BACKBONE kicks off a season of solos at Vunilagi Vou x East Tāmaki

As we approach our 4th anniversary, remembering every anniversary has in fact been within the Covid-19 pandemic and aftermath, it’s a pleasure to present the 2023 programme for Vunilagi Vou x East Tāmaki.

This fourth site of Vunilagi Vou, officially opened in August 2022, has been a flexible, evolving space. It has taken time to work out how to operate here and what this gallery space needs… it has taken time to recalibrate after a period of spacelessness in early 2022, and it has taken time to find resource from contestable funding programmes. There have been some hits, some misses, but each time, the needle has shifted again on what is possible here.

In late 2022, a grant was secured from Creative New Zealand to research and develop a solo exhibition – my own! It was the first time I have applied for and secured investment for my individual art practice. My project started with the concept of vanua from a Fijian perspective – “Fijian interconnectedness inclusive of culture, chiefs, knowledge systems, relationships, values, land, and spiritualities” (Fijian Vanua Research Framework definition, here). I was and continue to be interested in the shifting dynamics of being Tangata Moana / Tangata Tiriti in Aotearoa and the comfort/discomfort of being an indigenous settler on land violated by ongoing colonial violence.

Through extensive talanoa with Kaliopate Tavola, my father and Head of Mataqali Navusalevu, the second Mataqali in Dravuni Village in Kadavu, Fiji, the project became anchored in a visual exploration of what is known as Lapita pottery. Like footprints of ancestors, this pottery practice maps time, space and connections across Oceania, its decorative patterning a kind of DNA for visual vocabularies we use to this day. This early exploration of Lapita pottery also coincided with a chance reconnection with Tonga-based artist Serene Tay; conversations about pottery, healing, gallery building and spirituality with Serene between Wellington and South Auckland were pivotal – I’m so thankful our paths crossed like they did.

The grant from Creative New Zealand offered me time and space to dive deeper and expand my thinking and experimental making. The gallery became a shared studio space, I returned to working with textiles and painting on loose canvas – approaches I had used as a young artist moving from Suva, Fiji to South Auckland. I’ve loved making work again, finding resolutions through assembling and mark-making, arriving at understanding through quiet contemplation.

I use the title ‘artist-curator’ as a nod to the Cook Islands curator, Jim Vivieaere (1947-2011), who was a mentor and groundbreaker for Moana Pacific curatorial practice. I’ve long asserted that my curatorial work is an extension of my visual arts practice, but this exhibition project has reminded me that curating is a collective, outward practice, creating an identity statement with many parts, and facilitating the ways and means that statement is delivered and received. Being an artist is, in my experience, deeply introspective, a practice of trying to understand where individual experience fits within a wider collective experience.

I’ve so enjoyed remembering the ‘artist’ part of being an artist-curator.

My solo exhibition, BACKBONE is a body of new paintings and textile assemblages.

Racism is Tiring (2023) | Textile assemblage | 900x1420mm

BACKBONE kicks off a season of solo shows at Vunilagi Vou here in East Tāmaki.

In late June, Papatoetoe-based painter, Niu Lemalu presents his second solo exhibition, Let’s Play Outide and in August, Ōtara-based interdisciplinary artist, Genevieve Pini presents her highly anticipated first solo, Muscle Memory.

Please help us to kick off a season of solos!

BACKBONE opens with a Private View / Opening on Thursday 27 April from 6-9pm and then runs until 10 June 2023.

Vunilagi Vou is open Thursday – Saturday from 10am – 2pm, and by appointment. Parking is available outside the main gate.

Vunilagi Vou is located at 14/15 Bishop Lenihan Place, East Tāmaki, South Auckland.

#VVxET Open Day and South Auckland art history

On Saturday 27 August 2022, Vunilagi Vou’s newest site – VVxET – opens in East Tāmaki, South Auckland!

Instead of a traditional night time opening, VVxET will launch with an Open Day inviting the public to check out the new site, including the gorgeous stockroom and retail area, exhibition space and north-facing verandah!

