Fibre Gallery is the first of its kind in Te Wai Pounamu, a distinctly Moana-focused gallery dedicated to showcasing community-engaged, digital, and heritage artworks by Moana creatives.

Based in the heart of Ōtautahi Christchurch, Fibre Gallery is committed to increasing the visibility of Pacific artists and fostering greater understanding and appreciation of contemporary Pacific art among New Zealanders. By providing resources, opportunities, and a platform to amplify creative voices, we celebrate the richness of Pacific artistry and its role in shaping cultural expression.

Our mission extends to building connections between contemporary Pacific voices and wider social and political conversations, ensuring Pacific creativity plays a vital role in broader narratives.

We proudly acknowledge Ngāi Tūāhuriri iwi as mana whenua of this takiwā and as the rightful custodians of the land on which we stand.

Contact us at: fibregallery@tagatamoana.com

‘Aimata Awards 2026

Call for Entries

Fibre Gallery is proud to present the ‘Aimata’s National Secondary School Pacific Arts Awards 2026, a national celebration of Pacific youth creativity and culture. We invite Pacific secondary school students and recent school leavers aged 15–19 from across Aotearoa to submit their artwork for consideration.

There is no theme and entries are welcome in any visual medium – including film, photography, digital work, painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture.

This year, five outstanding artists will be selected. Their works will be professionally exhibited at Fibre Gallery in Ōtautahi Christchurch, opening on 13 June 2026.
Selected artists will receive flights and accommodation to attend the opening ceremony, with cash prizes awarded to the top three artworks:

1st Prize: $2000
2nd Prize: $1500
3rd Prize: $1000

All works will be judged by a panel of leading Pacific artists and cultural leaders.
Fibre Gallery will cover all costs for shipping selected works to and from the gallery.

Only submit documentation for one work not multiple works or art full portfolios.

The ‘Aimata Awards are dedicated to uplifting emerging Pacific artists and sharing the stories of our communities through art.

Submit your entry below and be part of this celebration of Pacific excellence.

If you need any help with the form or have any questions email Aimataawards@tagatamoana.com

Submissions close March 14th 11:59PM 2026

present

Tapa Moana Nui

13 February - 20 March 2026

Artist Statement

Tapa Moana Nui are an intergenerational collective who whakapapa throughout Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, dedicated to the celebration and continuation of tapa-making. Featuring collaborative works, individual works, tools and raw materials of the practice. Each piece is a testament to the enduring bonds between knowledge, creativity, and community.

Tapa-making is a well-established textile that reinforces collective social structures and reciprocity. The process is culturally significant across the moana, expressing the deep interconnection between Tangata Moana. It carries social and economic value, helping maintain heritage and identity for many in the group who are part of the diaspora. Through shared making and knowledge, tapa combines generations of makers, maintaining cultural retention, histories, whakapapa and communal life. Tapa Moana Nui becomes a living archive - a place where elders and emerging makers share skills, stories, and song, keeping the fibres of cultural memory alive through ancestral and contemporary art.

FUTURE

no place like home | Latamai Katoa & Sione Monū

27 March - 1 May 2026

This collaborative exhibition between Tāmaki Makaurau based artists Latamai Katoa and Sione Tuivailala Monū looks at state housing in Aotearoa as more than shelter, considering how state housing shapes ideas of who belongs, who is deserving, who is watched. For many Pacific families the state house is tied to migration, survival and opportunity but also to stigma.

no place like home asks you to think about home as both protective and exposed. A place of care, culture and gathering, but also a space shaped by rules, surveillance and limited choices. It considers how culture is carried intergenerationally, shaped by both pre and post migration experiences, and maintained through secondhand memory. What is inherited, what is adapted and what is lost or reshaped through displacement all sit within the walls of the home.

Artist bio:

Latamai Katoa lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. They are currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Te Waka Tūhura Elam School of Fine Arts and Design, University of Auckland. Katoa’s practice explores memory, nostalgia, and the architecture of home through installation, moving image, and stage-set–like structures. Drawing on queer and Pasifika experiences, their work interrogates state housing, domestic space, and inherited histories, often using found and fabricated media. Her exhibitions include: Nostalgia Archive, Wheke Fortress, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland (2025–26); HAUMI Ē HUI Ē, Te Waka Tūhura, Elam Galleries — Projectspace and George Fraser Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau (2024); What’s Tonight to Eternity?, George Fraser Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau (2024).

