An Exploration of Tautua through Art Practice
This thesis investigates the Sāmoan practice of fa’ailoga, which means to mark or to speak through practice-led methods of printmaking and installation. I center the term tautua (service) and use it as a methodological framework where I apply the metaphorical sense of tautua in my creative process. My research seeks a personal interpretation of tautua that is expressed primarily in screen-printing and photographic techniques. Through tautua, I am interested in how mafaufauga (Indigenous thinking) transfers to how I respond to my built surroundings, which is then applied to fa’atino (the action of creating). I use the method of fa’alogo (observation) as a form of tautua in photo-essays of significant places in my urban village of Ōtara in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland and my father’s village in Tokomololo, Tonga, as a way of sustaining community connection. The act of screen- printing over a long duration and installing long prints on calico in a gallery space are expressions of tautua; where a contemporary artform is connected to the labour of making Sāmoan Siapo and Tongan Ngatu and the physical endurance of receiving a tatau (Sāmoan tattoo).