VVxET is located on the edge of the Ōtara Stream

Tucked away at the back of the Botany South Business Estate at 15 Bishop Lenihan Place, East Tāmaki, the new Vunilagi Vou premises has a pretty fascinating whakapapa of art dealing and appreciation. Built in 2004, the owner of the building established the ground floor as a small art dealership called I Like Gallery. Run on an appointment-only basis, gallerist Richard Jeffery ONZM, designed a perfectly formed exhibition space with high spec lighting and clean sight lines. It was immediately obvious how good parties would have been in this space!

Of all the commercial leases in all of Manukau / South Auckland, it seems somewhat divinely guided that Vunilagi Vou has ended up here, in a ready-made gallery, on the edge of the Ōtara Stream just 3 kilometres away from Fresh Gallery Ōtara, where it all began 16 years ago!

Maka (2022), a mauri stone by Niuean artist, Chris van Doren

To launch the new exhibition space and ease back into exhibition-making after a 12 month hiatus, a collection of work has been assembled to represent Vunilagi Vou’s Moana Pacific arts community and two decades of professional practice and loving investment into Manukau / South Auckland art history.

The exhibition features recent and archival works by Nigel Borell, Ercan Cairns, Chris van Doren, Dr Sione Faletau, Antonio Filipo, Tanu Gago, Leilani Kake and Niutuiatua Lemalu.

Putiputi (2022) video still by Leilani Kake

The Vunilagi Vou stockroom is also full with works by Cypris Afakasi, David Garcia, Julia Mage’au Gray, Marcus Hipa, Rebecca Ann Hobbs & Huriana Kopeke-Te Aho, Sara Moana, Siliga David Setoga, Pati Solomona Tyrell, Manuha’apai Vaeatangitau and more!

The children’s book, The Legend of Tanovo and Tautaumolau by Kaliopate Tavola and Ema Tavola, in both English and Fijian, is now back in stock, alongside an eclectic collection of accessories, publications, patches and posters!

After this weekend’s Open Day, VVxET will be open Thursday to Saturday from 10am – 2pm, and by appointment.

VVxET Open Day is open to the public this Saturday 27 August from 10am until 6pm all welcome!

Keep up to date on Vunilagi Vou activity via Instagram and Twitter.

Painting and portraiture in the Southside #VVxAlexander

Vunilagi Vou is proud to present a new exhibition developed site-specifically for The Alexander Cafe in Ōtara, South Auckland.

Picture Me Rollin – Portraiture in the Southside is a collection of painted portraits that have been either made in South Auckland or ended up here, as in the case of this striking oil painting of former New Zealand Prime Minister Norman Kirk painted in 1975 by Dutch painter, Johanna Van Massop. It was this large-scale portrait, bought to Vunilagi Vou in 2020 by its owner, that re-ignited an interest in both portraiture and the discipline of painting.

Johanna Van Massop (1932-2015) was a self-taught painter whose last documented exhibition was in 2009 at Nathan Homestead in Manurewa. Her later years were spent at Edmund Hillary Retirement Village in Remuera where she grew a close bond with her caregiver, Annie Young. Van Massop left a number of her replica and original oil paintings to Ms Young with the intention that the funds raised from selling them could help her to have the quality of care Van Massop received in her final years. In November 2020, Ms Young found her way to Vunilagi Vou 2.0, shared her story and started a conversation about opportunities to show and sell the works.

Whilst historical portraiture, and the work of Pākehā artists, doesn’t fall clearly in line with Vunilagi Vou’s position in the creative sector, the portrait of Norman Kirk has demanded attention and inspired deeper awareness of Kirk’s role in Aotearoa history and politics. The 46-year-old oil painting was completed the year following Kirk’s death whilst in office, and the year after Manukau City Council named their new public pools in Ōtara, the Norman Kirk Memorial Pools.

Picture Me Rollin – Portraiture in the Southside features work by eight Moana Oceania / Pacific artists alongside Van Massop’s Norman Kirk, inviting reflection on the meaning and craft of portraiture as markers in time, people as culture, painting as archive.

