Emily receives the Springboard Award for Visual Arts funded by the Edgar family.

Emily Parr (Ngāi Te Rangi, Moana, Pākehā) is an artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her moving-image practice stitches through time/ space, exploring systems of relation emerging from Te Moananui-a-Kiwa.

Emily’s recent body of work on settler-indigenous relationships traverses oceans and centuries, seeking stories in archives and waters on haerenga to her ancestral homelands of Tauranga Moana, Sāmoa and Tonga. Her current research considers the responsibilities she has inherited through her ancestral legacies and, in particular, to her family’s collection held by museums. Emily is a doctoral candidate and part of the Vā Moana research cluster at AUT.

Emily will be mentored by 2020 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate Tanu Gago MNZM of FAFSWAG Collective.

Tanu Gago (MNZM) is an award winning interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker. Gago was awarded a Queens Order of Merit for services to Pacific arts and the LGBTQIA+ community in 2019. He is also the 2020 Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika recipient of the Contemporary Pacific Artist Award. The same year Gago became an NZ Arts Laureate through his work as a co-founder of the critically acclaimed, Queer Indigenous arts collective – FAFSWAG. In 2023, after a decade of service, Gago was awarded the Trailblazer Award and deemed Legendary Godfather of Aotearoa Ballroom by the newly formed Aotearoa Ballroom Council.

Born in Samoa and raised in South Auckland Gago’s story is an immigrant story. Working predominantly in arts activism, curation, and mentoring, he is currently producing for FAFSWAG’s international presentation at Manchester International Festival 2025 – MIF25. Interested in world building and storytelling from a Pacific world view, Gago’s work explores themes of identity, migration and Indigenous masculinities, operating across multimedia film, animation, and augmented reality. He is currently an artist in development with Piki films, writing and directing his first short film in 2024, with support from the New Zealand Film Commission.