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Artwork for Sale

A symbolic story and a beautiful textile

This lovely new tea towel marks Vunilagi Vou’s 6th anniversary in a symbolic story of totems and transformation, building and breaking, signs, surrender, literature and luck, moonlight and magic. It honours the plants that have survived Vunilagi Vou’s transiency since 2019, the lessons of Covid-19, the gift of a sewing machine, yoga and meditation, and the love of a wild dog. It is a reminder that Vunilagi Vou’s Ōtāhuhu origin story is forever, and wherever Vunilagi Vou goes, it’s Southside til I die!

Buy one today!

It also looks quite lovely in an A2 size frame!

Designed and dyed in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa on 100% cotton, these tea towel textiles measure 50x70cm.

Available at Celebrate Aotearoa, 3/26 Apirana Avenue, Glen Innes, East Auckland and online at VunilagiVou.com/shop

All Vunilagi Vou sales keep the lights on, the rent paid, creative ideas flowing and the dream alive!

vinaka vakalevu

Uncategorised

VV 6th Anniversary: Story writing, future dreaming, textiles and rangahau

Vunilagi Vou opening, 31 May 2019 / Vunilagi Vou 6th anniversary, 31 May 2025

Six years ago today, Vunilagi Vou was launched in Shop 4, 256 Great South Road, Ōtāhuhu, South Auckland. The opening exhibition, WWJD:2, featuring 13 impressive Pacific artists, was the first of 18 exhibitions Vunilagi Vou has proudly produced in six years.

Social media – particularly Instagram – has been the backbone of the community and audience that has supported the work of Vunilagi Vou since 2019. I’ve loved promoting exhibitions and events over the years, amplifying artists and ideas. It has been a challenge to be a one-woman-show AND be the social media content producer and voice, but I’ve always enjoyed storying this adventure. Writing captions for Instagram is this undercover genre of short-form writing that has come to personify the intangible goal, agenda… mission that I’ve quietly been on for the past two decades.

Next year will mark 20 years since launching my first blog platform, Colour Me Fiji. It documented and archived my work as a curator and gallerist for Fresh Gallery Ōtara. After Fresh, I started PIMPIknows, a cheeky acronym for Pacific Island Management, Production + Ideas. It continued the work of Colour Me Fiji and documented more freelance curatorial projects, from pop-up exhibitions and events at barber shops, old libraries and cafes to A Maternal Lens, the exhibition I curated for the 4th International Biennial of Casablanca in 2018. And then, came Vunilagi Vou.

Reflecting on this six year anniversary of Vunilagi Vou, it occurs to me that the mission has always been the same. The ebbs and flows of the pandemic climate that instigated multiple pivots and reconfigurations left this one-woman-show somewhat disoriented. The changeable tides of funding and favour have shifted the nature of the arts landscape, and Vunilagi Vou’s place within it.

A 2023 Theory of Change was developed as an anchor, an effort to ground the philosophy of this work and hopefully, maybe, align it with broader efforts within the sector. But in actuality, it helped articulate why the broader sector was not in alignment with what Vunilagi Vou was, and is, and always has stood for.

In the developments that followed this pivotal Theory of Change realisation, Vunilagi Vou transitioned into a creative studio, closed gallery operations and I enrolled into the Master of Applied Indigenous Knowledge programme at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. Whilst studying and doing consultancy work, making art and storying these changes across social channels (good bye Twitter, hello Bluesky), a different path started to emerge.

The 2024 exhibition project, Solesolevaki, for Tautai Gallery was not only a perfectly timed opportunity for practice-based research that has informed my broader Masters enquiry, but it again demonstrated where my practice, and this mission, sits in relation to the dynamics of the arts industry.

This month, I had the opportunity to travel home to Suva, where the idea for Vunilagi Vou was born, at home in Wailoku at my parents’ house. Returning home to Suva is always soul-affirming. This trip was particularly special though because I got to deliver two talks at Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies, at the University of the South Pacific (USP), where my practice as an artist began.

The Molikilagi Bure at Oceania Centre was such a special venue; a multipurpose open space for teaching, learning and listening, inside a contemporary symbol of Indigenous architecture.

