Indigenous Science Fiction and Aotearoa Futurism

Explore space, time, and technology in science fiction through indigenous lenses with award-winning author Dr Gina Cole (Black Ice Matter; Na Viro) and writer, critic and producer, Dan Taipua.

About our speakers:
Dr. Gina Cole is an award-winning author of Fijian, Scottish and Welsh descent. Her collection Black Ice Matter won the Hubert Church Prize for Best First Book Fiction in 2017. Her science fiction fantasy novel Na Viro (Huia, 2022) is a work of Pasifikafuturism following sisters wayfinding through sea and space. Awarded the 2023 Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer’s Residency in 2023, she is currently working on the second book in her Turukawa Trilogy.

Dan Taipua (Waikato-Tainui) is a writer and critic working in Tāmaki Makaurau. His interests cross through art history, popular culture and Te Ao Māori with a particular focus on futurism and imagined worlds. In 2015, Dan Taipua and Sophie Wilson produced the documentary Aotearoa Futurism for RNZ Music, interviewing Māori and Pasifika artists whose works explore the boundaries of technology and time. This work has inspired further study of indigenous futurisms by scholars and creators alike and continues to shape Taipua's own critical practice.

This talk is in association with our sci-fi exhibition 'Other Worlds' open from 19 February to 2 August 2025 in the Heritage Gallery, Level 2, Central City Library / Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero.

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