Emele Ugavule: storytelling and the vitality of contemporary Melanesian culture
17 Jun 2024, RNZ
This article was first published on RNZ's website, and the interview went to air on Culture 101, 16 June 2024.
This article was first published on RNZ's website, and the interview went to air on Culture 101, 16 June 2024.
Artists and storytellers will be gathering at Pātaka Museum in Porirua for Tok Talanoa over the weekend of 22 to 23 June, a forum will explore the richness and diversity of creative expression of Melanesia - coinciding with a suite of exhibitions opening at Pataka that takes us from Papua New Guinea to Fiji.
Melanesia is spread between these two countries and includes Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and the Torres Strait Islands.
There are more than 23,000 Melanesians living in Aotearoa, and since 2007, thousands of workers from the region have travelled over as part of the seasonal work scheme.
Listen to the RNZ interview with Mark Amery HERE.
Melanesia is a rich cultural region. It holds the largest Indigenous population in the Pacific, and has more languages than all of Europe. Vanuatu has 110 dialects and languages alone.
Yet, despite our proximity and strong links to these countries, Polynesia - with its larger resident population - commonly takes precedence here.
Tok Talanoa is being produced by Tokelauan-Fijian Emele Ugavule of Studio Kiin - a storytelling collective, whose interest lies in Oceanic Indigenous-led storytelling, working across performance, screen and digital media. She joined Mark Amery on Culture 101.
Ugavule trained as an actor, graduating from Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Arts, and she currently teaches at Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School. She has been a Creative Director of Talanoa, a digital platform for Oceania stories.
Coinciding with Tok Talanoa are exhibitions centred on Melanesian culture at Pātaka, with many of the artists involved participating over the weekend.
Red Wave, Blue Wave features work from artist collectives born from the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific studies in Fiji.
Sanap Wantaim – Stand Together celebrates indigenous human rights in Papua New Guinea through photographs by Paul Wolffram and hand-woven bilum string bags, created by members of the underground network of human rights defenders.
Finally, the Ulumate Project from artist collective, Na Tolu explores the iTaukei Fijian practise of ulu cavu (Fijian hair wigs).