It felt profoundly important to present my practice and thinking as an iTaukei (Indigenous Fijian) artist-curator to USP students, and later to a full bure / full house of friends, family and folk interested in making exhibitions and making art. I was so moved to hear the commentary from the room, from students doing under- and post-graduate degrees in Fijian Studies and Pacific Studies, education and psychology, artists and mothers and teachers; my heart was beyond full. To speak about 25 years of practice in a room with both my parents and my godparents, and people networked through knowing and belonging, in Fiji, in the middle of Oceania, felt like the height of accountability.

I spent the afternoon in deep talanoa with a fellow postgraduate student in the Fijian Studies space, discussing Indigenous feminisms, veiqia (Fijian female tattooing), ceremonies and faith, framing and positionality as Indigenous Fijian women. Feeling part of a community of Indigenous enquiry felt incredibly meaningful. My deepest gratitude to Oceania Centre Director, Dr. Katrina Igglesden, for enabling these opportunities.

I also spent time in Suva at the Pasifika Futures Forum where Reverend Professor Dr. Upolu Vaai, Manu Folau (Vice Chancellor), Pasifika
Communities University (Formerly Pacific Theological College), left me deeply inspired thinking about the weaponisation of linear time. He discussed the need of re-storying the development narrative, remembering that relationships defined by linear time and outcomes are no longer defined by love. Fijian futurist writer Dr. Gina Cole discussed imagination as data, and an antidote to fatalism. Through imagining a Fijian future in her novel, Na Viro, where space is an ocean and the ocean is a galaxy, we can start to imagine what the future might feel like, not as escapism but as a rehearsal. It was so beautifully poetic and profound.

Futures, as a discipline, opened up so much thinking in my mind. And so critical in this expansive thinking is the ways in which imagination, creativity and Indigenous knowledge systems can be harnessed.

So, on this milestone, where Vunilagi Vou today is a vastly different form from Vunilagi Vou in 2019, a future I could never have imagined, I’m optimistic. The ‘arts’ may be where this venture started, but in reality, the mission has always been broader, deeper, more radical. The future I imagine now involves writing and publishing, textiles and making, talanoa and dreaming.

In October, I deliver my exegesis, a critical interpretation and iTaukei (Indigenous Fijian) framing of curatorial practice, and a taonga tuku iho – the reciprocal artefact of my rangahau (research) as contribution to my communities. This is the real milestone, I think. A juncture, a restoration.

Vinaka vakalevu for six years of support for Vunilagi Vou – here’s to new beginnings, radical missions and the vunilagi – the space of pure potentiality, between Aotearoa and Fiji!

Artwork for Sale, Conferences, Exhibitions

Art without industry; shifting contexts for creative work

The first quarter of 2025 has been busy and inspiring. In January, a commissioned artwork for Auckland University Press was finalised and delivered; it will be the cover of an upcoming book full of inspiring writing by Moana Oceania / Pacific scholars and I can’t wait to see this textile form translate to print. Click here to learn more and pre-order!

The artwork, entitled “Na wasawasa e vamatana, na wasawasa e veisemati – Oceans have eyes, Oceans connect us all” (2025) is a textile assemblage featuring a border of 253 triangles, and measures 1185x1260mm.

In January, I also momentarily transformed Vunilagi Vou – the creative studio – back to Vunilagi Vou, the Gallery, in a strange re-imagined backwards forwards step. Having closed gallery operations in 2023, the site of the gallery had been well and truly transformed to a working studio, but the yellow wall remained.

For Auckland-based Fijian writer-director, Tulia Thompson, Vunilagi Vou’s original site in Ōtāhuhu and its iconic yellow wall played a role in the vision for her first short film entitled Latui. It was such a pleasure to work with Tulia and her producer partner Craig Parkes to weave Vunilagi Vou into the making of this important film, bringing a strong degree of authenticity to this re-imagining of Vunilagi Vou. I loved staging a curated exhibition and the paintings of Mel Aluesi were not only a gorgeous pleasure to encounter and handle, but perfectly aligned with the film’s storyline.

Tulia and Craig bought together an impressive cast and crew including Fijian lead actress Nicole Whippy, art director Tapuaki Helu with assistance from Litia Tuiburelevu, and Vunilagi Vou’s excellent community of supporting cast including Mel Aluesi, Rebecca Ann Hobbs, Tanu Gago, Craig Horne, Barbara Morgan, Kolokesa Māhina-Tuai, Akesiumeimoana and Meleseini Tuai.

