Melani Anae: The Platform: CANCELLED

'This is history as only Pacific people would understand. For it is people, not the events, that mark the annals of history – this is not the voiceless accounts but a fully fleshed experience of the times of the Dawn Raids and the first formal movements of the Polynesian Panthers.'— KRISTOFFER LAVASI'I - KETE, DECEMBER 2020

The Platform: The Radical Legacy of the Polynesian Panthers is Melani Anae’s acclaimed account of how the Polynesian Panther Party illuminated systemic racism in Aotearoa following the violence against Pacific Islanders in the era of the Dawn Raids. In this event, Melani Anae recalls her personal story of activism, resistance and education with Lana Lopesi, writer, and the author of recently released Bloody Woman.

E ai ki a Melani Anae, nā ngā iwi o Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa te kaikiritanga o Nui Tireni I whakakite mai. Nō te wā o ngā Dawn Raids. I konei ka kōrero a Melani Anae mō ōna wheako I aua wā rā, he kōrero mō te mana motuhake, he kōrero mō te mātauranga.

Melani Anae | Aotearoa / New Zealand

Melani Anae is an Assoc. Professor in Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland. A Fulbright Scholar, a Marsden Award recipient and holder of the Queen’s Service Order Medal for services to Pacific communities, she has published extensively in the areas of transnational Pacific leadership, the politics of identity, Pacific activism in New Zealand, and Pacific research methodologies and relational ethics.

Lana Lopesi | Aotearoa / New Zealand

Lana Lopesi is an author, art critic, editor and multidisciplinary researcher based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Since 2012 Lana has published extensively on New Zealand art and culture in local and international publications including Metro magazine, the Pantograph Punch, Bulletin, Art New Zealand, the Spino, Paperboy, among many others. Her writing has also been included in books such as Routledge Companion to Art in the Public Realm, Crafting Aotearoa (Te Papa Press) and Say Something: Jacqueline Fahey (Christchurch Art Gallery). In 2018 Lana published her debut book False Divides (BWB Texts) and in 2019 she co-edited the book Transits and Returns (Vancouver Art Gallery; Institute of Modern Art).