‘Animal, Vegetable, Mineral’
Gow Langsford Gallery 2025
As an artist negotiating the intersection of Faka-Tonga and Faka-Pālangi worldviews, Work explores what he calls Tu’u Vaha’a, the in-between, liminal space that informs his creative process, material choices, and cultural narratives, both spiritual and physical. His research traces historical and contemporary adaptations of uncustomary materials such as copper and aluminium in art and daily life, drawing parallels between Western modernist sculpture and Moanan forms and spatial sensibilities. His sculptural practice reflects on personal experiences of gathering and repurposing of materials within diasporic Tongan families, echoing ancestral adaption at the time of early European contact. This resourcefulness, deeply embedded in Tongan material culture, becomes a central theme. Through various iterations, he examines the significance of floor-based artworks that engage with vā in ways that honour Moanan values of humility, spatial awareness, and connection to fonua(land).
By positioning Tu’u Vaha’a as a site of potential, akin to Niu‘aunofo, the ancient spiritual and physical threshold to the afterlife, reached by following Hala ki Pulotu - his work gestures toward a space of convergence where encounters, exchanges of materials, and spiritual beliefs once met and continue to evolve.
Curated by Rosaleen Turley
Photo credit: Cindy Leong