Exhibition Preview | [WINDOWS INTO] Modern Pacific art

Our highly anticipated exhibition of contemporary Pacific practice [Windows Into] Modern Pacific Art will open on Saturday 26 November, 2pm - 5pm

Curators statement:

Aotearoa | New Zealand leads the world in the creation of 'Modern Pacific Art' - a broad term used to describe artists increasingly born away from their families original homelands or who have moved away from their birthplace to mesh into a foreign urban landscape. With this separation comes disconnect from culture, from land, from place, from language, from families, from experiences, from stories and trajectory. This loss is compounded by the values, influences, and attractions (or distractions) found in the new environment.

In the 1950s, the navigational drift of the moana began accelerating at a rapid pace due to economic pressures. The strength of culture in New Zealand continued despite the constant impact of outside influences. For Pasifika artists this navigation continues to seek the bleeding edge of the evolving Pasifika identity. There is a conscious decision to be made for many who are caught between the heritage arts and the weight of the ancestors and the contemporary western art world they now find themselves in. All artists challenge themselves and their art to seek the invisible. Often an artist’s practice is put into silos called painting, sculpture, drawing, printing, digital art, performance... the list goes on. However, Pasifika artists are often makers who don’t neatly fall into those cookie cutter definitions. There is a crossing of boundaries, strong narrative, and a sense of labour in the work. There is a pushing back against the norms dictated by the expectations imposed by western art models. When the work of these Pasifika artists is brought together there is an undeniable visual register which runs across the body of work. Either by the essence of their DNA or through circumstance, their work is seemingly pulled up from a different place.

In [Windows Into] Modern Pacific Art, twelve Pasifika artists practicing in New Zealand are brought together to provide a snapshot of some of the directions in “Contemporary Pacific Art”. These are intriguing windows into the artists practices. The show’s essence is of the moana and is deliberately placed on the North Shore of Auckland to make a statement that we are here and that Aotearoa is also a Pacific Island.

- Sefton Rani, Exhibition Curator