Exhibitions

_{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.