The artists featured represent a mix of self-taught and art school trained practitioners, with practices that have ebbed and flowed less with exhibitions and art world pursuits, and more with the grassroots economy of commissions, birthday banners, murals and apparel. Many of these practices have grown in garages and live on in homes and local collections, creating archives of Pacific peoples made by Pacific painters.

Picture Me Rollin is the name of a song by Tupac Shakur (1971-1996) released in 1996; an iconic, g-funk era classic reflecting curator Ema Tavola’s own time marker and drawing connections across generations, lived realities, geographies and creative expression.

Picture Me Rollin – Portraiture in the Southside

Featuring Apelu John Crouch, Marcus Hipa, Niutuiatua Lemalu, Genevieve Leitu Pini, Ema Tavola, Jade White, Czarina Wilson & Finer, and Johanna Van Massop.

26 July – 4 September 2021

The Alexander Cafe, 4/100 Alexander Crescent, Ōtara, South Auckland

Public programme to be announced soon!

Winter Update: VV x Ōtara

Our first month of Vunilagi Vou operations being located at The Alexander Cafe in Ōtara and it has been a busy, rewarding and uplifting time!

The new exhibitions that launched VVxAlexander have felt so perfectly placed as a quiet intervention into public Southside space.

Jeremiah Tauamiti’s Creative New Zealand-funded exhibition project, Put Some Respect on My Name has made a strong start to utilising the main wall of the cafe. The exhibition expands on a video project initially started during lockdown in 2020, interviewing Pacific Islanders about the meaning and mana of their surnames, and the experiences they have encountered with mispronunciation and mockery. The video component of the exhibition holds the stories of nine individuals with care, and humour, interspersing clever customised animation by India Taberner.

On Saturday 10 July, we co-hosted an Artist Talk about Jeremiah Tauamiti work with the Pacific Islands Screen Artists network, our first artist talanoa event here at The Alexander Cafe. Thank you everyone who came out on a wintery night, to our wonderful barista Claudia Chan, and Czarina Wilson who opened up her beautiful retail space, Celebrate Aotearoa for the event. The public programming that creates space to talanoa and understand art and artists is so special when the stars align and the space is right.

The second of three bodies of work that has launched Vunilagi Vou’s new presence at The Alexander Cafe is Killer of a Time by Emily Mafile’o. Whilst it was envisaged that 10 large-scale Lambda c-type mounted prints from this series could be shown, the install team settled on five. Working with the cafe space presents some challenges, but these five insights into Emily’s 2012-13 series, sit beautifully, and centrally, on the cafe’s main and highest wall, glowing gold in the afternoon sun.

Two of Emily’s images from this show feature in a write-up on South Auckland arts and culture in the current issue of Verve magazine, thanks to Ōtāhuhu-based arts writer and advocate, Aimee Ralfini. Check out the July issue of Verve here.

The third body of work currently on show is a series of new and recent illustrative paintings by Melbourne-based interdisciplinary artist, Peatree, who visited Aotearoa earlier this year to re-connect after 14 years away. Peatree, aka Tirelle Peter, was born in South Africa, raised in East Auckland, went on to study at Manukau School of Visual Arts, graduating in 2005 with a Bachelor of Visual Arts majoring in Sculpture. This beautiful little body of work reflects the influences on Peatree’s practice absorbed from global adventures, and their evolving positionality in relation to gender, ethnicity and sexuality.

Whilst we encountered some tedious technical issues, we did an Instagram Live artist talk with Peatree on Friday 2 July, which offers some beautiful insights to the works on display and the emotional and spiritual significance of the symbolism within Peatree’s visual vocabulary.

This first suite of exhibitions runs until Saturday 24 July at The Alexander Cafe. The cafe is open six days a week from 7am – 2/3pm (closed Sunday), and is located at 4/100 Alexander Crescent, Ōtara, South Auckland.

