Ngā Kākano: Pacific Curatorial Practice through Teu Le Vā

This Ngā Kākano discussion was recorded in Spring 2022. Listen to the full discussion here, and read about the speakers below.

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Lupematasila Misatauveve Dr Melani Anae QSO is Associate Professor in Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland. Her sustained leadership in research and teaching is based on three interconnected strands – Pacific activism/social justice; Pacific empowerment/leadership and ethnic identity work; and a liberating education/teu le va (relational ethics). Professor Anae was one of the foundational members of the Polynesian Panther Party and over the last 50 years she has continued to advocate for human rights in Aotearoa. She is a recipient of a Fulbright New Zealand Senior Scholar Award and a Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Award, and in 2008 was made a Companion to the Queen’s Service Order for services to Pacific communities in New Zealand.

Dr Andrea Low is Associate Curator, Contemporary World at Auckland Museum where she was a co-curator of the major exhibition Tāmaki Herenga Waka: Stories of Auckland. She is a regular contributor to the Museum website of articles that trace histories of Pacific peoples in Tāmaki Makaurau and the wider Pacific. The contemporary entanglements of history, identity, biography and place are central to Andrea’s research interests.

Andrea's doctorate Sound Travels, researched the transmission of Hawaiian music through the Pacific, Australasia and Asia in the period between the two world wars. As well, Andrea has an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Auckland. A council member of The Polynesian Society, Andrea is also a co-opted member of the board of Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Art Gallery and a member of the advisory board for Marinade, Aotearoa Journal of Moana Art.

Andrea traces her moʻokuʻauhau* to the ahupuaʻa of Kahana in Hawaiʻi; to the village of Fasito‘otai, in Samoa; to Tongareva, Fanning Island and Fiji and has ties to both Ayr and Argyle in Scotland.

*Genealogy

Leone Samu Tui (Ngati Hāmoa, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa) is Associate Curator, Documentary Heritage (Pacific Collections) at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Leone began her museum career as a volunteer in the Te Kākano Information Centre and progressed to working on key collection projects over the past fourteen years, including the upgrade of Online Cenotaph and the ground-breaking Pacific Collection Access Project between 2016-2019. Engagement with Aucklands Pacific communities and activating the Museum’s Teu le Vā Pacific dimension remains a key influence on her Museum praxis.