‘Arts’ of Moana Oceania & Lagi-Maama Tok Stori Tuesdays
The ‘Arts’ of Moana Oceania and Lagi-Maama Tok Stori Tuesdays project started out as a scoping research to address the current knowledge gaps within and across the cultural (including arts) sector in Aotearoa New Zealand by developing a more cross-cultural approach to knowing and understanding what ‘art’ is from multiple perspectives.
We often hear about the value of ‘art’ and the importance ‘art’, but for many of our island nations, ‘art’ is not our word. Moana Oceania peoples are forced to fit our ways of knowing into a ‘general’ Western frame, that in turn isolates and ignores our ‘own specific uniqueness’.
If we are to genuinely understand and advocate for how the arts are valued by all 17+ island nations with diaspora communities in Aotearoa, we need to first know what art is from their various Indigenous world views. This means looking critically at the status quo of the cultural sector within and across Aotearoa and acknowledge that all people do ‘art’ – but it is organised, performed and created differently within and across different cultures.
Registration for Phase III
Lagi-Maama Academy & Consultancy are excited to continue our partnership with Pacific Cooperation Foundation for Phase III of ‘Arts’ of Moana Oceania & Lagi-Maama Tok Stori Tuesdays project .
Join us every Tuesday in May 2022 to hear directly from our Moana Oceania Onto-Epistemologists on ‘what art is' from the perspectives of the following island nations:
Pitcairn Island – Tuesday 3 May 2002 @ 9am NZT - recording to follow
Tahiti – Tuesday 10 May 2022 @ 4:00pm NZT recording to follow
Banaba – Tuesday 17 May 2022 @ 5:30pm NZT – recording to follow
Naoero (Nauru) – Tuesday 24 May 2022 @ 5:30pm NZT - recording to follow
First Nations Australia – Tuesday 31 May 2022 – 5:30pm (NZT) - recording to follow.
Phase 1 - Overview paper
Lagi-Maama Academy & Consultancy was commissioned by Te Taumata Toi-a-Iwi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s arts regional trust, in January – May 2020, to carry out a scoping research on the ‘Arts’ of Moana Oceania.
We carried out the research with the premise that if we are to genuinely understand and advocate for how the arts are valued by all 17+ ethnic island nations with diaspora communities here in Aotearoa, we need to first know ‘what art is’ and then ‘what art does’ from ALL of their different Indigenous worldviews.
We engaged 9 islands – Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Tonga, Rotuma, PNG (Mogei), Solomon Islands (Mala’ita), Kiribati and Hawai‘i - in Phase I with Te Taumata Toi-a-Iwi. In the process, we felt that a platform needed to be created where our Moana Oceania onto-epistemologists could speak to the richness and uniqueness of the knowledges they all gifted in the form of a paper that we published online. And due to our first nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, we initiated a live online ‘Lagi-Maama Tok Stori Tuesdays’ zoom platform that took place weekly on Tuesdays.