Vunilagi Vou is thrilled to be partnering again with South Auckland-based entrepreneur Czarina Wilson, who helped develop the retail arm of Vunilagi Vou in Ōtāhuhu. Czarina’s boutique retail space, Celebrate Aotearoa, is now located on the mezzanine floor of The Alexander Cafe and stocks a beautiful range of Māori, Pasifika and New Zealand-made gifts, homeware and accessories. The space is open Monday – Saturday from 9am – 2pm.

Celebrate Aotearoa and Moana Fresh are also the exclusive stockists of VV:Dua – Vunilagi Vou’s first publication produced with support from Creative New Zealand.

A new exhibition – Picture Me Rollin’ – Portraiture in the Southside opens to the public on Monday 26 July – more details coming soon!

VV x Alexander: Shapeshifting, new exhibitions and Ōtara

In June 2021, Vunilagi Vou will celebrate our second anniversary and shapeshift once again to operate from The Alexander Café, a new locally-owned eatery and cultural enterprise located on Alexander Crescent in Ōtara, South Auckland.

Having operated Vunilagi Vou 2.0 from the residential context of suburban Papatoetoe since October 2020, the opportunity arose to partner with The Alexander Café and create space for another local enterprise, Celebrate Aotearoa – a retail operation driven by local Tongan creative entrepreneur, Czarina Wilson.

Located in a refurbished semi-industrial warehouse, The Alexander Café has built a strong community and customer base from around the Auckland region; it is a hub of Māori and Pacific professionals, locals, gym goers and creatives, always abuzz with talanoa. For Vunilagi Vou, the café offers an opportunity to integrate excellent art into the South Auckland space, quietly informing our lives and discussions and enabling artwork to create interventions in the public consciousness, rather than asking the public to engage with arts environments.

Local Tongan creative entrepreneur, Czarina Wilson, has been part of the Vunilagi Vou mission since the beginning, offering retail guidance for our first premises in Ōtāhuhu, and partnering on a pop-up shop at the Ōtara Kai Village in September to raise funds for Vunilagi Vou’s post-Covid re-launch. Czarina has been operating her enterprise, Celebrate Aotearoa out of the Ōtara Kai Village Boutique since October 2020 and is excited to relocate just a stones throw away to The Alexander Café to partner with Vunilagi Vou once more!

From Saturday 12 June 2021, The Alexander Café’s mezzanine floor will house both Celebrate Aotearoa and the Vunilagi Vou office, and a suite of three new exhibitions will be on show throughout the building.

Video still from Put Some Respect On My Name interview with Samson Vaotu’ua; animation still by India Taberner

Put Some Respect on My Name is an exhibition project by Papatoetoe-based Sāmoan filmmaker Jeremiah Tauamiti (Malosi Pictures) produced with support from Creative New Zealand. At the centre of the work are nine individual stories exploring the meaning and mana of Pacific Island surnames, and the importance of correct pronunciation as an act of respect. The project incorporates interviews with Elizabeth Koroivulaono, Tanya Muagututi’a, Vela Manusaute, Te Amohaere Ngata-aerengamate, Raymond Sagapolutele, Benjamin Tamanikaiyaroi, Ema Tavola, Essendon Tu’itupou and Samson Vaotu’ua. The project also incorporates animation work by India Taberner and graphic design by Antonio Filipo.

Becoming is a body of recent work by Peatree, a mixed media artist currently based in Melbourne, Australia where they work predominantly across the mediums of illustration and sculpture. Completing undergraduate studies at Manukau School of Visual Arts in Ōtara in 2005, Peatree’s practice has absorbed influences from around the world informing their own evolving positionality in relation to gender, ethnicity and sexuality. Becoming is an exhibition of small paintings exploring the artist’s constantly evolving sense of self and commitment to “the inherent existential search”.

Killer of a Time is a body of work by Manurewa-based Tongan photographer Emily Mafile’o made in 2013/14. This body of work is part of the artist’s two decade-long documentary practice exploring the diversity of Tongan lives and experience in Aotearoa and Tonga. This vérité style sepia-toned series focuses on ‘Killer’, whose life at the time was deeply embedded in gang culture; it is an intimate observation of the freedoms, ties and violence that framed his life, woven together with glimpses of anga fakatonga (Tongan way). This work presents a challenging perspective of Tongan experience but actively broadens awareness of the ways Tongan identities evolve and adapt in response their environments.