SIONE TUÍVAILALA MONŪ (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist of Tongan descent. Monū was born in Tamaki and grew up across Australia as their father was part of the Australian defence force. Their mother is a Tongan cultural knowledge holder and avid collector of Tongan crafts, adornments and ngatu (bark cloth). As a child, Monū enjoyed experimenting with materials mimicking cultural adornments having watched family in Australia making traditional adornments with non-traditional diasporic materials like beads, Monū developed early their own interpretations of the craft.

Not considering their current practice “traditional”, Monū deems their works modern iterations of their heritage based on their present-day reality. Each work depicts a symbol of self: self in community, self in love, self in relation to family, and self-referential humour. Traditional methods blend diaspora in-jokes and personal omens.

There are callouts to Monū’s queer Pacific creative collectives and friendships and often derided elements of Pacific identity and aesthetic articulating core parts of Monū’s identity. Monu has shown their work nationally and internationally. including National Portrait Gallery Canberra, Artspace Sydney, Artspace Aotearoa, Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, Contemporary Jewelled Art Gallery & Museum Cagnes-sur-Mer France, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Christchurch Art Gallery, Māngere Art Centre, Robert Heald Gallery and Bergman Gallery. Monu has art held in numerous public collections including Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki; Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection, Auckland libraries Archives and various private collections throughout New Zealand and abroad.

Additionally Sione has been featured in publications such as Crafting Aotearoa: A Cultural History of Making in New Zealand and the Wider Moana Oceania 2019, Landfall Journal May 2022, PACIFIC ARTS AOTEAROA 2023, and Sio FakaTonga ‘ae ‘Aati FakaTonga - Tongan Views of Tongan Arts 2025.

past

Manu o le Parataiso | Ana Teofilo

28 November 2025 - 30 January 2026

Artist Statement

Manu o le Parataiso (Birds of Paradise) traces my personal and creative journey through the symbolic footprint of the Pacific Golden Plover. This distinctive form, often mistaken for a frangipani, has become a recurring motif within my work, a visual language that speaks of my family’s journey and as my guiding spirit. The tuli manu (Pacific Golden Plover) is a migratory bird that travels vast distances across the Pacific Ocean, returning home season after season. Its resilience and sense of direction mirror my own path as an artist and as a daughter of Sāmoa, grounded in heritage yet constantly navigating new horizons. Through shades of teal that flow across these works, I honour the ocean that carried my parents from Sāmoa to Aotearoa. This colour embodies both journey and belonging, and the ever-shifting waters that connect islands, people, and generations. Each mark, layer, and carved motif becomes a pathway, tracing the evolution of identity and the stories that shape who I am today. The glue dot textures that appear throughout the works hold deep symbolic meaning. They speak to the threads of connection between ancestors and descendants, between memory and place. They mark milestones, embody the strength of community, and shimmer like when sunlight hits the sea. Manu o le Parataiso is an exploration of movement, migration, and memory, a celebration of the beauty found in our footprints, both seen and unseen. It is a tribute to my parents’ journey, my children’s future, and the spaces in between where stories take flight.

past

Kūkulu Hale Kūlulu Kaiaulu | Tiana Te Rongopatahi Mo’iha

Monday 13th October - Friday 21st November 2025

Tiana is a multifaceted cultural practitioner, educator, musician, artist, creator, actor, and community leader dedicated to preserving and sharing the rich heritage of Hawai‘i, Moananuiākea, and all Indigenous peoples. As founder and CEO of Indi-Genius Minds, she develops innovative educational tools and programmes that reconnect people with nature, culture, and identity. Her work blends Indigenous knowledge and ancestral wisdom with contemporary practice to foster a deep appreciation for Indigenous cultures and values.

This exhibition celebrates Indigenous Kanaka Maoli engineering, architecture, and the strength of community, drawing on ‘ike kupuna (ancestral knowledge) and natural resources gathered across Waitaha, Te Waipounamu, and Moananuiākea. Kūkulu Hale, Kūkulu Kaiaulu shares the creative process and cultural wisdom that guide Tiana's practice, highlighting the role of art in community empowerment.

Rooted in the Indigenous Hawaiian practice of kūkulu hale–the traditional art of house building–this project brings together local Māori, Pasifika, and Ōtautahi communities to co-create a hale (house) that embodies laulima (many hands working together) and aloha ‘āina (love and respect for the land). Each component of the structure carries the collective energy of collaboration and care, transforming architectural practice into a living act of ceremony and cultural continuity.

Through this work, Mo’iha reframes building as an expression of resilience and belonging–where ancestral technologies meet contemporary challenges, and where indigenous knowledge systems continue to shape sustainable and connected futures. Fibre Gallery acknowledges the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies and Creative New Zealand for their support and commitment to Pacific arts in Aotearoa.