Repatriate at Toi o Tāmaki

Toi o Tāmaki is excited to present Repatriate (2015 - ) a live-performance work by internationally renowned Tongan artist Latai Taumoepeau.

Repatriate is a powerful performance that demonstrates the dire impacts of climate change on Pacific nations. Located on the Edmiston Forecourt, Taumoepeau dances in a Perspex glass tank wearing a life jacket and floatation devices around her midriff and arms. Over a period of 60-90 minutes, the tank slowly fills with water. Using the Tongan concept of faiva, Taumoepeau performs an urgent poetic distress call using her body, repurposed props and modest materials. Struggling to maintain the choreography, the artist is eventually submerged. This powerful work demonstrates the impact of climate change for low-lying Pacific Island nations, specifically the threat of forced dispossession and displacement. The performance asks the audience to ponder what happens when an environment can no longer support its people: an entire culture will be submerged by the seas.

Bio
Latai Taumoepeau (b.1972) lives and works in Gadigal Ngurra/Sydney, Australia. In Tongan culture, ‘Punake’ is a term used to describe artists who compose poetry and songs and choreograph them for performance. The word comes from puna (to fly) and hake (on high). Latai Taumoepeau is a contemporary Punake — a body-centred performance artist whose powerful artistic practice tells the stories of her homelands, the Island Kingdom of Tonga, and her birthplace of the Eora Nation, Sydney. Working in durational performance and documenting it through photographs, she addresses issues of race, class and the female body. In her recent practice, Taumoepeau explores the effects of climate change in the Pacific, probing existing power structures and the looming possibility of dispossession that many Pacific Island communities face. Recent projects include The Last Resort in Nirin/Sydney Biennial 2020, Dark Continent in the Asia Pacific Triennial 2019 and the annual artist-led project Refuge which brings together artists, emergency experts, scientists and communities to see how we as a society can prepare for the consequences of disasters and the impacts of climate change.

Special thanks to MFAT for their support of this project.

This event will proceed at Red and Orange with:
1m distancing
Facemasks mandatory
See our website for full terms and conditions of entry