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Meri Kirihimete!

Te Wai Ngutu Kākā closes for the summer break on Thursday 19 December 2024. We resume our normal hours on Tuesday 21 January 2025, with the exhibition Toloa Tales:

Edith Amituanai and Sione Tuívailala Monū remaining on show through 7 March. 

We would like to thank the artists, designers, curators, writers, technicians, lecturers, students and presenters who have participated in our programmes this year. Your support is greatly appreciated we look forward to the exciting year of exhibitions and programmes that lies ahead.

Ngā manaakitanga,

Te Wai Ngutu Kākā

Toloa Tales

Edith Amituanai and Sione Tuívailala Monū

5 Dec 2024 - 7 Mar 2025

Gallery One


Toloa Tales

Images:  Top, Sione Tuívailala Monū, Lanu Moana is the Warmest Colour (still) 2024. Single-channel HD video, duration 27 mins 31 secs. Courtesy of the artist; bottom, Edith Amituanai, Vaimoe (still) 2024. Single-channel HD video, duration 16 mins. Courtesy of the artist.

Please join us Wednesday 4 December, 5 - 7pm for the launch of Sione Tuívailala Monū and Edith Amituanai: Toloa Tales, our final opening event for 2024.

In 2023, Tāmaki Makaurau-based artists Sione Tuívailala Monū (Aotearoa, Australia, Tonga) and Edith Amituanai (Aotearoa, Sāmoa) travelled to Sāmoa to celebrate a friend’s participation in the Miss Sāmoa Fa’afafine Pageant. Joined by cinematographer Ralph Brown, they produced two distinct yet intimately connected films during the visit, each reflecting on ideas of migration, identity, belonging, and exploring what it means to return to an ancestral homeland.

The title Toloa Tales references a Sāmoan proverb – ‘e lele le toloa ae ma‘au lava i le vai’, (the toloa (duck) flies far but will always return to water). It suggests that no matter how far one journeys there is always a desire to come home.

The exhibition Sione Tuivailala Monū and Edith Amituanai: Toloa Tales is toured by Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.

CAG