Falevai Flava

Overview

Sulieti Fieme'a Burrows and Tui Emma Gillies are a mother and daughter duo who have developed the skill of creating large scale woven bark cloth (tapa) with local artists in their home village of Falevai in Tonga. Creating large scale tapa has not been practised in the village for many years now, which is what inspired the women to return home to reinvigorate the iconic tradition. In collaboration with Tongan artists, Burrows and Gillies spent time producing two large ngatu which they have put on display in Auckland with an accompanying documentary detailing the timeline of the project.

The work has taken an incredible amount of dedication and ingenuity to bring an area of Tongan history to New Zealand audiences. The exhibition will be up for one month during the Auckland Arts Festival so make sure to pop in and check out the monumental work.