All three exhibitions are open from Saturday 12 June and run until the end of July.

VV x Alexander is the beginning of a new chapter. A return to Ōtara, a cultural hotspot for Moana Oceania creative innovation, where Vunilagi Vou Curator-Director, Ema Tavola established her practice at Manukau School of Visual Arts and later as founding manager of Fresh Gallery Ōtara. As the third ‘re-birth’ of Vunilagi Vou, it is an evolved business model, shapeshifting from a commercial premise in Ōtāhuhu, to a residential setting in Papatoetoe, to a shared entrepreneurial hub in Ōtara. Third time lucky?!

Help us celebrate the launch of VV x Alexander

Come along and celebrate The Alexander Cafe’s newest tenants, Vunilagi Vou and Celebrate Aotearoa, and the opening of three exciting exhibitions, Put Some Respect On My Name, Becoming and Killer of a Time on Friday 11 June from 6pm.

We’re also launching Vunilagi Vou’s first publication, VV:Dua The Story of Vunilagi Vou’s First Year, produced with support from Creative New Zealand. Copies will be available on the night and later stocked at Celebrate Aotearoa!

The Alexander Café is located at 4/100 Alexander Crescent, Ōtara, South Auckland; it is 5 minute drive from the Highbrook Drive or East Tamaki Road exits on State Highway 1 or a short walk from the Ōtara Bus Interchange (notably featuring design work by Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi).

The Alexander Café ground floor is wheelchair accessible with disability carparks directly outside the main entrance, the venue also has a wheelchair accessible toilet. Assistance dogs are also allowed onsite.

After the VV x Alexander launch, opening hours are as follows:

Monday – Friday: 7am – 3pm
Saturday: 8am – 2pm

Appointments can still be made to view and discuss the artwork on show, get in touch via the Appointments page here.


Follow Vunilagi Vou on Instagram for the latest updates!

Talanoa & Hustle

During the 2021 Auckland Art Fair, I participated in a panel discussion that was part of the ‘A Base of People’ series curated by Remco de Blaaij (Director of Artspace Aotearoa) entitled, Parallel Worlds, a new imagination on internationality. I had the privilege of speaking alongside Auckland gallerist, Tim Melville, Melbourne-based curator and writer, Kimberley Moulton and Porirua-based curator, Ioana Gordon-Smith; check it out here:

Vunilagi Vou’s Autumn 2021 season, two water shows runs until 12 May at The Alexander Cafe in Otara and Vunilagi Vou 2.0 in Papatoetoe.

  • Make an appointment to view David Garcia‘s solo exhibition, big islands deep oceans at Vunilagi Vou here.
  • Check out Antonio Filipo‘s solo exhibition, Ngāti Ōtara at The Alexander Cafe during business hours: Monday – Friday, 7am-3pm and Saturday, 8am – 2pm. The Alexander Cafe is located at 4/100 Alexander Crescent, Otara, South Auckland.

On Saturday 10 April, we hosted a floor talk with David Garcia on Instagram; David offered generous insights to the thinking and making of the nine beautiful map works in the exhibition, check it out here:

The Vunilagi Vou online shop was established after Auckland’s fourth Covid-19 lockdown in a year and it has been quietly humming away. Unfortunately, due to lengthy and unpredictable international shipping timeframes, we are currently only shipping within Aotearoa New Zealand. Grateful to everyone who has purchased Vunilagi Vou stock, largely remaining from our Ōtāhuhu premises (Vunilagi Vou 1) where our retail arm was a fairly significant part of the business.