The film is needing a last push to get it over the finish line so Tulia and Craig are currently crowdfunding to raise funds to finish the film. Donations big and small are welcomed here, and check out more about the project and some beautiful film stills here:

It was a pleasure to work with Mel Aluesi again in their first Life Drawing class presented for Auckland Pride in February. Mel facilitated an excellent session and it was a pleasure to sit as a life model and observe the ways they held space for the act of drawing and responding to the Oceanic form. I would love to work with Mel on more life drawing projects… the seed has been planted!

Two heavy hitter events in February got my heart and mind going on all cylinders. Lagi-Maama Academy & Consultancy hosted a very special gathering at Māngere Arts Centre – Ngā Tohu o Uenuku dedicated to the important work and visionary leadership of Tongan scholar, Professor Hūfanga-He-Ako-Moe-Lotu Dr ‘Okusitino Māhina.

Kātoanga’i ‘o Tā-Vā: Celebrating a living legacy of Tā-Vā Time-Space was a perfect symposium. Professor Maui-TāVā-He-Ako Dr Tēvita O. Ka’ili delivered an excellent keynote on the historical timeline of Tāvāism from its earliest articulation to a consideration of how AI and ChatGPT might be harnessed as a tool for dissemination and explanation of the Tongan philosophy of time-space reality. Through other speakers I was reminded of all the ways Hūfanga has broadened my own thinking about art and harmony, chaos and beauty, symmetry and balance.

In an impressive display of Lagi-Maama’s publication projects since its inception, directors Kolokesa Māhina-Tuai and Toluma’anave Barbara Makuati-Afitu exemplified the power of publishing, to which Hūfanga later noted, “We need to own the knowledge, and the means, and the knowledge and skills to manage both, or suffer and suffocate by the politics of the process.” 

In February, Auckland-based illustrator Marc Conaco and I attended the W.E.R.O conference at the University of Waikato in Kirikiriroa Hamilton. In the absence of our project lead, Dr Sereana Naepi, Marc and I discussed our collaborative project UN/SEEN: Pacific experiences in higher education in the University’s stunning wharenui, Ko Te Tangata.

Three days of talking about racism and anti-racism was simultaneously inspiring and uplifting, triggering, infuriating and heartbreaking. It was lovely to spend time with the incredibly talented and inspiring Marc Conaco, unpacking, thinking and critiquing our positionality as creatives sitting on the periphery of these academic spaces.

The keynotes felt like beacons of light, and Canadian scholar Jeffrey Ansloos was an amazing start. I’m still thinking about hope as a praxis and ways of building and blocking to create the conditions to make change possible. Mohan Dutta’s discussion of ‘voice infrastructure’ gave me new language to think about my creative practice and its politics. I loved thinking about how stories disrupt power, and when centring love and centring joy can be disruptive practices of resistance. Both Marc and I resonated deeply with Chelsea Watego’s invigorating keynote and I appreciated so much the acknowledgment of how racism exists in anti-racist spaces. Deep respect to Papua New Guinean scholar Nathan Rew for demanding freedom for West Papua in this space, over and over again, assertively positioning Melanesia into this discourse on racism and anti-racism being considered here in Aotearoa.

In March, I loved watching the thoroughly impressive large-scale mural of the late Fa’anānā Efeso Collins (1974-2024) being painted in Manukau City by Charles and Janine Williams. It’s still emotional thinking of the loss of Efeso’s giant influence but seeing his face appear in such photorealistic splendour was incredibly moving. I love seeing him every time I drive through Manukau City.

With more misses than hits happening in the arts funding and opportunities space, alternative revenue streams are becoming more life-blood and less alternative. Making textile salusalu (Fijian garlands) is something I’m still enjoying; they are stocked exclusively at Celebrate Aotearoa in Glen Innes, East Auckland and this new page has more information about customisations and group orders – check it out.

For this month’s Global Pacific Solutions conference produced by Le Va, a wellbeing and prevention NGO, I’ve had an opportunity to curate a small digital exhibition inspired by the themes of the Moana Dreaming plenary session. Whilst these works in digital form will only be shown during the plenary session, it was rewarding to assemble such a beautiful body of work. Artist profiles and artwork can be found here.

