In this hands-on workshop, kids will learn how to make their very own Cook Islands dance costume using raffia, allowing them to recognise the importance of caring for Country with natural materials.
Led by emerging artists Morgan Hogg and Benny Akuila, participants will focus on making either a traditional skirt, leg bands or adornments utilising a specific knotting method to create a finished costume that you can possibly end up dancing in!
Please note: This an all ages, drop-in workshop. Booking is recommended but visitors are welcome to participate if allocation is exhausted. Children must be supervised by an accompanying adult.
About the artists:
Morgan Hogg is an emerging artist and creative producer of Cook Islands Māori (Ngāti Tāne), Tahitian and English descent, living and working on unceded Wangal and Dharug Country. Through the perspective of her Kūki Airani heritage, Hogg utilises installation and performance as visual representations of her own exploration of cultural displacement and identity. Making space within her practice to rely on oral exchange between her familial relations and community, Hogg continues the story of her ancestry through maintaining traditional practices within a contemporary lens.
Benjamin Akuila is a multidisciplinary artist of Tongan and Irish descent living and working on Eora and Dharug Country. Akuila’s work explores ideas of cultural authenticity and identity performances within the Tongan-Australian diaspora through the material use of clay. Through investigating societal constructs of history, identity, and gender, Akuila utilises humour and heliaki (allusion) to subvert these preconceived notions. Akuila's work reinterprets traditional Tongan artmaking and applies these practices to contemporary materials to explore new narratives of identity.
Join us for a series of diverse workshops, performances and conversations as part of the 3rd Bankstown Biennale. From December through January, with a closing event on 1 February 2025, there's something for anyone and everyone.
Image: Tūoro, Tūoro, 2024, Raffia, beads, pupu shells and cotton. Supported by the Clithroe Foundation.