The top sellers since the shop opened last month are:

The Struggle (2019) by Ema Tavola / Nicole Lim, poster print, 420x594mm, NZ49

NB Not Today Coloniser badge, produced to support the work of Tū Tonu, NZD10

100% Pure Fijian Waka – 250g bags of kava from Kadavu and Saqani, NZD30/35

We’re also proud to be stocking a small range of Vunilagi Vou goods at Avondale-based creative enterprise, Moana Fresh, who have a pop-up coming up at the end of the month:

Next month, we are excited to be hosting Ōtautahi-based educator and social media maven, MahMah Timoteo for the second time this year! MahMah blew the audience away during the FATFEB Talanoa here in February with her oratory excellence – she is an incredibly engaging speaker, deeply passionate and wickedly funny!

Photo credit: charlierosecreative

In honour of David Garcia’s solo exhibition, big islands deep oceans at Vunilagi Vou, which pays deep homage to the Pacific ocean, MahMah will join us for a talanoa to discuss her current research that centres indigenous Pacific Islander voices in climate change narratives.

My study aims to demonstrate the importance of Pacific indigenous lived experiences throughout climate change narratives and activism. By critically analysing current global climate change narratives and discussions, this research identifies how different power dynamics exist within storytelling, shaping the way people understand climate change and bringing fourth decolonised methods of addressing our world’s climate crisis.

~ MahMah Timoteo

Along with special guests to be announced, this talanoa will take place at Vunilagi Vou 2.0 from 6pm on Friday 7 May.

Space is limited, entry is free but donations are welcome! Located in a residential cul-de-sac, Vunilagi Vou 2.0 does not offer extensive car parking options so ride sharing is recommended. Find a map and venue address here.

Yoga & Meditation classes at Vunilagi Vou have been drawing together a broad cross-section of our local community. If you know anyone who would benefit from these classes, they are designed to make the benefits of yoga and meditation accessible to South Auckland communities and all levels of ability are welcome. Drop instructor Gamo Farani Tomlin a text on 021 1001448 or send a DM on Instagram to book a spot – classes have an 8 person capacity and run on Mondays at 5.30pm and Wednesdays at 10.30am at Vunilagi Vou.

Finallly, a new exhibition curated by Julia Albrecht and Stephanie Endter is opening at the end of this month at Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, entitled Hidden in Plain Sight. Invited to participate as an artist, I made an extension of the 2019 Vunilagi Vou exhibition, Lain Blo Yu Mi – Our People Our Lines focusing on the work of Melanesian mark maker, Julia Mage’au Gray. The work is an autoethnographic photo essay on the transformative nature and process of Julia’s work in relation to my veiqia, Fijian female tattoo.

Photo by Ella Carling

My work sits alongside artwork and ideas by FrauHerr Meko (Darmstadt, Germany), Kitso Lynn Lelliott (Johannesburg, South Africa), Joana Tischkau (Frankfurt/Berlin, Germany) and Shan Goshorn (Tulsa, USA).

If you’re in Frankfurt, check it out!

vinaka vakalevu

“Flying a drone is like being a bird” ~ Antonio Filipo on his first solo // #twowatershows

Ōtara-based artist, Antonio Filipo is currently showing as part of two water shows, Vunilagi Vou’s 2021 Autumn season. His first solo exhibition, Ngāti Ōtara is currently showing at The Alexander Cafe, a new start-up enterprise in a converted warehouse in Ōtara, South Auckland. The exhibition is a love letter to Ōtara, where the artist was born and raised, a place he is proud to call home. I asked Antonio some questions about his work…

What do you enjoy about these photographs?

These photographs are images of home and my surroundings. I have lived in Ōtara, South Auckland all my life and Ngāti Ōtara park is a beautiful place. It’s a place where I like to walk and run, and to be out in nature. There are times when I’m out in the park, and I wonder what the landscape must have looked like 30, 60 or even 100 years ago. These photographs show a sense of connection to the land and water that surrounds me and I enjoy and respect that connection.

What is your relationship to the land and waterways depicted in this body of work?

Behind my family home, we have a small channel of water. My siblings, who are much older than I am, played in this waterway with the other kids who lived on our street during the 70s. I played in that waterway as well, feeding the eels bread, climbing trees and just doing what little boys do.

