Ema Tavola

Last updated

Ema Tavola
Born1982
NationalityFiji, New Zealand
EducationManukau School of Visual Arts
OccupationArtist & curator
OrganizationFounder of Fresh Gallery and Vunilagi Vou galleries in Auckland
Known forAdvocacy of Pacific art and artists

Ema Tavola is an artist, curator, arts manager and advocate using art to centralise 'Pacific ways of seeing'. [1] [2]

Contents

Tavola was born in Fiji in 1982. Her father is from Dravuni in the Kadavu province of Fiji. [3] [4] Her mother is a third generation Pākehā from Palmerston North in New Zealand. [3] While she was growing up she also lived with her family in London and Belgium. [3] As a teenager they moved to Wellington, New Zealand and she attended Wellington High School. After high school Tavola was having a gap year in Fiji and experienced the 2000 Fiji civilian coup. [3]

Returning to New Zealand Tavola went on to study a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Manukau School of Visual Arts in South Auckland, and got a job with Manukau City Council after graduating. [3]

In 2006 she founded the Fresh Gallery in Ōtara, Auckland as a partnership with Manukau City Council and the local community. [5] In 2013 it re-opened after expansion. [6]

Tavola has speaking engagements at conferences and other places. In 2019 she was a guest speaker at Para Site International Conference, Hong Kong, the Singapore Art Book Fair for NTU Centre for Contemporary Art (Singapore) and Spinning Triangles: Ignition of a School of Design for SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin, Germany / Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo). [4] [7] [8] [9]

In 2019 Tavola opened an independent art gallery called Vunilagi Vou. [10]

Tavola's artworks are held the collections at Auckland Art Gallery. [11]

Curatorial work

Awards and residencies

2017 – Pacific Studies Artist in Residence – University of Canterbury Macmillan Brown Centre

Related Research Articles

Arthur Anae is a New Zealand politician who served on the Auckland Council. He was an MP from 1996 to 1999, and again from 2000 to 2002. He was part of the National Party, being its first Pacific Islander MP.

Māngere Suburb of Auckland Council in New Zealand

Māngere or Mangere is one of the largest suburbs in Auckland, in northern New Zealand. It is located on mainly flat land on the northeastern shore of the Manukau Harbour, to the northwest of Manukau City Centre and 15 kilometres south of the Auckland city centre. It is the location of Auckland Airport, which lies close to the harbour's edge to the south of the suburb.

Michael "Michel" Cliff Tuffery is a New Zealand artist of Samoan, Tahitian and Cook Islands descent. He is one of New Zealand's most well known artists and his work is held in many art collections in New Zealand and around the world.

Fatu Akelei Feu'u is a noted Samoan painter from the village of Poutasi in the district of Falealili in Samoa.

Ōtara Suburb of Auckland Council in New Zealand

Ōtara is a suburb of South Auckland, New Zealand, situated 18 kilometres to the southeast of the Auckland CBD. Ōtara lies near the head of the Tamaki River, which extends south towards the Manukau Harbour. Contemporary Ōtara is surrounded by the suburbs of Papatoetoe, East Tāmaki, Clover Park and Flat Bush. The suburb is noted for its proportion of Pacific Islander residents, who make up 78% of the Ōtara population, and its unusually low number of European New Zealanders (Pākehā) residents (10%).

Pacific Music Awards

The Pacific Music Awards are an annual New Zealand music award ceremony since 2005 that honours excellence in Pacific music in New Zealand. The awards honour musicians who primarily work in the Pacific Island style of music from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Samoa, Tonga, Tokelau or Tuvalu, and also in urban and gospel genre categories.

Daren (DK) Kamali is a Pacific poet, writer, musician, and teacher and museum curator. He emerged on the Pacific writing scene as a Fijian writer, placing Fiji at the heart of much of his creative work.

Lisa Reihana New Zealand artist

Lisa Marie Reihana is a New Zealand artist of Maori descent who grew up in Blockhouse Bay, Auckland, New Zealand.

Ioane Ioane is a New Zealand artist of Samoan descent. His work is informed by his Samoan heritage and includes performance, film, painting, installation and sculpture. In conversation about his work Fale Sā with art historian Caroline Vercoe, Ioane states, Sacred places are not necessarily a church, but it's a place where one likes to be in, a place of affirmation. Curator Ron Brownson writes, Ioane's attitude to sculptural process is cosmological – his carvings bind present reality with a representation of the past.

Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design Private art school in Auckland, New Zealand

Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design is a private training establishment in New Zealand.

