Annual Commission 2020

The Auckland Festival of Photography 2020 celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Annual Commission. Each year, an Auckland-based artist is commissioned to create a new body of work for exhibition during the Festival.

The anniversary edition of the Annual Commission in 2020 will feature 3 Auckland-based artists to create new work for this innovative photographic collection, these selected artists are making wonderful images as part of the broad diverse arts scene of New Zealand photography and are all based in Auckland region. Qiane Matata-Sipu (Te Wai-o-hua, Waikato-Tainui) is a South Auckland-based journalist, photographer and social activist.

She has been documenting her papakāinga, Ihumātao for the past twelve years. She was part of the 'Cultural Memory' symposium at the 2014 Festival, was shortlisted in 2015 for that year's Annual Commission plus she was also exhibited by the Festival at Pingyao Photo Festival, China. Her 6 image social documentary series about the campaign to protect land next to the Ōtuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve in Māngere from development as a Special Housing Area (SHA) won her a 2018 NZ Geographic Photographer of the Year Photo Story award.

Saynab Muse As part of the Annual Commission 10th year anniversary Saynab provides a unique perspective to the cultural landscape of photography, with her Muslim heritage, and love of photography and talent at it as a means to express in a hearing world. Saynab graduated with a Bachelor of Creative Enterprise at Unitec. Some of her work has been showcased at the 'Over Under' exhibition curated by Allan McDonald, along with work from 8 other female photographers, some students as well as contemporary NZ and international artists. “My project is about being a feminist and the Muslim religion, detailing my identity that turned into a project to share with others, I want to showcase my perspective of what its about, so others can understand about how my religion informs ideas such as diversity and feminism. It covers the bases of seeking a world where both men and women are capable of building on greater equity.

Including equal access to resources like education, health care, and jobs, fair pay and the individual freedom to make decisions for oneself. I grew up wearing a Hijab (head scarf), and that shows the part of me as a Deaf Muslim women". Raymond Sagapolutele is an Aotearoa-born Sāmoan artist with family ties to the villages of Fatuvalu in Savai'i and Saluafata in Upolu, Samoa. Sagapolutele picked up the camera in 2003 and began a self-taught photography journey that would see him work with editorial publications Back to Basics and Rip It Up as a staff photographer as well as submissions to the NZ Herald and Metro Magazine. Sagapolutele has exhibited images in a range of group and solo exhibitions both locally and internationally.

Sagapolutele honed his style of documentary street photography as one of several photographers in the locally formed and internationally connected graffiti creative collective known as TMD.

Sagapolutele completed his Masters in Visual Arts passing with first-class honours and received the Deans Award for Excellence in Postgraduate study from AUT. Sagapolutele was also showcased in the 2019 Wallace Arts Award and a finalist in the 2019 Glaister Ennor Graduate Art Awards.