These are just a few memories I have growing up about the land my family house is built on, and the waterway in our backyard. This waterway is one of many channels that run behind houses in Ōtara; they all connect to a larger body of water, and run into the Ōtara Lake. The lake sits next to the Ōtāhuhu power station, and flows into the Tāmaki River or Tāmaki Estuary. So, I like to think that I’m part of, and connected to the waters and the land that have been part of my life all these years.

The photographs show how a small waterway behind my house connects to me, and all of us in Ōtara, through the water, land and sky. I want to portray how beautiful Ōtara really is and share that perspective with our community.

What do you enjoy about the perspective of drone photography?

In 2017, a good mate of mine purchased a drone and would go on and on about how much fun he was having shooting aerial shots and clips from above. Eventually, I caved and purchased a drone too. My mate wasn’t wrong. This became a new hobby and almost everyday I would be out at the park or taking it on my travels shooting aerial shots and just trying to be a better pilot.

Flying a drone is like being a bird. It’s the bird’s eye perspective from the sky that I enjoy the most. The view of the waters and landscape is amazing and I’ve grown such a strong appreciation of what surrounds me, and for living in Ōtara. There are times I really don’t believe Ōtara looks like this when I’m flying across our skies. Especially during sunset – it is really beautiful.

The Waterway (2020)
About Antonio Filipo…

Of Tokelau and Portuguese descent, New Zealand-born artist Antonio Filipo (b.1980) resides today where he was born and raised, in Ōtara, South Auckland. Taught by renowned Moana Oceania educators Mr Palalagitoa Manetoa and the late Mr Ian George in his senior years at Hillary College, Antonio was encouraged to further his arts education and went on to study Graphic Design at Manukau School of Visual Arts, graduating in 2003.

Antonio started making drone photography in 2017 and quickly grew a deep appreciation for the Ōtara landscape from the sky. Whilst Ngāti Ōtara Park was familiar terrain on foot, the park’s waterways, bridges and surrounding industry and neighbourhoods uncover how nature and humans quietly co-exist in the hood.

Instagram @ubucanfly

Ngāti Ōtara is on until 12 May 2021 at The Alexander Cafe, 4/100 Alexander Crescent, Ōtara, South Auckland. Opening hours: Monday – Friday, 7am-3pm, Saturday, 8am-2pm.

two water shows is part of Vunilagi Vou’s 2021 exhibitions programme produced with support from our 2020 BoostedxMoana crowdfunding campaign and the generosity of 118 wonderful donors – vinaka vakalevu!

Photo credit (above): Instagram user, @kaiwith_mata


Sales & Exhibition Enquiries

All work in Ngāti Ōtara is for sale; send us a message to enquire.

Fofola Koloa – Unfolding my Koloa // A solo exhibition by Vea Mafile’o

Vunilagi Vou is re-opening on 10 October, 2020 with a solo exhibition by South Auckland-based filmmaker and visual artist, Vea Mafile’o. Fofola Koloa – Unfolding my Koloa is a new body of experimental works produced with support from Creative New Zealand’s Arts Continuity Grant programme, an initiative established in response to the global pandemic and pause in production for the creative community.

Vea’s practice as a filmmaker and screen industry professional started in the Visual Arts with an undergraduate degree in Sculpture from Manukau School of Visual Arts (MSVA). Minoring in Moving Image, Vea honed her practice in video installation, leading her to work in art direction and camera operation for television after graduating, and later directing and producing, working extensively on content for TVNZ shows Fresh, Tagata Pasifika and for the web portal TheCoconet.tv. Her production company, Malosi Pictures, run with partner and filmmaker, Jeremiah Tauamiti, was established in 2015 and last year, their first feature-length documentary, For My Father’s Kingdom was premiered at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival.

Having established a practice of video documentation during her undergraduate studies, Vea’s archive of collected footage now spans 17 years. The COVID-19 global pandemic offered an opportunity to step back from the hyper productivity of Malosi Pictures’ normal hustle, creating time to think and reflect, focus and play.

