Alana Marissa Lopesi MNZM is a writer and critic based in Auckland, New Zealand. She has been published in multiple places in New Zealand and Australia, and has been an editor in chief at The Pantograph Punch. Her recent book Bloody Women is a series of essays which describes her experiences as a Samoan woman living in New Zealand.
Lopesi is Samoan and is based in Auckland, New Zealand. [1]
Lopesi has been the editor for Design Assembly, where she wrote a regular column Graphic Matters. [2] Between 2017 and 2019 Lopesi was the Editor-in-Chief of The Pantograph Punch, a New Zealand online magazine. [3]
In 2018 Lopesi worked with Sarah Biscarra Dilley (yak tityu tityu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash, Chicana), Freja Carmichael (Quandamooka), Léuli Lunaʻi Eshraghi (Samoa) and Tarah Hogue (Métis, Dutch Canadian) to develop The Commute, a series of exhibitions and programs at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia. [2]
In 2019 tattooist Julia Mage’au Gray created some 'tatu' on Lopesi live in front of an audience at a gallery in Auckland – there was a DJ (King Kopesi). Lopesi says, "The work of Mage'au Gray is not only about tatu revival, but the body sovereignty that comes with it." [4]
Other places Lopesi has published in New Zealand include: Metro , North and South , Paperboy, Art New Zealand , HOME Magazine , Aotearotica, Bulletin, E-Tangata and The Spinoff . [5] [6] [2] She has also published in Australian publications including Un Magazine, Broadsheet , Runway, GARAGE Magazine and VICE . [2] [6] [5] Lana writes as a critic on New Zealand art and culture and has been doing this since 2012. [7] In her book Bloody Women Lopesi writes about the 'more than multiple worlds that you need to navigate' as a Samoan woman in New Zealand. [1]
In 2021, Lopesi obtained a PhD at the Auckland University of Technology, supervised by Tina Engels-Schwarzpaul. The title of her thesis was Moana Cosmopolitan Imaginaries: Toward an Emerging Theory of Moana Art. [8] Lopesi lectures at the School of Art and Design at Auckland University of Technology. [1]
In the 2023 New Year Honours, Lopesi was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the arts. [9]
Lopesi has held residencies in Taipei, Taiwan and Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. [2]
Albert Tuaopepe Wendt is a Samoan poet and writer who lives in New Zealand. He is one of the most influential writers in Oceania. His notable works include Sons for the Return Home, published in 1973, and Leaves of the Banyan Tree, published in 1979. As an academic he has taught at universities in Samoa, Fiji, Hawaii and New Zealand, and from 1988 to 2008 was the professor of New Zealand literature at the University of Auckland.
Pacific Sisters is a collective of Pacific and Māori artists, performers, fashion designers, jewellers and musicians.
Bridget Rosamund Williams is a New Zealand publisher and founder of two independent publishing companies: Port Nicholson Press and Bridget Williams Books.
Bridget Williams Books is a New Zealand book publisher, established in 1990 by Bridget Williams.
Janet Lilo is a visual artist from New Zealand.
Rosanna Marie Raymond is a New Zealand artist, poet, and cultural commentator and Raymond was recognised for "Pasifika artists practicing contemporary and heritage art forms in Aotearoa," winning the Senior Pacific Artist Award Winner of 2018, at the Arts Pasifika Awards through Creative New Zealand.
Anna-Christina Engels-Schwarzpaul is a German-New Zealand design academic. She is currently a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology.
The Mata Aho Collective is a group of four Māori women artists, Erena Baker, Sarah Hudson, Bridget Reweti and Terri Te Tau. They are known for their large scale fibre-based art work.
Aroha Gaylene Harris is a Māori academic. As of 2020, Harris is an associate professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in Māori histories of policy and community development. She is also a member of the Waitangi Tribunal.
Tapu Misa is a Samoan-born New Zealand journalist specialising in Pacific Islands affairs. She is considered New Zealand's first Pasifika woman journalist.
Alice Te Punga Somerville is a poet, scholar and irredentist. Dr Te Punga Somerville is the author of Once were Pacific: Māori connections to Oceania which provides the first critical analysis of the disconnections and connections between 'Māori' and 'Pacific'. Her research work delves into texts by Māori, Pacific and Indigenous peoples that tell Indigenous stories in order to go beyond the constraints of the limited stories told about them. In 2023 she won New Zealand's top award for poetry, the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry, for her collection Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised.
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Joana Monolagi is a Fijian artist and masi maker, whose work is in the collection of Auckland Art Gallery. She was awarded the Pacific Heritage Art Award in 2015 at the Arts Pasifika Awards, recognising her work in supporting art and culture, her role as Fijian coordinator for the Pasifika Festival, and her own unique artistic practice. She is part of The Veiqia Project arts collective.
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 is a New Zealand photographic artist. In 2007, she was the inaugural recipient of the Marti Friedlander Photographic Award. Examples of her work are held in the collections of Te Papa, Auckland Art Gallery, and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery.
Ema Tavola is an artist, curator, arts manager and advocate using art to centralise 'Pacific ways of seeing'.
Bonnie Jade Kake is a New Zealand Māori architectural designer of Ngāpuhi, Te Arawa and Whakatōhea iwi. She specialises in designing communities and housing based on a traditional model of living known as papakāinga.
Raymond Eddie Sagapolutele is a New Zealand photographer and visual artist of Samoan descent, active as a photographer since 2003.
Ioana Gordon-Smith is an arts curator and writer from New Zealand. She was assistant curator for Yuki Kihara Aotearoa New Zealand at the 59th Venice Biennale and co-curator of Naadohbil: To Draw Water, an internationally touring Indigenous exhibition. She co-founded the publication Marinade: Aotearoa Journal of Moana Art to feature New Zealand artists with Pacific Island heritage.
Tina Ngata is an advocate, author and researcher based in Aotearoa New Zealand.
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