Angela Tiatia

The Dark Current (2023) is Aotearoa New Zealand’s debut presentation of this major moving image installation by Angela Tiatia (Aotearoa, Australia, Sāmoa). Made over three years, The Dark Current is an ambitious production that weaves together Tiatia’s matrilineal heritage, Sāmoan culture, and Pacific myth-making to chart a new path forward.

The Dark Current is composed as a three-part narrative, a visual poem that layers together past, present and future. Its opening sequence introduces a glamorous young Sāmoan woman, cast as a reflection of Tiatia’s mother who migrated from Sāmoa to Aotearoa in the 1960s. As dark water gradually inundates her immaculate vintage attire, a sense of threat or discomfort builds, destabilising this image of beauty. These scenes then make way for views of sacred sites in the Pacific, landscapes shaped by cultural practice and deep understandings, many of which are now threatened by a rising ocean. For Tiatia, the first passage of The Dark Current operates as an allegory of the promise that attracted her mother’s generation from their home islands to places like Aotearoa and Australia – a story of hope and opportunity, yet also distance and separation.

As The Dark Current progresses, Tiatia begins to unravel and complicate this idealised version of Pacific femininity. At the outset, a single pearl sits in the tear duct of the protagonist – a perfect, beautiful irritation. In the second section of the work an ambitious choreographed performance builds rhythm, scale and momentum, then breaking the ‘forth wall’ to capture the dancers and crew on set post-performance. Exploiting this slippage between fiction and reality, this disruption highlights the artifice of performance in contrast to the realities of lived experience. It is an interruption that creates a way to consider the instability of the constructed image, both in relation to an exoticized view of the Pacific as well as our contemporary context within a digital world.

The final passage of The Dark Current is situated in a hyper-real world, which has been created using 3-D gaming software. This is a landscape dominated by re-imaginings of colonial fountains, constructed out of the detritus of the extractive industries and labour practices that reshaped the Pacific in the wake of colonisation. Tiatia populates this landscape with a cast of performers who dominate and reclaim this futuristic world, which she describes as a ‘a space of cultural self-actualisation and celebration.’  In this, The Dark Current presents an empowered view of the journey ahead, wherever it may lead.

Angela Tiatia (Aotearoa, Australia, Sāmoa) is a contemporary artist who lives and works from Sydney, Australia. Her work explores contemporary culture, drawing out the relationships between representation, gender, neo-colonialism and the commodification of body and place. Tiatia was the recipient of the 2022 Ian Potter Moving Image Commission, Australian’s most significant commissioning award for contemporary moving image art. The Dark Current was the result of this major award, and debuted at ACMI, the Australian Centre for Moving Image, in 2023.  Tiatia’s work has been exhibited throughout the world, and she is represented in collections including Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

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Ko The Dark Current (2023) te kōkuhuka whakaaturaka ki Aotearoa o tēnei whakatūraka neke ata whakahirahira nā Angela Tiatia (nō Aotearoa, nō Te Pāpaka-a-Māui, nō Hāmoa). He toru tau te roa o te waihaka, ā, he hao nui te whakaaturaka nei a The Dark Current ka tuia tahitia kā kāwai o te takiaho whāwhārua o tōhona kāwai Hāmoa, me kā kōrero ō mua o Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa kia takina he ara hou ki mua.

Ko titoa a The Dark Current hai kōrero paki wāhaka e toru, he toikupu ā-whatu ka whakapaparia tahitia te onamata, te inamata me te anamata. I te tīmataka, ka tūtakina atu ki tētahi taitamawahine ātaahua nō Hāmoa, ka noho mai hai whakaaata o te hākui o Tiatia i heke mai ia i Hāmoa ki Aotearoa i te kahuru tau 1960. Ā, koi āta pariparia ai tōhona kahu ōkawa horomata e te wai wheuri, ka roko te wairua whakatuma, te whakapikika o te pāihi rānei, ā, ka takahuiraki haere tēnei whakaahua rerehua nei. Kātahi ka whakataha atu ēnei kaupeka kia ū mai ai kā wāhi tapu o Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, he horanuku ko ahuahutia e te tikaka me te mōhio nō tuawhakarere, he āhuataka mōkinokino nō te pikika o te kārewa moana. Ki a Tiatia, ka noho te wāhaka tuatahi o The Dark Current hai whakatauka kōrero o kā wawata i whakapoapoatia ai te reaka o tōhona hākui i ō rātou moutere taurikura ki kā whenua pēnei i a Aotearoa, i a Te Pāpaka-a-Māui anō hoki – He tūmanako nui, he haereka whai akitu, ā, he tawhiti anō hoki, he māwehe tou te noho anō hoki. 

Koi nuku whakamua ai a The Dark Current, ka tīmata a Tiatia ki te wetewete, ki te whakamatatini hoki i te whakaaro whakakura o kā wāhine o Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. I te tīmataka tou, ā, e noho mokemoke ana tētahi peara ki te pūwaikamo o te kiritoa – he kōrakaraka rerehua. I te wāhaka tuarua o te mahi ka whakaputaina tētahi whakaaturaka nekehaka ko titoa, ā, ka whai manawataki, ka whai aka, ka whai torohaki anō hoki, kātahi ka whakaputa atu i te “ahu-whā” kia whakakiriatahia kā kaikanikani me kā kaiwhakakiriata ki taua wāhi tou ā muri atu i te whakaaturaka. Mā te kohura o te whakawhitika atu ki waeka i te kōrero paki me te ao tūturu, ka tauwhatihia, ā, ka whakaarihia te whakatauaro o te mahi nanakia o te whakaaturaka me te noho tūturu o te takata ki tōhona anō ao. He whakapōrearea e takatū ara ana kia whakaarohia te āhua pāhekeheke ko waihakahia, tērā e hākai ana ki te tirohaka whakakura o Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, ā, tērā anō hoki, te horopaki o nāianei ki te ao matihiko.

Ka tū te wāhaka mutuka o The Dark Current ki tētahi ao tūturu-itua, he ao ko waihaka i te pūmanawa kēmu ahu-toru. He horanuku tēnei ko whakatuanuihia e kā whakaaro hou mō kā puna torotī taipūwhenua, ko waihakahia ki te toeka whakapopo o te ahukeriwhenua, e kā tikaka mahi hoki o te takata i whakahouhia ai a Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa i te au kororiporipo o te tāmitaka. Ka whakanohoia tēnei horanuku e Tiatia ki tētahi tira kaiwhakaaturaka ka whakatuanui, ka whakakokoraho i tēnei ao o te āpōpō, ka whakaahuaria e ia taua wāhi rā hai ‘wāhi nō tōhou ake ahurea ka whai, ka whakanui hoki, i tōhou anō tuakiri’. I tēnei nei, ka whakatakotoria e The Dark Current tētahi tirohaka whai mana o te ara whakamua, ahakoa e aru atu ana ki hea.

He rika toi nō nāianei  a Angela Tiatia (nō Aotearoa, nō Te Pāpaka-a-Māui, nō Hāmoa) ka noho, ka mahi ki Poi Hākena, Te Pāpaka-a-Māui. Ka whakatōmenetia e tāhana mahi te ahurea o nāianei, ka tōtō mai kā hereka i waeka i te whakakanohitaka, te ira, te tāmitaka hou me te whakaōhaka o te tinana, o te wāhi anō hoki. I whakawhiwhia a Tiatia ki te tohu Ian Potter Moving Image Commission 2022, te tohu tono nui whakaharahara o te toi neke ata o nāianei o Te Pāpaka-a-Māui. He hua a The Dark Current o tēnei tohu matua, ā, i kōkuhutia ki te Pokapū Neke Ata o Te Pāpaka-a-Māui (ACMI, the Australian Centre for Moving Image) i te tau 2023. Puta noa i te ao ka whakaaturaka o ā Tiatia mahi, ko whai wāhi hoki ia ki kā kohika toi tae noa ki Te Papa Tongarewa, Te Whare Toi o Niu Haute Wēra, Te Whare Toi o Nāianei, Poi Hākena, Te Ahurewa a-Motu o Wikitōria, Piripane me te Te Whare Toi o Kuinirani | Te Ahurewa o te Toi o Nāianei, Piripane.

Commissioned by The Ian Potter Cultural Trust under the Ian Potter Moving Image Commission for exhibition by ACMI.  Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan + Strumpf, Australia.