Latai Taumoepeau, Elisapeta Hinemoa Heta: Re-Stor(y)ing Oceania
Ocean Space, Venice, 2024

TBA21–Academy presents Re-Stor(y)ing Oceania, a new exhibition comprising two new site-specific commissions by Indigenous practitioners from the Pacific, Latai Taumoepeau and Elisapeta Hinemoa Heta. The exhibition is curated by Bougainville-born artist Taloi Havini, returning to Ocean Space after her 2021 solo exhibition. 

For these new commissions, Taloi Havini, guided by an ancestral call and response method, invited the artist Latai Taumoepeau, who responded with the work Deep Communion sung in minor (ArchipelaGO, THIS IS NOT A DRILL), and Wāhine architect Elisapeta Hinemoa Heta who proposed The Body of Wainuiātea.

Deep Communion sung in minor (ArchipelaGO, THIS IS NOT A DRILL) by Latai Taumoepeau is an immersive 16 channel sound installation, that invites the public to engage in a durational performance – bringing global awareness to the dangers of deep-sea mining in the Pacific. The Body of Wainuiātea by Elisapeta Hinemoa Heta presents a new installation embodying ritual and ceremony guided by the Māori concepts of kawa and tikanga from her ancestral lands of Aotearoa New Zealand.