OVERJOYED, OVERWHELMED, AND RECOGNISING THE OVER-COLONISED: FESTPAC 2024!
“Our Language and Cultural Identities are not negotiable," Aeau Chris Hazelman, CEO of Samoa Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture
Weaving our Moana stories into taonga
All the extraordinary people of the Moana weaving an ocean of indigenous knowledge and creativity in one place at one time. What’s not to love and learn?
The magnificence of our vaka, visual arts, dance, tatau, tokstory, and some of the most precious taonga are showcased in two of the most special weeks of the decade for Moana people.
There were lots of slogans under the FestPAC banner of ‘bringing the best of the Pacific together’ but amidst the many extraordinary sights and sounds - it’s the stories of our shared knowledge and the vital talanoa that connect us in this time.
“Celebrating commonalities in all areas of arts, culture and language and the best of our beautiful people on show. Tā tatau, mahi whaikairo, poetry and waiata. Mahi alofa. Discussions on Protecting Oceania, Niu Ola, and the absence of Kanaky people and continued genocide in West Papua. This has been a feast for the eyes, mind and soul” - Falefatu Enari
“We are focused on preventing harm to our peoples, cultures, lands and waters in connection with each and our ancestors. Many scholars, artists, activists, students and community members from across the whole Pacific gathered for this” - Katerina Teaiwa
In these connections - elaborately feathered Rapa Nui dancers film painted drummers from Papua New Guinea going past them on the escalators, young Kiribati girls are doing TikToks with the Tongans, and Cook Islands and Tahitians have a mutual dance off by the sea.
This is where weavers from Yap in Micronesia may see weaving from Tokelau for the first time as expert master craftspeople share their particular techniques. Talanoa and tokstory reach across all 3 regions of Oceania and new communities of tatau and taonga makers are made.
“Pretty much almost all the material, is in danger, the weaving material, the feather work, you name it. So I think reviving the artwork and having people realize that, you know, these are a valuable things that people want hopefully will help raise a bigger issue, which is that how well is our island alive? Because its the island is what gives us the things that make the art, not art first, island after island first” - Hawaiian weaver Christian Kealohapau’ole Ahokunuiakea O Kalaninuimehameha Phillips.
Under the veil of the Kanaka Maoli struggles in Hawai'i - there are also festival frustrations about new environments and resources.
These have included a private vaka ceremony with a heavily militarised presence, instead of the open events of the past to welcome in these taonga of the Moana.
The festival village has gone from the organic green of the open air fale malae of past to a giant concrete indoor stadium with a dramatically dark interior and a whopping 40% surcharge tax for craft makers selling their wares.
According to stallholders from small Island nations this has put their taonga in an astronomical price range that locks out other indigenous Islanders buying or exchanging - as the pressure is now on to sell to a commercial tourist market prices.
‘My rant yesterday about 35% has now gone up to 45%.. spoke to one of the carvers who said the mana of this festival has been tainted by this.” says one Niuean craftsperson on social media.
“It was sad to attend such an occasion and have no Alii of Hawaii sitting in the position appropriately afforded to Kanaka Maoli. Having a Governor of a colonising power sitting over us and accepting all our taonga was a struggle to witness”
The shift to this different type of festival format has also come with an ease of facilities, expert performance staging and an awesome multi camera live feed for performance events that has been fed around the Pacific - meaning lots of eyes on events like the Vaka arrival despite that lack of physical access.
This free live feed to the world has been the life saver of the festival with its multiple venues capturing every amazing event happening at the same time as per every festival schedule.
Most significant to many Island participants is probably the highlight on shared regional issues that underlie FestPAC.
Climate Change and the individual Island nations' colonial struggles are hard hitting impacts being addressed; with our Kanaky aiga at the forefront, our West Papua whanau not invited, and the ongoing issues faced by American settler colonies, exemplified by those in the host country Hawai'i.
“FestPAC has been bittersweet. In many ways its felt like a family reunion but one that is incomplete. The absence of delegations of our brothers and sisters from Kanaky, West Papua and Vanuatu was felt. There was heaviness in rooms that were open on talanoas about climate change, indigenous rights, ocean guardianship and so much more.
There was great mourning for the life lost in the fires in Lahaina in Maui and the struggles of Kanaka Maoli on this island we are guests on. Conversations and celebration of culture also have to happen beyond conference rooms” Brianna Fruean, Pacific Climate Change Warrior.
Offsite, local West Papuan solidarity groups had their own gathering and in one of the most poignant festival statements, a lone Fijian artist held space in the empty New Caledonia fale for the missing Kanak community unable to get out of Noumea, and through the week so many artists and performance groups have joined in this vigil making it one of the most mafana fales of the festival village.
The visits in the Hale Caledonia witnessing Maoli from Aoteroa play their Taonga puoro and paint on canvas or the Tongan delegates paying homage through song, Fiji delegates constantly having Kava talanoa and prayers for our cousins is something māfana.
Pointing to our current regional cirsis points have always been inevitable and important talanoa at this festival and its unique opportunity to highlight our issues to the world amidst the singing and dancing.
In amongst the brightly coloured costuming for the closing ceremony, banners flew high for Kanaky and West Papua during the US Governer’s speech, despite attempts by security to have them removed.
Moana sovereignty, sanctuary, tradition versus tourism, and the ways our art forms and the resources to make them are becoming endemic are top of the laulau in the emotional and often spikey talanoa of this important time.
In the Aotearoa delegation, master carver Rangi Kipa and artists Ngahina Hohaia and Siam Montgomery-Neutze laid down a visual wero with their ‘Permit Declined’ photos, red tape holding up the images of their taonga made from parts of dead whales - not allowed into Hawaii customs.
“We are practitioners in using ancestral materials and we went through the process to try and bring our taonga over here - which is made of whale bone, whale teeth and baleen but they declined us, so we made photographs of the work instead and made these permits up and put red tape all over the images” - Rangi Kipa
Indigenous Knowledge Holders offer their ipu of collective wisdom as Moana academics and policy makers strategise and try to utilise collective strengths in the multiple talanoa panels and plenary sessions.
“I was in the Protecting Oceania summit on Pacific philosophies, justice and safeguarding lands, peoples and waterways of Oceania in solidarity with each other and others across the world. Our themes involved health and wellbeing, climate and environment, kastom economy, gender based violence, education and language along with cross-cutting issues of self-determination, militarisation, extraction and decolonisation” - Katerina Teaiwa
We have waited 8 years for this extraordinary festival for Moana people - the value of this shared knowledge is unmeasurable on every level, and for young generations of Pacific people this is the goldmine of information and taonga that should feed our knowledge systems for the next four years until FestPAC 14.
How awesome is our extraordinary Moana and how lucky are we to connect some of the most special creative arts on the planet?
“Amazing, breathtaking, all encompassing are all words that sit comfortably with The 13th FestPAC 2024. Thought provoking also sits well. As Pacific bodies flood Alamoana and Waikiki the largest population of Hawaiian peoples carry on life unaware of anything going on so far away from their beautiful yet barren Wai’anae…Creating beautiful powerful questions to go away and ask myself of my standing in the world and what weight I might carry. Right here next door to Honolulu is Wai’anae policies out of prosperity locking in the destiny of those of Hawaiian decent. To the delegates we can only say ua tepa ai nei i 'ula, ua taga'i i 'ula, malo le sa’asa’a.” - Falefatu Enari
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Cover Image by Arran Rogers
Additional Photos by Manny Crisotomo
- Written by Arts & Culture Journalist Destiny Momoiseā
made with the help of Creative New Zealand