Radical Inclusion: On Pacific Arts Aotearoa

Authors

Keywords:

contemporary Pacific art, Pacific artists, Indigenous arts, talanoa, Pacific arts

Abstract

Pacific Arts Aotearoa (Penguin), edited by author, curator and academic Lana Lopesi (University of Oregon), was published in November 2023. The book is crammed with profiles of many Pacific artists, collectives and movements across the contemporary arts scene in Aotearoa New Zealand and gives voice to the artists themselves, with more than 95 artists documenting their own experience. This piece is a long-distance talanoa (conversation) between Lopesi and Andrea Low, a curator at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum. They discuss the genesis of the book and why it is important not only to record the breadth and depth of Pacific contributions to the cultural landscape of Aotearoa but also to contextualise those contributions in unexpected ways.

Author Biographies

Lana Lopesi, University of Oregon

Lana Lopesi is an assistant professor in the Department of Indigenous, Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon, where she teaches across her areas of research including Pacific Islander studies, Indigenous feminism and contemporary art. She is the author of False Divides (Bridget Williams Books, 2018) and Bloody Woman (Bridget Williams Books, 2021), editor of Pacific Arts Aotearoa (Penguin Books & Creative New Zealand, 2023) and co-editor of Towards a Grammar of Race in Aotearoa New Zealand (Bridget Williams Books, 2022) and Pacific Spaces: Translations and Transmutations (Berghahn Books, 2023). Her family is from the villages of Satapuala and Siumu, Sāmoa.

Andrea Low, Tāmaki Paenga Hira | Auckland War Memorial Museum

Andrea Low (‘Ōiwi, Tongareva, Sāmoa, iTaukei, Scotland) 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 is a Council member of the Polynesian Society and Reviews 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 Makaurau (Auckland).

Cover of March 2024 issue

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Published

2024-04-15

Issue

Vol. 133 No. 1 (2024): Waka Kuaka | Journal of the Polynesian Society

Section

Shorter Communications / Talanoa

License

Copyright © 2022 by the Polynesian Society (Inc.)

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process without written permission.

Inquiries should be made to:

Dr Marcia Leenen-Young, Editor
The Polynesian Society
c/o School of Māori and Pacific Studies
The University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019, Auckland
New Zealand

email: m.leenen@auckland.ac.nz