I’m interested in being at this conference because the arts sector for visual artists feels less and less accommodating, and somehow, more isolating and unsustainable than ever. Undertaking the Master of Applied Indigenous Knowledge programme at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa has really helped ground my creative practice, stripping it back to its principles and values, an ethical compass I’ve probably always struggled to align with the arts sector.

Working on projects like UN/SEEN: Pacific experiences in higher education, I’ve been able to see where creative thinking and practice can add value to projects that sit outside of the traditional scope of the ‘arts’, and further, what creative work looks like in service to the broader socio-economic and socio-political development of Moana Oceania / Pacific people. In the case of the Global Pacific Solutions conference, I’m interested in thinking about where creative work can add value to broader contexts of addiction, suicide, mental health and wellbeing. Gratitude to Marina Alefosio for enabling this opportunity.

In the meantime, I’m making lots of things for the Celebrate Aotearoa May Pop-Up Market on Saturday 3 May – come through for bunting, mini banners, salusalu and more! Celebrate Aotearoa is a Pacific-owned and operated retail space located at 3/260 Apirana Avenue, Glen Innes, East Auckland.

Upcoming projects include a trip home to Suva, Fiji – the first return in six years, more exciting work with Dr Sereana Naepi and Dr Marcia Leenen-Young at the University of Auckland, new content and developments on kaidravuni.com, and a deepening rangahau (research) journey stemming from last year’s Solesolevaki exhibition!

vinaka vakalevu

Exhibitions, Talanoa

2024 and grief

On the first day of the new year, it feels appropriate to reflect. 2024 felt mostly like a blur with some moments of clarity, and joy. Deaths of friends and people known and networked together felt like a terrible rhythm of 2024. Grief wakes up grief; my year was fairly discombobulated.

It was an unexpected path to become friends with Fa’anānā Efeso Collins. Whilst we had crossed paths through Ōtara and local government, it wasn’t until 2022 that I got to know his charismatic leadership, wicked humour and heart for his family, for service and communities here in South Auckland. Committing time, energy and love into his campaign and pathway to Parliament was a journey of learning, and faith. On the day before his maiden speech, my daughter and I made a pilgrimage to the capital, reflecting all the way on this momentous, unbelievable thing: to see a friend reach such an important career high, and take his whole community with him.

Efeso’s tragic and untimely death less than a week later took the wind out of so many people. The pain and grief for his closest family, his beloved wife and daughters, is still simply inconceivable. The loss of him, his drive and strategic brain, his intellect, cultural literacy and oratory prowess, is part of the grief for Efeso, but it was also so tragically the loss of his potential and the contribution he was primed to make for New Zealand politics and society. He was a shining light, a portal.

The grief for Efeso felt like a flood. I caught Covid in the flood, and then a few weeks later, my dear friend Yolande Ah Chong lost her battle with cancer. Being able to say good bye to Yolande in hospice care felt like a gift, but the grief and deep sadness was still overwhelming.

Efeso and Yolande were both amazing supporters of my work; Yolande and I had worked together since 2010 and through every one of Vunilagi Vou’s shapeshifts, she made time to visit, listen, advocate and amplify in whatever way she could. But in the case of both Efeso and Yolande, what they gave me over our friendships was the privilege to know their fierce intellects, and capacities for deep and powerful analysis and cutting critique.

Other untimely deaths in the following months; Sam Morrison in May, Reina Sutton in July – both artists who served with their whole hearts. Our creative communities felt and heaved in love with the weight of their lives and the pain of their deaths; too short, too tragic.

In these waves of sadness, tears and tragedy, two exhibitions were staged in 2024. To Live + Die in South Auckland at Fresh Gallery Ōtara in May-June and Solesolevaki at Tautai Gallery in October-November. One felt like an ending, and the latter like a beginning. Studying towards a Master of Applied Indigenous Knowledge degree has helped me move through my awkward dance with the ‘art world’ and the opportunity to make an exhibition for Tautai enabled me to flex some new thinking. I really loved discussing the show with Pacific Media Network reporter, Atutahi Potaka-Dewes here, and I am deeply grateful for my family, who stepped all the way up to deliver a very special project.

photo by jesse marsters / courtesy of tautai trust

I also had opportunities to travel to Chicago, Melbourne and Toronto in 2024, being a consultant/advisor, an artist-curator facilitator and a discussant for aabaakwad – a deeply inspiring gathering of indigenous artists, writers and curators designed and delivered by Wanda Nanibush. Each adventure had moments of joy; I’m so grateful for the opportunities afforded to me to expand my horizons through talanoa and knowledge co-creation.