Fofola Koloa – Unfolding my Koloa is a continuation from Vea’s 2018 solo exhibition, Digital Launima at ST PAUL St Gallery, where archival footage presented as the patterned grids of ngatu launima (decorated barkcloth) formed an impressive three-channel video projection over the full length of the gallery space. Of that body of work, Vea commented,

As a young Tongan woman I am expected to have koloa faka-Tonga, to make them or gather them by buying them. Koloa faka-Tonga are fine mats, woven mats, Ta’ovala (mats worn round the waist), kie kie (worn by women round the waist), baskets and different sized tapa cloths. Koloa faka-Tonga is something I don’t have the skills to make properly. I could learn but I have realised my strengths are in gathering moving images. This is my digital koloa, my contribution to my family’s koloa… Being hafikasi and living in New Zealand means we have to make new ways to keep our koloa and koloa faka-Tonga alive and adapt it to how we live in the world today.

Two years on, and with even more footage digitised with help from the Creative New Zealand Arts Continuity Grant programme, Fofola Koloa – Unfolding my Koloa is not only a further refined analysis of personal archives and journeys between Tonga and Aotearoa New Zealand, but produced at a time of global resetting and reflecting on the ways our pre-pandemic modes were shaping us and the environments we inhabit. This experimental body of work is an ‘airing out’ of Vea’s digital koloa, an opportunity to recalibrate and re-contextualise its value and meaning.

For Vea, the site of Vunilagi Vou 2.0 is also familiar territory. As undergraduate students at MSVA, this garage was a place of meeting, making and sharing, thinking and planning. With the recent closure of Manukau Institute of Technology’s creative arts programme, the era of MSVA and its special context for making art here in Manukau / South Auckland, has inspired important reflections on the unique trajectories of establishing a creative practice here.

For Vunilagi Vou, this first exhibition in the new site is an opportunity to re-think the contexts and terms of engagement for the presentation of contemporary Pacific art. The space is no longer bound by the capitalism of a commercial setting, and the home and suburban context for presenting Pacific art is new terrain being negotiated with care and attention.

Fofola Koloa – Unfolding my Koloa runs from 10 October – 21 November 2020. Viewing by appointment only.

Learn more about Vea Mafile’o, her production company Malosi Pictures and their first feature film, For My Father’s Kingdom (2019) here:


Image credit: Detail, Vea in the backyard (2003) by Emily Mafile’o

support artists / support Vunilagi Vou

As Vunilagi Vou transitions to a new shape and form, every dollar that supports the costs of shifting the location of the Gallery from Ōtāhuhu to Papatoetoe in order to re-open in October, is highly appreciated! Whilst we will be downsizing the retail offerings in the new site, we still have artwork in the storeroom available for purchase.

Our December 2019 exhibition, Finding Emory: A Poster Show, invited eight local artists to develop a new work inspired by the iconic aesthetic of Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party. From the controversial trial of armed Police response units in South Auckland to the ongoing indoctrination of imposed body / faith politics, these seven artworks speak directly to shifts and changes that affected the lives of indigenous people in the South Pacific / Moana Oceania in 2019.

The artworks by Cypris Afakasi, Tanu Gago, Leilani Kake, Sean Kerrigan, Huriana Kopeke-Te Aho & Rebecca Ann Hobbs, Siliga David Setoga and Tokerau Wilson were produced as editions of 10, measuring 42×59.4cm (A2 size) and printed on DuraPrint, a robust plastic-coated paper. Posters are signed, unframed and priced at NZ$200 each + $15 postage and handling within New Zealand. 

“MY ANCESTORS BURNT CHURCHES – A STORY OF OPPRESSION & REBELLION” (2019) by Tokerau Wilson 

“Woman of Colour” (2019) by Leilani Kake

“Ministry of Culture?” (2019) by Sean Kerrigan

“All ears” (2019) by Huriana Kopeke Te Aho & Rebecca Ann Hobbs

“Mother Vaka” (2019) by Siliga David Setoga

“EYED-ENTITY” (2019) by Cypris Afakasi

“DEAD IN THE STREETS” (2019) by Tanu Gago


For more information on artworks and artists, please send us an enquiry here: