Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust presents Voyagers: The Niu World, a new exhibition by New Zealand-based, Tongan artists Tui Emma Gillies and Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows, opening Saturday 20 March.

Sulieti and Tui are a mother/daughter duo who specialise in ngatu or tapa art. They explore contemporary issues through their practice of tapa painting, which is embedded in the roots of the medium and ancestors who practiced before them.

For Voyagers: The Niu World, they present a collection of tapa created during and after the COVID-19 lockdown in Aotearoa New Zealand and reflect on the idea of navigating a changed world that is in the midst of a pandemic.

“The waves have never been bigger or more threatening, the storms have never been so savage, the fires have never been so close and hot. And we are expressing this in the medium we were brought up in, tapa painting, which has been passed down from generation to generation by those people who made the original voyages and their ancestors before them. This exhibition is dedicated to all us Voyagers navigating The Niu World.”

– Tui Emma Gillies & Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows