The exhibition Oceanic Visions /Moana te kite centres around the Pacific Ocean, the largest body of water covering approximately 63 million square miles and containing more than half of the free water on Earth.

Exploring multiple island perspectives, cosmologies and concerns, through the lens of the region’s wealth of cultural, environmental and geopolitical diversity, the gallery space will host knowledge-sharing, immersive visual experiences and learning activities about the Pacific.

Premiering in London, the film Hyena Lullaby (2020) by Taloi Havini and Michael Toisuta, commissioned by TBA21–Academy, with the support of Institut Kunst HGK FHNW in Basel, explores the underwater phenomenon of coral decline and self-regeneration through spontaneous mass spawnings at night, which the Nakas people call ‘Hyena’.

Havini and Toisuta’s film is presented alongside Digital Ocean, an interactive digital project by the Mana Moana collective led by Rachael Rakena (Ngāi Tahu, Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Pākehā), Mike Bridgman (Tonga, Ngāti Pākeha) and Dr Karlo Mila (Tongan / Pākehā). The Digital Ocean project brings together the work of more than 20 leading Māori and Pacifika artists.

Interisland Collective, a queer-led collective of tagata Moana (Pacifika, Oceanic people) artists, creatives, and activists, will be making whetū (stars) with members of the LGBT+ youth group Mosaic Trust, which will be sewn together to create a Matariki star cluster to be hung in the gallery space. Matariki is the Pleiades star cluster and a celebration of its first rising in late June or early July. The rising marks the beginning of the new year in the Māori lunar calendar.

The works, activations and screening programme form a chorus of Pacific artists, poets, and community leaders expressing land sovereignty, knowledge sharing, and care for the ocean’s well-being.

Alongside the exhibition, we will present a screening programme of historical and contemporary films by Indigenous filmmakers navigating the region’s interconnected knowledge systems and political struggles. More information will be available soon.