MAKING SPACE: The SaVAge K'lub

The Artists

• Jaimie Waititi
  

  Jaimie Waititi
  Tāmaki Makaurau

  Jaimie Waititi is of Maori (te Whanau a Apanui me Te Rarawa ki Te Ika a Maui) descent with white French-Canadian, Scottish and English heritage. They are a 2 spirited, gender fluid biological female brown body. Through pared back activations they convey their body is political. Growing up in a coastal hapu of the East Coast of the Bay of Pleanty Waititi communicates concerns with the environment, racial and cultural politics, working conditions and the gender and queer spectrum.

  Recently returned from Melbourne, Waititi alongside Rosanna Raymond and Reina Sutton enjoyed a two-week intensive workshop with 5 Kulin natives in preparation for a sold out show at ACCA for AsiaTOPA with Next Wave. Previously Waititi has participated in many SaVAge K’Lub activations from the closing of APT8 at QAGOMA in Brisbane (2016), PAA panel discussion run by Rosanna at the Auckland Museum, as the time keeper (2016), VPMA (2016) to many community events.

• Julian Chote
  

  Julian Chote
  Tāmaki Makaurau

  Julian Chote’s art practice centres on the body, collaboration, gender, energy, making regalia and sound. Conversations around dismantling gender constructs and exploring the truth beyond them is embodied through their activations; creating space through tenderness for representations of self. Navigating forms of ‘femininity’ that are accepted and that are also stigmatised: hairyness and earthyness vs makeup, thinness, clothes, products. Re-shaping, melting immature masculine identity. Embracing the truth that we are spiritual beings, and that the body is an illusion, and that gender is not a binary.

• Numangatini Mackenzie
  

  Numangatini Mackenzie
  Tāmaki Makaurau

  Interdisciplinary artist Numangatini Mackenzie works in graf, tatau and mixed media installation. His practice centres on the exploration of urban space and the processes of building connections to his Pacific heritage and people. His research engages with literature on Oceanic art, museum collections as well as collaborations with living practitioners of art forms ranging from tatau, painting and spoken word to voyaging/navigation and street art. Numa often responds to these experiences and sites of investigation through large public graf installations, performance and printmaking. He is actively involved in cultural heritage projects, performative acti.VA.tions, research and community development in New Zealand, where he is now based, and the Cook Islands.

  Numa was born in Canada where his hunger to understand his culture grew, which prompted him to move the Cook Islands in 2009. His move gave Numa the opportunity to grow family ties and his understanding of cultural arts like tapa, tatau and voyaging.

  In 2011 Numa was honoured to participate in the Pacific Voyagers “Te Mana O Te Moana“ Voyage, sailing throughout the Pacific on Marumaru Atua – the Cook Island double hulled vaka/canoe that accompanied six other canoes from across the Pacific. The mission of the expedition was to use the wisdom of the ancestors, combined with modern science, to propel the Pacific into a more sustainable future. Recognizing the pacific ocean as a living entity in need of protection and to re-awaken the next generation with cultural values through the traditions of voyaging.

  The voyage took him across the pacific to the Solomon Islands to participate in the 11th Festival of Pacific Arts. The experience exponentially grew his Polynesian family, cementing his belief of the unmatched connections between Pacific peoples and allowed him to share his artwork throughout the Pacific.

  This voyage, like many since then, has given Numa the knowledge to stand in the worlds largest Polynesian city with community, has exhibited work in Canada, The Cook Islands New Zealand and Australia.
  He now resides in Auckland New Zealand

• Reina Sutton
  

  Reina Sutton
  Tāmaki Makaurau

  Reina Sutton is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Auckland. Suttons’ practice revolves around sharing personal stories within the context of a culture that she has been denied for most of her life and a cult that she has been drowning in for the majority of her life.

• Reina Sutton
  Reina Sutton
  New Zealand

• Siliga David Setoga
  

  Siliga David Setoga
  Tāmaki Makaurau

  Talofa lava, my name is Siliga David Setoga, I am a New Zealand-born Samoan. I am a Matai Tulafe (Orator of Vailele in Vaimauga) of the collective seats of Saleupolu, guardian of the Falefia o Ali’i, and the supporter of the two staffs (Lefau & Tupuana’i) which speak on behalf of Niniva & Punialava’a (the congregating fields/malae of Vailele & Fagali’i) 

  I am a graphic artist, I graduated from Whitecliffe College of Art and Design with a BFA (majoring in Graphic Design) in 2001 and earned my MFA in 2013 from the same institution. I have been an exhibiting artist since 2003, with my first Solo show at Fresh Gallery Otara in 2008. I aman Art Mentor and Tutor for Tautai’s Fresh Horizons programme, which is an outreach intiative that introduces senior high school students into Tertiary Art School training. It also aims to promote the viability of acareer in the Arts Sector. I have been an Art Tutor in Graphic Design, Sculpture, Interior Design and Screenprinting at Unitec (2010-11),Whitecliffe College of Art and Design (2012-13) and MIT (Faculty of Creative Arts) (2014). I am the co-chair of Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust.

  I am a visual and performance artist, I also work in multi disciplinary forms, sculpture, printmaking and moving image. My wife and I run ascreenprinting business which combines my passions for print making and graphic design. I am a member of the Savage K’lub and I am looking forward to contributing to MAKING SPACE in Ōtautahi.

• jess holly bates
  

  jess holly bates
  Tāmaki Makaurau

  jess holly bates is an interdisciplinary pakeha artist who works with bodies, text and visceral objects to mobilise conversations about critical whiteness and the slippery feminine. Her work unpacks embodied histories, turning over a colonial sensorium to imagine the disruptive knowledges living in our genealogical matter.