Through ongoing and always inspiring work with Dr Sereana Naepi, I’ve been able to contribute to a special project called UN/SEEN with artist and designer, Marc Conaco. The project enabled the opportunity for us to present at the International Indigenous Research Conference in Tāmaki Makaurau in November, and Marc and I are excited to present in February 2025 at WERO: Working to End Racial Oppression International Conference.

Vunilagi Vou has been operational as a creative studio in 2024. To be able to make, experiment, express grief and write, has been vital in a year that was pickled in sadness. Making salusalu (Fijian garlands) has bought me a lot of joy, and relief. Seeing this big order for Tātaki Auckland Unlimited being worn at the Auckland Pacific Economic Insights Series event in October was lovely.

Gratitude also for artist and entrepreneur Czarina Wilson, who has continued to offer Vunilagi Vou the opportunity to pop-up at her space Celebrate Aotearoa in Glen Innes, East Auckland. With now three consecutive declined funding applications from Creative New Zealand in 2023/24, every opportunity to generate revenue is important and highly valued. The last decline was perhaps the roughest one to stomach in my career in the creative arts; artist and writer Natasha Matila-Smith sums up some very familiar emotions about funding rejections here.

So, with an exciting commission currently in the works, and a special opportunity to re-stage Vunilagi Vou circa 2019 for a short film project in January, I’m moving softly into 2025. Grief is ever-present, revealing new depths of being, knowing, loving and longing. A creative life is both an opportunity to soothe the pain of grieving and a heightened state of feeling the accumulative depths of grief and love that fortify our lives.

Rest in Love and Power Efeso, Yolande, Reina and Sam.

Artwork for Sale, Events, Exhibitions, VV First Fridays

A mild wintery update from Vunilagi Vou!

To Live + Die in South Auckland was an exhibition that lived and died at Fresh Gallery Ōtara. It was an eye-opening and sadly, heartbreaking experience, but still a milestone.

  • Check out a full archive of exhibition photography by Sam Harnett here and photos from the opening by Sait Akkirman for Arts Diary here.

Making an exhibition for Fresh Gallery Ōtara felt important, like a full-circle moment taking me back to where my curatorial practice began, and inhabiting the space as an artist. My dear friend Nigel Borell filled in some of the curatorial gaps of producing this show, and is credited as ‘Curator Tautoko’, a term we devised to perhaps describe what it is when two artist-curators muddle around wearing different hats!

With Nigel Borell in front of Southside Calling (2024)

My favourite times during the exhibition involved talanoa and connection with people looking at and beyond the work on the walls. Those who travelled from far and wide to help open the exhibition blew me away; I was overwhelmed with love and support.

I also loved the opportunity to discuss my practice for the Arts Out East 2024 dialogue series, the Art of Conversation curated by Felixe Laing. Artists are invited to nominate a local eatery to hold an artist talk in, and whilst I have some firm favourite spots here in the South-Eastside, most of them have got small spaces with limited seating. So, I nominated Columbus Cafe at the Botany Mitre10 Mega, which has a massive window looking out at Puke-i-Āki-Rangi, a former Pā site on a magnificent hill covered in native bush in what is known as East Tāmaki Heights.

Photo by Stacey Leilua.

The public programme events at Fresh Gallery Ōtara during the exhibition were supported by Ōtara Papatoetoe Local Board. In my artist talk held in May, someone who has been familiar with my practice as a gallerist and curator for many years, commented that it was like I was ‘coming out as a Fijian’, which made me giggle. The comment reminded me how little of myself I bought to the act of working in service to other artists.

Photo by Nigel Borell.

Cultivating my own voice as an artist has been a bold step towards being known, being seen. In the second public programme event, we set up a drop-in collage making space, building page works and revealing stories of ourselves. I loved it so much, especially reconnecting with local artist and activist, Monica Fa’a’lavaau.

The third public programme event was a Fresh Gallery Ōtara witness seminar, an event format I had learned about from visiting Swedish curator, Maria Lind. At Tensta Konsthall, a Stockholm gallery where she was Director, they held witness seminars to understand and archive more about the social histories of the building and environment the gallery inhabited.

