Artist-curator Vasemaca Tavola was mainly raised in the Northern Hemisphere where she spent her childhood celebrating her birthday in the spring. When she moved to Aotearoa aged 16, her birthday season became autumn. On her life-long journey to strengthen her knowledge, connection and relationship with her birthplace Fiji, spring as a season does not exist. Whilst spring in Aotearoa is a time for new growth, warmer weather and relief from the cold, for Tavola, the season remains somewhat elusive, untethered to a concrete sense of time or geography.

Like the maramataka, the iTaukei Indigenous Fijian lunar calendar is based on planting and fishing seasons, but what happens when our feet are no longer in the soil? How can ecological wisdom be retained and transmitted across generations and geographies? If time and seasons can be as multidimensional as the lived experience of Indigenous people who move and migrate all over the globe, what are the ways we can ground ourselves in the natural world?

Tavola’s practice centres Indigenous artists and ideas, multidimensionality of Indigenous experience, dreaming and transformation. For Ahikaea, Tavola offers a visual feast of creative ideas to inspire fresh conversations about creativity, elusive seasonality, embodiment and the Moon.