'Amui 'i Mu'a: Ancient Futures

'Amui 'i Mu'a - Ancient Futures is the significant creative outcome of recent 'hands-on' research by Dagmar Vaikalafi Dyck and Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi in historic collections at museums in Australasia, across Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. Tohi and Dyck are investigator artists attached to a research and art development project titled Ancient Futures: Late 18th and Early 19th Century Tongan Arts and their Legacies, funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund, 1 March 2017-1 March 2021. This outstanding opportunity has afforded insights from the holders of historic Tongan artefacts, and included opportunities to share and exchange with Tongan knowledge holders and artists in Tonga during the project's week-long symposium in Nuku'alofa in 2019. The exhibition at The Wallace Arts Centre, Pah Homestead, weaves together their creative processes and knowledge exchanges, and extends and disperses their experiences in diverse formats. The project personnel also include Dr Phyllis Herda, Dr Melenaite Taumoefolau and Dr Billie Lythberg (all University of Auckland), and Hilary L. Scothorn (Independent Scholar). Working together with further Tongan artists and experts in Tonga and the extensive Tongan diaspora, and academic colleagues in New Zealand, Europe and the United States, the Ancient Futures team has brought together previously disparate research findings, and sought to recover Tongan knowledge inherent in 18th and 19th century artefacts. The research direction has been both historically and futuristically referenced and directed. The team has worked through artefacts of early encounters between European and Tongan islanders, to explore the transformations - both immediate and long-term - that they engendered. It has construed as 'artefacts' not only objects of exchange but also the multilingual discourses, vocabularies and artistic traditions that are their legacies. The research has pivoted on close examination of artefacts and the records made of them, often described in manuscripts and old and obscure publications, to reinstate their genealogies and intrinsic cultural and historical values, and to develop new conceptual frameworks for their consideration. The research project and its extensive collaborations have provided opportunities for Tohi and Dyck to interpret ancient artefacts in contemporary works as creative legacies for the future. They acknowledge the privilege and extraordinary responsibility of this work. 'Amui 'i Mu'a seeks to showcase exceptional new artwork and set a benchmark of community involvement and practice documentation for established Pacific Artists.