Joana Monolagi is a Fijian artist and masi weaver, whose work is in the collection of Auckland Art Gallery. She was awarded the Creative NZ Pacific Heritage Art Award in 2015, recognising her work in supporting art and culture, her role as Fijian coordinator for the Pasifika Festival, and her own unique artistic practice.

Julia Mage’au Gray is a dancer, choreographer and tattoo artist from Papua New Guinea, who is credited with revitalising women's tattoo traditions in communities from Papua New Guinea and Fiji.

FAFSWAG Arts collective

FAFSWAG is an arts collective of Māori and Pacific LGBTQI+ artists and activists founded in Auckland, New Zealand in 2013. They explore and celebrate the unique identity of gender fluid Pacific people and LGBTQI+ communities in multi-disciplinary art forms. In 2020 FAFSWAG was awarded an Arts Laureate from the New Zealand Arts Foundation, and they also represented New Zealand at the Biennale of Sydney.

Pati Solomona Tyrell is an interdisciplinary artist from New Zealand who focuses on performance, videography and photography. In 2018 Tyrell became the youngest nominee for the Walters Prize, New Zealand's most prestigious contemporary art award, for video work Fāgogo, subsequently purchased by Auckland Art Gallery. In 2020 Tyrell won the 'Emerging Pacific Artist Award' Arts Pasifika Awards.

Nigel Borell New Zealand Māori curator and artist

Nigel John Floyd Borell is a New Zealand Māori artist, museum curator, and Māori art advocate. He curated the exhibition Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in 2020, the largest exhibition since they opened. In 2021 the Art Foundation of New Zealand created an award to acknowledge the work of Borrell in this exhibition.

Kulimoe'anga Stone Maka, is an interdisciplinary artist of Tongan heritage who lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 2011, he was awarded the Emerging Pasifika Artist Award from Creative New Zealand. Maka's work has been exhibited in museums and art galleries in New Zealand, Hawai'i Australia and Tonga. In 2020 he was selected to represent New Zealand at the 22nd Biennale in Sydney.

Marilyn Rhonda Kohlhase is a New Zealand arts curator and administrator, specialising in Pacific Islands art. She has worked with Auckland War Memorial Museum and Creative New Zealand. Kohlhase set up the first uniquely pan-Pacific art gallery and is known as the "art lady" in some circles.

Edith Amituanai New Zealand Pasifika photographer

Edith Amituanai Auckland, New Zealand, is a contemporary artist. She has received multiple awards including the Marti Friedlander Photographic Award 2007, Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Award and The Martin Hughes Contemporary Pacific Art Award.

Andy Leleisi’uao is a New Zealand artist of Samoan heritage known for his modern and post-modern Pacific paintings and art. He was paramount winner at the 26th annual Wallace Art Awards in 2017 and awarded a Senior Pacific Artist Award at the Arts Pasifika Awards in 2021.

Margaret Aull is a New Zealand painter, art manager, and curator, of Te Rarawa, Tūwharetoa and Fijian descent. She works in mixed media using canvas, installations and sculpture to contribute to and comment on Māori and Pacific artistic discourse. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, showcasing work at the Casablanca Biennale, Morocco in 2018.

References

  1. ↑ "Ema Tavola appointed Pacific Studies Artist in Residence at UC". Creative New Zealand. 28 June 2017.
  2. ↑ "Volume: Bodies of Knowledge – Metro Arts Brisbane". metroarts.com.au. 2 June 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Husband, Dale (27 March 2021). "Ema Tavola: What our artists are telling us". E-Tangata. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 "About Ema". Vunilagi Vou. 16 May 2019. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  5. ↑ Māhina-Tuai, Kolokesa U. (2014). "Fresh Gallery, Ōtara". Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  6. ↑ Evans, Adrian (3 April 2013). "Refreshing start for Otara gallery". Stuff. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  7. ↑ "2019 Para Site International Conference". Para Site. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  8. ↑ "2019 — Singapore Art Book Fair". singaporeartbookfair.org. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  9. ↑ "Spinning Triangles: Ignition of a school of design". S A V V Y Contemporary. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  10. ↑ Punch, Pantograph. "Ema Tavola". Pantograph Punch. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  11. ↑ "Ema Tavola". Auckland Art Gallery. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  12. ↑ "Edmiston Gallery Archive". New Zealand Maritime Museum. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  13. ↑ "Kaitani Curated by Ema Tavola". The Physics Room. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  14. ↑ Ford, Emily (30 September 2018). "Artists taking south Auckland to Morocco for international exhibition". Stuff. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.