Curatorium: An Introduction

Nina Tonga is an art historian and Curator of Contemporary Art at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. She is from the villages of Vaini and Kolofo‘ou in Tonga and was born and raised in Aotearoa New Zealand. She curated the acclaimed exhibitions Pacific Sisters: Fashion Activists (2018–2019) at Te Papa and To Make Wrong/Right/Now for the second international Honolulu Biennial (2019). Her solo exhibitions include projects by Lemi Ponifasio, Nike Savvas, Chiharu Shiota, Dame Robin White and Mataaho Collective. Her interdisciplinary PhD research (Art History, Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland) focuses on the ways that Internet platforms have shaped and influenced contemporary art practices. Nina is a Council member of the Polynesian Society and serves on the editorial board of the Pacific Arts Journal and of Artlink magazine. She also serves as an advisor to the arts organization Hawai‘i Contemporary.

Andrea Low is Associate Curator, Contemporary World at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum, where she co-curated the permanent exhibition Tāmaki Herenga Waka: Stories of Auckland. Andrea traces her moʻokuʻauhau (ancestry) to the ahupua‘a (customary land divisions) of Kahana and Kualoa on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi; to the village of Fasitoʻotai, Sāmoa; and to Tongareva/Penrhyn (Northern Cook Islands), Fanning Island/Tabuaeran (Kiribati) and Fiji. With ties to Ayr and Montrose in Scotland as well, the entanglements of history, colonialism, Indigeneity, biography and diaspora are central to her research interests. She is a frequent contributor of articles and exhibitions that trace histories of Pacific peoples in Tāmaki (Auckland) and the wider Pacific. Andrea is a Council member of the Polynesian Society and Book Review Editor for the Society’s journal, Waka Kuaka. She is also on the advisory board of Marinade: Aotearoa Journal of Moana Art and a board member for Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery in Tāmaki.