Bill Hammond, 'Holding On' Installation view at Two Rooms, Auckland 2022. Photo by Samuel Hartnett.
Photo Credit
Angela Tiatia explores contemporary culture through performance, video and photography, drawing out the relationships between representation, gender, neo-colonialism and the commodification of body and place. Often through the lenses of history, popular and material culture, the artist moves deftly in her compositions of still and moving image from pointed detail to satellite view addressing universal themes of postcolonial reclamation, women’s bodies, identity and representation.
Her works produce what the artist terms ‘very direct messaging’ about objects, movements, and other mechanisms of power, particularly with reference to perceptions and misconceptions of Pacific art. Such messaging is applicable as much to Tiatia's own Samoan, New Zealand and Australian identity as to those of anyone in a betwixt state of culture, place, and heritage.
Holding On features Angela Tiatia viewed from above with an incoming tide lapping at the edges of the cement slab upon which she lies. The ravaging of South Pacific nations by the effects of climate change is a strong line of cultural indictment for the artist. Tiatia states;
Holding On is a visual and very personal response to climate change and rising water levels in the Pacific. For me there is a correlation between this image and the emotional, physical and spiritual act of the Pacific holding onto lands and culture in these very challenging times. I filmed this action every evening close to sunset 10 days in a row. It was a very physically demanding work that involved being scraped and pushed around – as I underestimate the strength of the incoming tide.
Angela Tiatia explores contemporary culture through performance, video and photography, drawing out the relationships between representation, gender, neo-colonialism and the commodification of body and place. Often through the lenses of history, popular and material culture, the artist moves deftly in her compositions of still and moving image from pointed detail to satellite view addressing universal themes of postcolonial reclamation, women’s bodies, identity and representation.
Her works produce what the artist terms ‘very direct messaging’ about objects, movements, and other mechanisms of power, particularly with reference to perceptions and misconceptions of Pacific art. Such messaging is applicable as much to Tiatia's own Samoan, New Zealand and Australian identity as to those of anyone in a betwixt state of culture, place, and heritage.
Holding On features Angela Tiatia viewed from above with an incoming tide lapping at the edges of the cement slab upon which she lies. The ravaging of South Pacific nations by the effects of climate change is a strong line of cultural indictment for the artist. Tiatia states;
Holding On is a visual and very personal response to climate change and rising water levels in the Pacific. For me there is a correlation between this image and the emotional, physical and spiritual act of the Pacific holding onto lands and culture in these very challenging times. I filmed this action every evening close to sunset 10 days in a row. It was a very physically demanding work that involved being scraped and pushed around – as I underestimate the strength of the incoming tide.
