Dagmar Vaikalafi Dyck
As a first-generation New Zealander, Dagmar Dyck is an artist, researcher, art educator, and social justice advocate. Her navigation in and around different worldviews is at the heart of her identity and arts practice. In 1995 Dagmar graduated from ELAM, University of Auckland, with a PGDip in Fine Arts. She was the first woman of Tongan descent to do so. Represented by Orexart Gallery she regularly exhibits nationally and internationally, with her work held in significant national collections. The groundbreaking exhibition ‘Amui ‘i Mu’a - Ancient Futures, showcased her involvement as Investigator artist on a five-year Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund project in conjunction with The University of Auckland. She has visited more than 15 museum collections worldwide focusing on art objects of exchange and encounters between Europeans and Tongans in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Dagmar is Deputy Principal at Sylvia Park School. In 2019 she completed her MProf (Hons) in Education at the University of Auckland. Her dissertation topic involved examining art teachers’ beliefs, attitudes and pedagogical practices and how these could affirm Pasifika students’ success as Pasifika. Dagmar holds several governance roles and is a Board member (Ministerial Appointment) for The Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Dagmar’s maternal lineage hails from the Wolfgramm and Hemaloto kainga from the village of ‘Utungake, Vava’u, Tonga. Her paternal lineage includes Dutch, Polish and German ancestry and links to her father’s birthplace in Gdansk, Poland.