Tui Emma Gillies & Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows's Live Project

Taking some Pacific Love to the USA

Our project is all about sharing our Polynesian culture and our inter-generational tapa art practice with America. We are booked in April to host tapa cloth workshops at the California State University in Los Angeles and at the Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum in Long Beach. We are New Zealand-based Tongan artists and my mother Sulieti Fieme'a Burrows, my daughter Aroha Heilala Gillies and me, Tui Emma Gillies, are set to provide the opening workshop for the Indigenous Open Day at the University. We also look forward to connecting with the Pacific diaspora in Long Beach and sharing with them our traditional techniques and heritage art, while also offering a unique Tongan tapa cloth experience for members of other ethnic communities and the wider American public. The State University is covering our flights, but we still need support to cover materials, accommodation and everything else.

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