Jaimie Waititi
Tāmaki Makaurau

Jaimie Waititi is of Maori (te Whanau a Apanui me Te Rarawa ki Te Ika a Maui) descent with white French-Canadian, Scottish and English heritage. They are a 2 spirited, gender fluid biological female brown body. Through pared back activations they convey their body is political. Growing up in a coastal hapu of the East Coast of the Bay of Pleanty Waititi communicates concerns with the environment, racial and cultural politics, working conditions and the gender and queer spectrum.

Recently returned from Melbourne, Waititi alongside Rosanna Raymond and Reina Sutton enjoyed a two-week intensive workshop with 5 Kulin natives in preparation for a sold out show at ACCA for AsiaTOPA with Next Wave. Previously Waititi has participated in many SaVAge K’Lub activations from the closing of APT8 at QAGOMA in Brisbane (2016), PAA panel discussion run by Rosanna at the Auckland Museum, as the time keeper (2016), VPMA (2016) to many community events.

View artwork

Julian Chote
Tāmaki Makaurau

Julian Chote’s art practice centres on the body, collaboration, gender, energy, making regalia and sound. Conversations around dismantling gender constructs and exploring the truth beyond them is embodied through their activations; creating space through tenderness for representations of self. Navigating forms of ‘femininity’ that are accepted and that are also stigmatised: hairyness and earthyness vs makeup, thinness, clothes, products. Re-shaping, melting immature masculine identity. Embracing the truth that we are spiritual beings, and that the body is an illusion, and that gender is not a binary.

View artwork

Numangatini Mackenzie
Tāmaki Makaurau

Interdisciplinary artist Numangatini Mackenzie works in graf, tatau and mixed media installation. His practice centres on the exploration of urban space and the processes of building connections to his Pacific heritage and people. His research engages with literature on Oceanic art, museum collections as well as collaborations with living practitioners of art forms ranging from tatau, painting and spoken word to voyaging/navigation and street art. Numa often responds to these experiences and sites of investigation through large public graf installations, performance and printmaking. He is actively involved in cultural heritage projects, performative acti.VA.tions, research and community development in New Zealand, where he is now based, and the Cook Islands.

Numa was born in Canada where his hunger to understand his culture grew, which prompted him to move the Cook Islands in 2009. His move gave Numa the opportunity to grow family ties and his understanding of cultural arts like tapa, tatau and voyaging.

In 2011 Numa was honoured to participate in the Pacific Voyagers “Te Mana O Te Moana“ Voyage, sailing throughout the Pacific on Marumaru Atua – the Cook Island double hulled vaka/canoe that accompanied six other canoes from across the Pacific. The mission of the expedition was to use the wisdom of the ancestors, combined with modern science, to propel the Pacific into a more sustainable future. Recognizing the pacific ocean as a living entity in need of protection and to re-awaken the next generation with cultural values through the traditions of voyaging.

The voyage took him across the pacific to the Solomon Islands to participate in the 11th Festival of Pacific Arts. The experience exponentially grew his Polynesian family, cementing his belief of the unmatched connections between Pacific peoples and allowed him to share his artwork throughout the Pacific.

This voyage, like many since then, has given Numa the knowledge to stand in the worlds largest Polynesian city with community, has exhibited work in Canada, The Cook Islands New Zealand and Australia.
He now resides in Auckland New Zealand

View artwork

Reina Sutton
Tāmaki Makaurau

Reina Sutton is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Auckland. Suttons’ practice revolves around sharing personal stories within the context of a culture that she has been denied for most of her life and a cult that she has been drowning in for the majority of her life.

Reina Sutton
New Zealand

View artwork

Siliga David Setoga
Tāmaki Makaurau

Talofa lava, my name is Siliga David Setoga, I am a New Zealand-born Samoan. I am a Matai Tulafe (Orator of Vailele in Vaimauga) of the collective seats of Saleupolu, guardian of the Falefia o Ali’i, and the supporter of the two staffs (Lefau & Tupuana’i) which speak on behalf of Niniva & Punialava’a (the congregating fields/malae of Vailele & Fagali’i) 

I am a graphic artist, I graduated from Whitecliffe College of Art and Design with a BFA (majoring in Graphic Design) in 2001 and earned my MFA in 2013 from the same institution. I have been an exhibiting artist since 2003, with my first Solo show at Fresh Gallery Otara in 2008. I aman Art Mentor and Tutor for Tautai’s Fresh Horizons programme, which is an outreach intiative that introduces senior high school students into Tertiary Art School training. It also aims to promote the viability of acareer in the Arts Sector. I have been an Art Tutor in Graphic Design, Sculpture, Interior Design and Screenprinting at Unitec (2010-11),Whitecliffe College of Art and Design (2012-13) and MIT (Faculty of Creative Arts) (2014). I am the co-chair of Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust.

I am a visual and performance artist, I also work in multi disciplinary forms, sculpture, printmaking and moving image. My wife and I run ascreenprinting business which combines my passions for print making and graphic design. I am a member of the Savage K’lub and I am looking forward to contributing to MAKING SPACE in Ōtautahi.

View artwork

jess holly bates
Tāmaki Makaurau

jess holly bates is an interdisciplinary pakeha artist who works with bodies, text and visceral objects to mobilise conversations about critical whiteness and the slippery feminine. Her work unpacks embodied histories, turning over a colonial sensorium to imagine the disruptive knowledges living in our genealogical matter.

View artwork