Sight Specificity

Looking from afar—from present to past, from exile to homeland, from island back to mainland, mountaintop at lowland—results not in vision’s diffusion but in its sharpening; not in memory’s dispersal but in its plenishment. Robert MacFarlane¹

It may be because I am a hand-on-heart extrovert, but from the first time I read about the Pacific concept of the vā, I envisaged an infinite expanse of bright ether filled with faint, warm chatter. Described by Albert Wendt as ‘not space that separates but space that relates’, the vā can be understood as ‘the space that is context, giving meaning to things. The meanings change as the relationships/the contexts change.’² The spaces that held Stars start falling—first at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and then Te Uru Waitākerebecame an embodiment of the vā for me, collapsing time and erasing distance as these artists spoke across planes to each other.

The three artists doing the speaking are Teuane Tibbo, Ani O’Neill, and Salome Tanuvasa, together spanning six decades and more than a few context changes. In curator Hanahiva Rose’s catalogue essay she introduces the exhibition by saying, ‘ is interested in the wonder, unreliability and persistence of memory’. Reflecting on the show, I would cast the starring roles