A major projection work by Samoan-Australian artist Angela Tiatia is making its Vivid Sydney 2026 debut this weekend.
Vaiola, which draws on Pacific visual language, water, memory and movement to explore themes of migration, longing, belonging and cultural connection, is transforming the facade of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia at Circular Quay nightly from 6pm to 11pm until June 13.
For the past 20 years Tiatia has explored global power structures and their impact on Pasifika communities, working across performance, moving image, painting, sculpture and photography.
Her work examines representation, gender, neo-colonialism and the commodification of body and place, often through the lenses of history, popular culture and material culture.
Vaiola continues her interest in who gets to occupy public space and how Pacific bodies, histories and experiences are seen.
Tiatia, who has lived in Newcastle since 2022, answered Weekender's questions about her latest work.
What is your connection to Newcastle?
"My husband was born and raised in Stockton, Newcastle. We spent a good two decades regularly visiting Newcastle and we finally decided to base ourselves there in 2022. Newcastle is a very special place. I love being so close to nature and community. It is so down to earth, calm and caring here. I love it."
Is Vaiola informed by works you have created to date?
"Vaiola is created from two previous works, The Pearl and The Dark Current, which are the first two works from a trilogy (the third and final work is called Render). Because they feed into each other visually and thematically, they can be joined into one cohesive work. With Vaiola, the work is showing at Sydney Harbour. My works feature water as a symbolic or transitional tool that can join different timelines, themes and visuals together. For a title, it was important to speak to the importance of what water means to me personally. Vaiola means 'the water of life'. The poetics of water can carry so much meaning, for example, it can be both the creator and destroyer of life. Vaiola is also an important place historically within my family. I heard it so many times growing up. It felt very fitting to use this as a title. To answer your question, yes, it is informed by everything I have created to date. Each new work builds on research and experience from previous years, as a way to continue learning and growing."
How have you used your art to shine a light on Pasifika experiences?
"There are so many Pasifika activists and artists working in the global space. COP (The Conference of the Parties) is the annual UN summit where about 198 countries meet to negotiate global climate action, for example. I have used my art as a platform to highlight climate change in the Pacific because it is affecting communities now. My own home/village in Samoa has been affected. What was a lush, bountiful backyard is now barren due to salination of the land. Previous works such as The Pearl, The Dark Current, Holding On and Narcissus speak directly to this issue. Narcissus, for example, features a large body of water, of people falling in (and not re-emerging), while others gaze at their reflections, which is a work that symbolically reflects back at us and speaks to our global culture of being self-consumed/self-occupied while not paying attention to those 'drowning'. It's an issue that is and will impact all of us."
The Dark Current won the Fisher's Ghost Award and has toured internationally. Why do you think it struck a chord? Was it a turning point in your career?
"The Fall and Narcissus were the turning points in my career, they signalled a shift in scale in both themes and teams. Previously, I worked on a small scale, often with just me and the camera. These two works required a huge jump in scale, for example, Narcissus ended up with a team of over 80 very talented members. Perhaps what strikes a chord is that I use beauty as a tool to pull people into the work, while simultaneously punch out with politics. It's completely up to the audience with how deep they want to go with my works, whether they view it at a surface level, or learn more about what the deeper meanings could be."
