Solomon Islands events

Sunday 24 November – Saturday 30 November

A highlight for the week will be a display celebrating local Solomon Aelan artist Aunty Glo. The display will feature a collection of woven taonga including baskets, bags, mats and hats by Aunty Glo.

Saturday 30 November 11am – 12.30pm:
A drop-in weaving workshop with Aunty Glo

Enjoy a weaving demonstration by Solomon Aelan artist Aunty Glo and learn how to make/weave a traditional headband or flower with harakeke. Learn more about Solomon Islands history, culture and language. Suitable for all ages.

Joining Aunty Glo is our second artist in focus, Selwyn Palmer Teho, and the Solomon Aelan community who will lead the group in some language class activities and singsing.

About Aunty Glo:
Glorious Marie Oxenham, QSM (aka Glo or Aunty Glo)

Born 1961, Buni, Parara Island, Vona Vona Lagoon, off the North-West Coast of New Georgia, Western Province

Lives and works as an Early Childhood Educator, Cultural Advocate, and Community Leader in Te Whanganui ā Tara, Aotearoa.

Aunty Glo is the Secretary of the Lower North Island Wantok Association and the Wellington Solomon Islands Community Group, she is first and foremost a knowledge holder and expert weaver. Specialists such as Aunty Glo are known in their community as Matazonga (Roviana language) . Mata means eye, and Zonga refers to accuracy. The ability to observe and recreate patterns, sometimes from a dream, sets Aunty Glo apart. Aunty Glo learned her skills from watching grand/mothers and aunties and has refined her practice since living in Aotearoa over the past forty (40) years, this time using harakeke. Glo makes baskets, bags, mats, hats, and belts and last exhibited at Pātaka in the ‘Baskets of Melanesia’ show in 2013. Aunty Glo also learned her weaving from watching her father, who was a teacher, and well-known canoe builder, repairer of Tomoko canoes, and specialist sailmaker.

In addition to English, Aunty Glo speaks Pijin, Roviana, and Te Reo Māori (very limited). She also understands most of the New Georgia Island languages and dialects.

Our second artist in focus is
SELWYN PALMER TEHO.

Born in 1978, SELWYN is a descendent of the Sa’a Iho Clan, from Tongomainge village on Mu’ungiki Bellona atoll, in the Renbel Province of the Solomon Islands. His mother Lina Ngatonga and grandmother, Alice Tepuke are weavers and his father Henry Teho, along with Uncle Frank Haikiu, a well-known carver, encouraged SELWYN into the arts. A participant at the Melanesian Arts Festival and 11th Pacific Arts Festival in Honiara in 2012, SELWYN has since lived and worked as a multimedia artist on the Kapiti Coast for the past 7 years. SELWYN is a painter, muralist, sculptor, and tattooist, who has exhibited at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Semarandana Art Centre in Bali, and Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, with commissions at SKM (Sinclair Knight Merz), Heritage Park Hotel Honiara and Kalala Haus, Solomon’s Parliamentary building.

In 2011 SELWYN was awarded a Tautai Trust Arts Residency in Auckland, and in the same year, helped establish a sub-committee for visual artists at the Pacific Arts Association symposium. In 2019, SELWYN’S artworks were shown in Bats Foyer as part of an offering by Conch Theatre Company in A Boy Called Pianoseason. In 2023, SELWYN created a waharoa for Kapakapanui School (near Tararua Forest Park, Kapiti region) and for the inaugural Solomon Aelan Pijin Langguis Wik this year, he has generously gifted his time and taonga to the display at Pātaka for which we are most grateful. The display includes waist ornaments and weaving by SELWYN’S grand/mother.

Check out their works on display in The Spine at Pātaka, and the TOI STORE with artefacts from the Wellington Solomon Islands Community, from Sun 24 Nov - Sat 30 Nov.

The 2024 theme for Solomon Islands Pidgin Language Week is 'Protektim langguis an kalsa blong yumi - Protect our language and culture.'

Tagio (tenkyu) tumas!