Dr Frances C Koya Vaka'uta – AAPS Masterclass
Sunday 24th March: 10.00 – 12.00
Seminar Room Level 2, GOMA
This is a free event hosted by QAGOMA and the AAPS. Please register with mandy.treagus@adelaide.edu.au
Frances C. Koya Vaka'uta, Frances as she is commonly known, is Director of the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Law & Education at the University of the South Pacific in Suva. A teacher by profession, she has worked in the areas of teacher education, curriculum development, education for sustainable development, education for Small Island Developing States and culture and education at USP since 1998. Frances is passionate about Pacific art, heritage and Indigenous knowledge systems and has worked on policy writing and community development as well as Indigenous research approaches, Pacific research ethics and cultural competency. A member of the Pacific Regional Culture Strategy and Pacific Culture and Education writing group, she has more recently worked on the Fiji Culture Policy and Fiji Culture and Education Strategy and is working towards a Pacific Island Research Framework and Ethical Guidelines and a Pacific Cultural Competency Framework with Professor Konai Helu Thaman. An artist and poet working under the pseudonym 1angrynative, her work explores Pacific island heritage and contemporary issues in the islands
Dr Frances C Koya Vaka'uta – Lecture
Sunday 24th March: 15.30 – 16.45
Oceania
Dreaming: Reflections on Epeli Hau'ofa’s Legacy at The University of the
South Pacific
This presentation provides some historical context to the energy and spirit that the late Professor Epeli Hau'ofa breathed into the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture at The University of the South Pacific as well as the re- imagining of the space and its new vision and direction. Prompted by a mission to meet the development needs of USP’s member countries, the Centre aims for a specialized brand of Pacific Island studies informed by Indigenous knowledge systems, the arts and heritage studies alongside mainstream ideas about Pacific Studies. #TeamOceania imagines a space that fosters creativity, safeguards heritage and contributes to knowledge societies in Oceania. The Centre honours the memory of the father of contemporary Pacific arts and Big Ocean thinking by reimagining this space and continuing to 'create and establish standards of excellence which match those of our ancestors.'[1]. After all, 'our fathers bent the winds.'[2]
[1] E. Hau'ofa, “Opening Address at the James Harvey Gallery”, Sydney, 27th September 2000
[2] E. Hau'ofa, We are the Ocean, University of Hawai'i Press, 2008 p.106