Exhibition Opening: What is your VVAI?

'What is your VVAI?' is an exhibition by the artist duo Ashleigh Taupaki and Jasmine Tuiā.
'What is your VVAI?' explores the process and material of the contemporary Pacific objects that both artists create, the meaning that the objects and the names of the objects are absent from the space, and viewers are made to ponder the complexities and intuition of making. This exhibition stems from the artists’ NEO Digital Residency with the Übersee Museum in Bremen Germany in 2021. This programme asked its participants to investigate what it means to name Pacific cultural objects within a museum context. As a result, we concluded that the context of cultural objects - including material, place of origin, source method, and subsequent contemporary methods of making that have evolved due to colonization and the passing of time - should come first before a name is even considered. The installations of pigments, rocks, photography, drawings, tapa and sculpture will draw on the frameworks of Talanoa and Fonofale models we used during the NEO residency.

'What is your VVAI?' is a conversation we want to bring to our Pacific communities in Tāmaki Makaurau. The question focuses on Pacific knowledge, contemporary ways of nurturing and sharing our connections to ‘VVAI’, which the artists refer to as the relationships to cultural belongings, places and waters in the Moana. These paradigms recognise the value of Pacific cultures and family dynamics in our everyday practices. This exhibition aims to make the talanoa we hold online tangible, between two spaces across waters, and eventually bring the community in the space to continue, add or respond to the question; 'What is your VVAI?'