I put together a panel of speakers for the Can I get a witness? event we held at Fresh Gallery Ōtara on 7 June, each chosen to help build a story of social impact, innovation and creativity generation from Fresh Gallery Ōtara’s first chapter from 2006-2012. From artists who made shows at the gallery during that time to perspectives from Manukau School of Visual Arts (later MIT Faculty of Creative Arts) from Grant Thompson, and Nicole Lim, the gallery’s longest serving gallery assistant and later gallery coordinator.

(L-R) Tanu Gago, Nigel Borell, Nicole Lim, Vasemaca Tavola, Grant Thompson, Leilani Kake and Czarina Wilson.

It was a gorgeous night of storytelling, reflection and deep acknowledgement of the time and space we had all shared in what felt like Fresh Gallery Ōtara’s golden age. It was also the last official ‘VV First Fridays’ event, which focused on talanoa and opportunities for Moana Pacific artists to connect. Vinaka vakalevu to Creative New Zealand for supporting that event series.

I’ve really enjoyed building an archive of writing and commentary on Patreon and growing a community of patrons committed to small monthly donations to support my practice. I’ve enjoyed sharing insights into my creative thinking and planning, inspirations and seeing the value system of my practice reveal itself in the process. Returning to my art practice has been the most wonderfully rewarding decision of my life.

On Patreon, I share a mix of content for paid members, content for free members, and content accessible by non-members. This is the lastest post accessible by anyone:

If supporting my work is something you’re interested in doing, this is a great way to make easy donations. There are two membership tiers at present:

Outside of my art practice, I’ve been working on a project with Dr Sereana Naepi and illustrator, Marc Conaco for a year now – this is us on 2 July 2023! Good things take time, patience and dedication. It is such an immense privilege to be working alongside the eye-wateringly talented Marc Conaco and the academic leadership of Dr Sereana Naepi! So much exciting news to share in the coming months!

I’m currently re-thinking the Vunilagi Vou showroom and returning a lot of work I’ve held over Vunilagi Vou’s tumultuous five years as an on-again-off-again gallery space. Like many in the retail / small business space, attracting sales and spending in the nice-to-have market is pretty rough-going in this economic climate.

With a room to play with, that’s separate from the studio, I’ve had the chance to hang and present my own work, playing with context and story.

I made a series of Fijian salusalu (garlands) for the witness seminar at Fresh Gallery Ōtara and really loved the process. Synthetic felt is such a fun, malleable material, and the colour combinations give me such an energy boost! I wrote about the process on Patreon here (paid content, apologies!) and I’m now making these on a commission basis.

Nigel Borell was at the Venice Biennale when we opened To Live + Die in South Auckland in May, so my sister Mereia read his small speech:

I’ve thought a lot about life and death over the last few months, making and presenting this show, but Nigel reminded me about the absolutely intoxicating energy of re-birth, an energy that has fuelled Vunilagi Vou since 2019!

In May, the fifth anniversary of Vunilagi Vou quietly rolled around. The show at Fresh Gallery Ōtara absorbed any energy for celebration. I had spent the previous day making a one-day-painting to exercise support for the national day of activation called by Te Pāti Māori to stand solidly in support of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and our obligations as Tangata Tiriti. And then on 31 May, exactly fives years since Vunilagi Vou first opened in Ōtāhuhu, I watched the sun rise behind Puke-i-Āki-Rangi here in East Tāmaki, where Vunilagi Vou has lived, died and been re-born.

Grateful for patrons, supporters… those who are still moved by art histories and storytelling, and those who have the means to keep supporting art and artists, in recession times.

vinaka vakalevu

Events, Exhibitions

An invitation and a milestone

Making a solo exhibition for Fresh Gallery Ōtara after a determined commitment to quit curating in late 2023 has been a curious act.

I’ve loved the process of transforming the Vunilagi Vou gallery into a functional working studio. Without this transformed space and time commitment to making art rather than exhibitions, I wouldn’t have been able to produce the work I’ve made.

2022 / 2024

To Live + Die in South Auckland is a significant show, because Fresh Gallery Ōtara was a significant part of my life and practice. I spent six and half years working on the Fresh Gallery Ōtara kaupapa between 2006 and 2012, and made 66 shows during that time. Fresh Gallery Ōtara was a space where local and indigenous artists found community, confidence and support, and through that work / service, I gradually found confidence in my own voice.

