An exhibition showcasing cutting-edge work from nine Pacific artists has opened in Melbourne, Australia.
The Niu Trans-Pacific's Tautai and Blak Dot exhibition features hiapo or Niuean tapa cloth, billboard-sized murals and digital paintings.
Christine Rovoi reports.
Niuean artist Cora-Allan Wickliffe is pursuing the art of Hiapo or barkcloth painting. Photo: Supplied
Cora-Allan Wickliffe likes to explore representations of indigenous people.
The young Niuean artist says her work on the hiapo is the revival of a sleeping art form that was almost lost.
"Hiapo is a rare art form that has been sleeping in the museums and - until I revived the practice in the last few years - it hasn't really been on display anywhere. With my efforts and through the community and people of Niue and throughout the Pacific, we've been able to have hiapo now living in the community again. I've been using it as gifts for ceremonies, in art exhibitions and as items of trade for people who do other crafts like weaving. So Niue has hiapo once again living amongst us."
She says her grandfather inspired her to revive the hiapo practice.
Ms Wickliffe aims to share what she knows with young Niueans.
"I do believe that traditional knowledge is for the people and should be guarded and not just shared lightly. And so I want to kind of navigate that with people that have our beautiful ta'onga in their collections. And maybe how I can contribute to helping them display it in a way that our community would like."
Ahsin Ahsin, of the Cook Islands, says his work was influenced by 1980s to 90s sci-fi films and street art with pop culture references throughout.
"I used things that when I was young I like about like the Transformers. Things that were nostalgic to me and they were like my people as well like my experiences in retrospect interpret them into my own. And sometimes I'll maybe have a bad day and then I'll make something from that bad day."
The former tradie says his imagination distills into "fantastic creatures and sigils, graffiti mark-making and gestures, suspended in hyperspace".
Mr Ahsin says he works his neo-pop style across a variety of surfaces seen on the streets as murals and in galleries alongside fine artists.
"That's just taking things from pop culture and just making them your own. They're like say sonic, pop icon and pop culture. So you take that, but then make that your own and they'll become like a pop, really like a new version of it. But it'll be your own version of it."
Naawie Tutugoro with her "My God has a fro" work. Photo: Supplied
Kanak artist Naawie Tutugoro from New Caledonia says her presentation includes site-specific sculptural drawings.
Caged Birds from Tobe Nwige inspired Tutugoro's two-piece installation My God Has An Afro.
"I have drawn from certain realities of our ancestral experience, coping mechanisms of satire and sugar-coating permeates the vibrant, playful and feminine approach in manoeuvring the lack of visibility."
The New Zealand-based artist says her work illuminates moments from her childhood and "emphasises the contextual negotiations of place and space".
She says this is emblematic of the urban moana-nui attempt of reconciling the dark and twisted marginalised history of the Pacific slave trade - blackbirding.
"I'm tired of worrying if people are comfortable especially as we look to the past. European comfortability has always been so centred. So this work isn't for them and if it is, I want them to feel uncomfortable."
This is the first time the Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust in Auckland is working with the Blak Dot Gallery for the shared exhibition.
Other artists include Israel Randell, Kelly Lafaiki, Gina Ropiha, Rangituhia Hollis, Mereani Qalovakawasa and Talia Smith.
The exhibition ends on 1 December.
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