Declaration: A Pacific Feminist Agenda
2 December 2022 at 11:00:00 pm
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Session Convenors
Ane Tonga, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
Session Speakers
Ane Tonga, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
Dr Caroline Vercoe, University of Auckland
Matariki Williams, Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Culture Manatū Taonga
Dr Emalani Case
We must look at the destruction of patriarchy in terms of all the other institutions it has created and props up. Therefore our attacks as feminists must be diverse – we must attack sexism and racism and capitalism and all that is created by them.
- Ripeka Evans, 1979.
The recent exhibition and publication 'Declaration: A Pacific Feminist Agenda' at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki puts a stake in the ground to claim a feminist future for the Pacific.
Declaration reignites a call to action set in the late 1970s when Māori and Pacific women advocated for full and equal participation within feminist movements of the time, and more widely, in Aotearoa New Zealand society. Taking this critical moment as a point of departure acts as a reminder that the agenda has already been set and encourages us to be alert to the struggles for gender, race, power and sexuality equality that persist today.
This panel amplifies the talanoa of Declaration and will include presentations from selected contributing authors Dr Caroline Vercoe, Matariki Williams and Dr Emalani Case who will expand on their declaration of a Pacific feminist agenda.
Ane Tonga, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
Dr Caroline Vercoe, University of Auckland
Matariki Williams, Manatū Taonga
Dr Emalani Case
Biographies
Ane Tonga, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
Ane Tonga (Vaini/Kolofo’ou, Kingdom of Tonga) is the inaugural Curator, Pacific Art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and curator of the exhibition Declaration: A Pacific Feminist Agenda. Her research interests focus on contemporary Pacific art and curatorial practice, lens-based practices and Indigenous feminisms. Recent publications include Declaration (2022) and Edith Amituanai: Double Take (2019), the latter earned her the AAANZ Best Art Writing by New Zealand Māori or Pasifika prize in 2020.
Matariki Williams, Manatū Taonga
Matariki Williams, Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Hauiti, Taranaki, Ngāti Whakaue, is Pou Matua Mātauranga Māori at Manatū Taonga, a curator, writer and editor. She is the co-author of the award-winning book Protest Tautohetohe: Objects of Resistance, Persistence and Defiance. Her writing has appeared in various print and online publications including frieze, Art in America, Art Zone, The Pantograph Punch, PhotoForumand The Spinoff. She is a Trustee for Contemporary HUM, and a former board member of Museums Aotearoa and the National Digital Forum.
Dr Emalani Case
Emalani Case is a Kanaka Maoli activist, teacher, and writer. She is deeply engaged in issues of Indigenous rights and representation, settler colonialism and decolonisation, and environmental and social justice. She is the author of Everything Ancient Was Once New: Indigenous Persistence from Hawaiʻi to Kahiki (2021, UH Press). She comes to Aotearoa from Waimea, Hawaiʻi.
Dr Caroline Vercoe, University of Auckland
Dr Caroline Vercoe is a Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Auckland. She specialises in contemporary Pacific art and performance art, with a particular interest in issues of race, gender and representation, and has been teaching, curating and researching in these areas for over twenty years. She has published in the Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, the Journal of Pacific History, as well publications including In Pursuit of Venus, Gauguin in Polynesia, Pacific Art Niu Sila and One Day Sculpture. She recently published an online bibliography Contemporary Pacific Art for Oxford Bibliographies.