Three years after opening Fresh, I made my first solo, BLOOD+BONE (2009), but didn’t make another solo for eight more years. Entitled Dark Meat (2017), this second solo continued the bodily theme, and was followed five years later by Backbone (2022). This was perhaps a trilogy, because the show I’ve made for Fresh feels different, less internalised and bound by the confines of my body, more… free.

This exhibition has been purposefully programmed as Fresh Gallery Ōtara’s 18th anniversary show. It was devised to reflect significant moments of life and death that I’ve encountered in my time living here since 2002, specifically, moments that have anchored me to this space, where I’ve evolved, mentally and spiritually. The show was pitched as a site-specific narrative that would engage and confront local audiences, and expand thinking about the social, cultural and political landscape of South Auckland. I drew poetically on this idea of American poet, novelist, and literary critic, Robert Penn Warren, who says:

You live through that little piece of time that is yours, but that piece of time is not only your own life, it is the summing-up of all the other lives that are simultaneously with yours… What you are is an expression of history.

Managing the development of the exhibition from what was proposed, like a curator, and then producing the work, as an artist, has been a unique form of psychological chaos! These two positions – one making a show, the other making the artwork – have formed a constant dialogue in my head for the past five months. So, I am deeply grateful to peers who have offered critical feedback and discussion, and to my friend, Nigel Borell, who is acknowledged as Curator Tautoko for the show.

To lean in to being an artist has felt liberating and powerful, but the act of curating, feels significantly necessary and what Fresh Gallery Ōtara and her local audiences deserve. To Live + Die in South Auckland is a show that was made site-specifically, as a full-circle, symbolic return.

Please join us to celebrate the opening of
To Live + Die in South Auckland

WHEN: 10.30am, Saturday 4 May
WHERE: Fresh Gallery Ōtara, 5/46 Fairmall, Ōtara Town Centre, South Auckland
EXHIBITION DATES: 4 May – 15 June 2024

If you can’t make the opening – a morning affair – here are some cool opportunities to come and learn more about the show:

  • I’ll be discussing the exhibition in an Artist Floor Talk at Fresh Gallery Ōtara on Saturday 11 May from 2-3.30pm – free and open to the public.
  • On Friday 17 May, I’ve nominated Columbus Cafe in Mitre10 Botany as a local East Auckland spot to hold a relaxed artist talk courtesy of Arts Out East! Kicking off at 10.30am, come along and learn why the Mitre10 garden centre has become my happy place! All welcome, more info here.
  • Although the collage works in the exhibition are digital, on Saturday 18 May from 10am-12pm, I’ll be running a paper collage workshop space in the gallery, using an eclectic range of found images to create new meanings – all ages and abilities, all welcome, open to the public.
  • On Friday 7 June, my excellent Curator Tautoko Nigel Borell and I will be convening a panel of lively storytelling in Can I get a witness? – A Fresh Gallery Ōtara Witness Seminar! Loosly borrowing the format of a witness seminar, this DIY version brings together artists and community members who were part of the gallery’s early years in what promises to be an evening of tall tales and hazy memories! Join us from 7-9pm – doors open at 6.30pm – all welcome.

Vinaka vakalevu for those who have followed the Vunilagi Vou journey since 2019. Some may have noticed that Fresh Gallery Ōtara’s anniversary is also the same timeframe of Vunilagi Vou’s anniversary. Fresh Gallery Ōtara was opened on May 26, 2006, and Vunilagi Vou was opened on May 31, 2019; the opening of Vunilagi Vou was an intentional alignment, a continuum of practice and service.

2006 with Leisa Siteine | 2019 opening Vunilagi Vou in Ōtāhuhu

To Live + Die in South Auckland is Vunilagi Vou’s 5th anniversary, a symbolic return, a beginning and an end – a perfect manifestation of the vunilagi.

Uncategorised

Death and re-birth, re-awakening and shapeshifting

It has taken a while to offer an update on Vunilagi Vou – six months has passed and Vunilagi Vou, the entity / platform / identity, has been in shapeshifting mode once again.

At the end of 2023, various factors, signs and reality checks led to the point of pivot. Vunilagi Vou was born nine months before the pandemic started shaking up the world in March 2020, and has been for the past four years in a state of constant flux, with some beautiful and profound highs, and deep lows.

