SILIGA DAVID SETOGA

Setoga’s wearable art has taken off since it first emerged from Otara in 2000. It was more than just being in the right

place at the right time, Siliga’s provocative work questions identity, politics, religion, and social issues. His work literally hit the streets in 2000 through Popohardwear, a line of t-shirts that provided a creative yet affordable means of expression: wearable art. From Otara’s markets, Popohardwear exploded, visible not only on the streets of Auckland but in New Zealand’s most prestigious museums, Te Papa Tongarewa and Auckland War Memorial Museum, even the British Museum’s Pacific Collection. 

Siliga’s art is a reflection of living on the border of his Parents’ beloved Samoa and his New Zealand environment. “Our home was lil’ Samoa on a Palagi street in Mt Eden, Central Auckland.”  Siliga’s Parents filled their home and family life with fa’a-Samoa. Siliga refers to his home as a “decolonized zone” where Samoan was the only language – “we were smacked if we spoke English”.  He recalls his Mum’s Tauloto (scripture verse) “You speak English when you go to school but when you come home you speak Samoan”.  But growing up with such strong Samoan influences in Auckland created a sense of confusion that contributed to Siliga “feeling neither here nor there and always wondering, questioning and searching for a place of belonging”. This search for belonging is a continual theme in his art, whether the belonging that his Parents’ generation struggled for or the belonging that his generation of New Zealand-born Samoans ache for. (some image here)

This has guided Siliga’s art to ask deeper questions of “what does it mean to be ‘Samoan’? Am I Samoan enough? Who has the right to validate the authenticity of my Samoaness? Why do we relinquish our autonomy and power to our Church and cultural leaders like we have no mind?”
Siliga’s art reflects New Zealand-born Samoans who question many things, particularly the church. “We came for a better life, instead we got a bigger church”. Coming from a long line of ministers, Siliga confronts the expectations of the church:
 ‘Dear God, if Jesus doesn’t have a bank account, where is our money going?’ (image of t-shirt here)
“We do as we’re told. We practice what we believe is fa’a-Samoa yet when we question ‘Why?’, we’re told ‘because it’s the fa’a-Samoa son, that’s what we do’. But why? God help me if my children ask me about their culture and I answer ‘because it’s the fa’a-Samoa, that’s what we do’.  We lose our culture when we don’t pass on the meaning with the practice.”

‘Fa’a-Samoa: Sleeps with the Fishes’ (2008) is a photographic work challenging Samoan culture and referencing the movie

‘The Godfather’, to make the correlation between the Italian Mafia and matai (Samoan chiefs) as protectors of our families. Here Siliga makes the statement that fa‘a-Samoa is dead, that “we’ve lost our core principles” which is inevitable when cultural and church practices are translated into monetary terms which devalue it.

“Our fa’a-Samoa is more about showing off at the expense of families that cannot afford costly contributions expected of them.”
This concept of wealth and competition is also symbolized in ‘The APA Class’ (2005) a sculpture made from corrugated iron with ‘APA class’ drilled into it. The work is based on Siliga’s memory of his auntie’s fale in Samoa roofed with corrugated iron. Playing with the Samoan word apa that sounds like the English word ‘upper’ but actually means tin or corrugated iron. This piece comments on the class system which exists in Samoa and those who flaunt their wealth in Samoa by building fale with Western materials rather than local natural materials.

The multiplicity of Siliga’s commentary is dependent on language and context. Samoan speakers will recognize the meaning of certain phrases, those who have grown up in Auckland will understand ones like ‘Bungaz in the Hood – homage to Ponsonby and Grey Lynn the original FOB mecca’. An example of the popular iconography that pays tribute to the social history of Pacific peoples who settled in Ponsonby and Grey Lynn only to be pushed further away to South Auckland during the ‘Brown Flight’ of the 1960s which opened those neighbourhoods to become the exclusive suburbs of Auckland.

Siliga’s sculptures, wearable or not, are a means of acknowledging the complicated history of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand, using terms like ‘bungaz’ and ‘FOB’ (fresh of the boat – a derogatory term for migrant Pacific peoples) recall and acknowledges the social, religious, and political histories that are the reality of New Zealand-born Pacific peoples.