In 1995, at the age of 23, Dagmar Vaikalafi Dyck, a first-generation New Zealand-born child of Tongan and German parents, graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, the first woman of Tongan descent to do so. Her father was born in Danzig-Langfuhr, Germany (today Gdansk, Poland), and her mother in ‘Utungake, in the northern island group of Vava‘u, Tonga, with ancestry reaching back to Pyritz, Pomerania. Dagmar's upbringing wove together Tongan and German customs, with regular visits to both ski fields in the middle of the North Island and the white-sand beaches of Vavaʻu. Aged ten, she spent a year in Vava‘u with her family, returning nearly every summer after that for 20 years. When Dagmar introduces herself at speaking engagements, she shows photographs of her parents and forebears, Auckland's iconic Orange Ballroom where her parents first met, and the insignia of the wider Wolfgramm family, well-known in Tonga, to which she belongs. She proudly bears the middle name of her Tongan grandmother, Vaikalafi. When she says ‘art is in my blood’, she recalls her great-grandfather Vili, a boat builder, and great-grandmother, Ofa ki Vavaʻu Tuʻanuku, who listed her occupation on their marriage certificate as ‘tutu’, one who beats tapa. An art teacher for ten years, now working for UniServices—The University of Auckland, she has an appreciation for ‘elder pedagogy’ honed by her lifelong relationship with mentor Fatu Feuʻu and, more recently, Marilyn Kolhase and a commitment to transforming arts education in Aotearoa.
Although we planned to talanoa at her home studio, family commitments rearranged our schedules, and we ended up meeting online. Born in the same year, we both grew up on Auckland's North Shore and share a fine web of social and collegial connections spanning more than 30 years and, more recently, research trips to museum collections in the UK, Europe and throughout Aotearoa for Ancient Futures: late 18th and early 19th century Tongan arts and their legacies, supported by a Marsden grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand. Our conversation began with acknowledging the online space as a new place of connection, immediately eliciting what Dagmar describes as ‘real talk’ and ‘heart talk’.
Billie Lythberg: We know the importance of being face-to-face, but there are online places and spaces now that we can feel comfortable in, and even talanoa in …
Dagmar Vaikalafi Dyck: This may