Vunilagi Vou opening, May 2019. Photo by Raymond Sagapolutele.

Last year, I decided that the energy required to run, resource and amplify Vunilagi Vou’s gallery programme had been exhausted. I’ve been making exhibitions, designing and delivering public programmes to connect, talanoa and build community, since 2004. I had lost my passion for this work and had increasing discomfort with the dynamics of racial capitalism and increasing social inequality that underpin the arts economy in direct and indirect ways. But, I’m incredibly proud of what Vunilagi Vou held space for from 2019-2023, check out a summary of exhibitions here.

The calling to return to my art practice was getting stronger. I had worked fairly consistently for two decades in service to other artists, but buried my own voice in that pursuit. When I made a new body of work for the solo exhibition, Backbone in 2023, I had a re-awakening of my foundations as a visual artist. Needing to lean into this feeling required a shift in the balance of what Vunilagi Vou was, and could be.

Re-awakening my art practice, and the health scare that forced a major re-scheduling of the gallery programme last year, also created personal shifts for me. I decided to re-arrange my names, bringing forward my Fijian name – Vasemaca – which had been relegated into hiding for 41 years because ‘Ema’ is easier in an English-speaking world. From January 1, I made the switch formerly and have been finding my way with a new/old name and refurbished identity! Here’s a little guide on pronunciation, if you’re unfamiliar with the Fijian ‘c’.

At the end of 2023, I secured a solo exhibition at Fresh Gallery Ōtara and it has been revitalising developing this body of work. The show, To Live + Die in South Auckland opens on Saturday 4 May and runs until 15 June 2024. It’s a symbolic full-circle moment returning to Fresh Gallery Ōtara to present my work as an artist. Working for Manukau City Council was my first job after art school and opening Fresh Gallery Ōtara in 2006 was a dream come true. I enjoyed so much of my six years managing this gallery; this May, Fresh turns 18, a coming of age!

I chose to launch Vunilagi Vou on the anniversary of Fresh Gallery Ōtara, as a kind of continuum. This May will be Vunilagi Vou’s 5th anniversary, and I’ll be celebrating back at Fresh, as an artist… the universe works in mysterious ways!

Shapeshifting Vunilagi Vou from gallery to studio has felt really good. This space, perched on the edge of environmentally protected wetlands, was a beautiful environment to present exhibitions, but it flexes even harder as an environment for ideas to grow, critical reflection and making.

Pivots can be precarious affairs; every time Vunilagi Vou has shifted sites and modes, more is lost in the momentum of building a secure brand, culture and sustainable business model. The end of 2023 was an opportunity to clean house and shake out what’s not working. This year, the new direction is creative, hopeful, intuitive and aligning projects and production back to values that Vunilagi Vou was built on.

Closing one door has allowed new energy to flow; the projects that have grown this year and are currently underway affirm that this new direction is the right one. I’m excited to share some of the outcomes over the coming months.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on getting more of the VV Stockroom into the online shop (much more to come!) and I’m shifting much of my writing over to Patreon, where I’m inviting monthly subscriptions for US$5 / NZ$9 / AU$8.50.

Patreon support helps me produce meaningful projects, new bodies of work and writing that needs to flex and stretch before it meets an audience. This community of patrons is a forum to share insights into the processes, planning and delivery of my work, and talanoa (discuss and talk story) about the issues that this work brings up. Come along for the ride?

I’ve built a website for my art practice here, and stepping out as an artist more and more to share my work, develop new ideas and introduce my practice to new audiences. I presented alongside the inspiring Ruth Buchanan at ARTSPACE Aotearoa in February, and artist talks are coming up in May and June, more details to come.

I’m also back on board with Kaidravuni.com – the project I started with my father, Kaliopate Tavola, back in 2010. We’re currently processing a backlog of content, including this weighty archive of articles he’s written about Pacific Regionalism, and on the other end of the spectrum, a new flourish of poetry he’s started writing reflecting on our ancestors and genealogy. We’ve got some awesome plans in the pipeline, and hopefully a project that will take us home to Dravuni very soon.

For those who have supported Vunilagi Vou through the ups and downs, thank you, thank you, thank you. I look forward to connecting and crossing paths in the future!

vinaka vakalevu